A Pity Party that Is Good For the Soul
Posted by sideshowjudy on April 1, 2009
Ever so often, good friends come together to celebrate. We just did such a thing tonight. The girls and I had our first…Pity Party, to celebrate and bond over all the terrible and worstful things that have happened to us in the last months, for some, years, for others just the last 24 hours. A Pity Party involves sinful food, like fried chicken of the KFC variety, and a large bottle of wine, drunk from heavy glasses but held by firm hands. After all, that is all the reality we are holding on to, no? Whoever said you can’t find happiness at the bottom of a wineglass was definitely high or wrong.
Conversation topics at a Pity Party are difficult, intense and intimate. We all bemoan our jobs (for some of us who have no jobs, we bemoan how love is not ours to hold), our careers. We spin crazy tales and theories about the plight of the Asian Male and why they behave like robot blocks and have strange need for women who have been socialized to be stupid. (omg! I am going to get so much backlash for this) but trust me, there is such a stereotype! We take all the bad things that have happened to us to make reasons, rationales and thereafter factoids, based on many small samples that lead us to truth…that voila! this is the answer. This is why bad things happen to us, because erhm…well, he simply couldnt stomach my brillance and my spark. Right.
But hang on, that is exactly why we have Pity Parties. Because sometimes, deluding oneself is great. at least for the moment. And when we all look back at this 6 mths from now, we laugh at our naviety and our silliness, for believing the very things that we told ourselves tonight.
Hope can be so evil, especially if one is in the losing position. Hope creates false optimism when there can be no hope. I spent the night telling the girls about Paula - a character from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins. For those who have read The Mandarins, Paula is a my favorite character. Because resolute hope drove her mad. Everyone laughs hysterically at my story, because I just might be Paula??
Oh Pity Parties…how we love them and how we so cannot have too many of these. But I love you guys…how could I not? So Aye to Pity Parties and good hugs.
xoxo.
