A Heavy Winter Coat

My friend Joy moved to Walla Walla 6-ish years ago.  She got hit by a drunk driver 12 years ago causing a BK amputation of her left left, profound head injuries and breaking bones in her face.  She was one day away from having 10 years sobriety at the time.  With all that trauma, she relapsed for two years and made it back.  She now has ten+ years of sobriety that is financially challenged while living on SSI.

The winters are mighty cold (and the summers are hot) relative to Western Washington. I got her a nice coat from REI serveral years ago. It worked great. Age and mobility limitations have conspired to make that coat too small. Nothing at Bellevue Square fit her needs. I bought her a coat on Amazon that came on Thursday. We meet for lunch at Factoria today. The new coat was much much smaller than the listed size. My backup plan was to give her my heavy winter coat that I wear about three times a year. It is a little long in the sleeves, but otherwise a reasonably good fit. It is a nice warm heavy long coat that should work well for her. She was grateful and relieved to get such a nice warm coat that was a good fit. My plan is to not spend much time outside on those three really cold days this winter (like I did anyways).

I am a much kinder person this year than I was ever able to be before in my life.  I always wanted to be kind  I truly did not know how to manifest kind behavior in my life.  Part of being kind is letting go of how I “should be” and showing up how I want to be.  It is a work in progress with fits and starts.  I still badly confuse sarcasm for wit—albeit a lot less than how it used to be.

I am grateful have the resources to be able to help others that are less fortunate or just need help like giving Greg a ride home from the airport tonight.  It feels much better to be kind than standoffishly cruel and unhelpful like how I used to be.