An Unexpected Reunion at a Local Health Food Store

I had the fortune to reconnect with someone from my area because he had opened a health food store in the middle of diabetes central. How this area has needed an alternative. How I wished for the money to open one myself. But that was not in the stars. Instead, I waited and one finally opened.

Falling Into the “Us vs. Them” Political Trap

Not the point. The point is, that it was someone I had lost touch with through the political landscape as we landed on opposing sides. How can that be? Here we stand wanting exactly the same thing…healthy options for our neighbors. A sense of a better life. A sense that you can make a difference. in your own life and the lives of others.

I forgot about the person behind his politics. And he forgot about mine. We knew each other once under a different umbrella. He came and laughed at my local comedy shows, as I made fun of the mannequins he had on the roof of his house. Yes. All true. Quite the character. We had familiarity. We had an inside joke. He was in my stand up routine and thereby went on the road with me in spirit. We were neighbors and neighborly in our region.

And then the designed “divide” was employed and worked like gangbusters, pitting once kind eyes towards each other into “us and thems.” And then even deeper into altering grammatical rules that I am still trying to adapt to but can’t. Like nails down a chalkboard to use improper grammar, but I will gladly call you as you wish as I have no dog in your fight. The point is…things got really f*cked up. And I was a part of the divide. Not proud of that. I couldn’t even see it until this reconnection from one week ago.

But I did. I saw the error in my ways. I saw how I was manipulated into thinking my neighbor was a bad guy for what he believed and where we differ. I was focused on what separated us. And now I see what that has gotten us. Stuck and sick and even worse off than before.

We have to stop. We can’t wait for circumstances outside our control. We need to reconnect to the person and not the politics. Or else we lose it all. All of us. Not one side. All of us.

Finding Common Ground in Community Health

We connected on the health of our bodies. We commiserated on the faulty design of the medical system that keeps you sick and ways to combat that sneaky trick created by big pharma. We became neighbors again, remembering why we liked each other in the first place.

I am now committed to seeing the person and not the politics until we return to the unified country we once were. And it starts in your own back yard.