David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

I haven’t learned to stop walking on eggshells around angry people

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As soon as I walked into his office today, I could tell that this normally happy person was in a foul mood. He was snappy and there was something in the air that felt dangerous to me.

I could feel my heart start racing slightly. I felt mild panic. This guy wasn’t angry with me. His dark mood had nothing to do with me. But I immediately shifted gears inside. Instead of a confident adult dealing with another adult, I felt like a child who needed to placate an angry person — so I wouldn’t “get in trouble.”

I was walking on eggshells once again.

I was there less than half an hour, but I spent the entire time trying to break through his bad mood and cheer him up. It wasn’t just that I was trying to help him. I was playing the role I learned with my father. I was desperately trying to stem the anger of a volatile man — before he exploded on me.

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After last month’s weight freakout, something’s shifted in my attitude

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When I got disgusted with myself last month about the way I had been eating, I felt that way because I’d gained weight since January. I was also concerned about the health aspects of my diet, but that was ultimately secondary to my fears of looking like a beached whale.

About five weeks later, I’ve gone through a change in my thinking. I’m not sure what finally clicked, but I suddenly reached a point at which it was more about the devastating effects of sugar on my body’s organs than it was about an embarrassed ego.

I can’t tell you why my point of view changed, but it’s what I’ve been needing for a long time. We’ll talk about this in six months or a year, though, to see whether it continues.

I’ve dropped about 25 points since that night, but that seems relatively unimportant compared to the other changes I know this is bringing to my body — and I now understand that if I take care of keeping my body healthy, the excess weight will continue to disappear.

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How can we be lonely while we’re surrounded by billions of people?

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Marleen Brooks found a note waiting for her when she got to her home in Park Hills, Mo., one evening last year. She had never heard of Wanda Mills, but her heart broke when she read the handwritten plea.

“Would you consider to become my friend,” said the note from Mills. “I’m 90 years old — live alone and all my friends have passed away. I am so lonesome and scared. Please — I pray for some one.”

Brooks is a 37-year-old property manager and she had no idea this woman even existed, but the address was for a house across the street from her and just a couple of doors down. She didn’t know anyone even lived there.

The next day, Brooks and a friend took cupcakes and went to visit Mills. (See the photo below.) The friends spent about an hour with the older woman. They found out Mills had lived in the house for 51 years. Her husband was dead. Most of her remaining family was either dead or lived far away.

Living in the middle of a busy neighborhood, Mills was invisible — and lonely.

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