Many weekends I try to go to the movies. I research the times, plan my pre-movie meal, and venture to the theater usually 15-20 minutes early. Almost every weekend, something off-putting happens in the parking lot or the foyer that prevents me from following through with the viewing. Not lose sleep type things by any means; More like, lose interest.

People (with exceptions noted of course), often confound and frequently sicken me; It might sound cynical and likely a bit clichéd but sadly, the fact remains.

I watch the careless, haphazard way in which they do simple things like park a car, get out, walk to a destination, and enter; Often I am jealous of their lack of awareness, but most times I feel blessed by my own. Often I feel like I have taken too seriously the simplest details of life; Other times I feel that without doing so, the rest of ones’ life could fall to carelessness.

In a brief but impressive run I saw a woman, husband in-tow, grotesquely park her sedan in 1+1/2 spaces, fling the door open and bump the neighboring car, drag a wrapper and a bottle out her door and into the lot upon exiting (leaving them, of course), bark something at her poor husband, and walk directly in front of a moving car on her life and death mission to reach the theatre (of course getting angry with the driver of the moving car).

Would I have to talk with her in the theatre? No, of course not. Were we even planning on seeing the same movie? Unlikely. If I could get over myself would I likely have done well with two hours of mindlessness? Definitely.

The problem is, I don’t want to get over it. I don’t want to be where “she” is… I don’t want to do what “she” does. I don’t want to see it just as much, if not more, than I don’t want to let it affect me. In a way I’m glad it affects me. Feeling the effect is trying, and often makes me feel silly or maladjusted; Not feeling the effect would unknowingly make me what I seem to despise. We are often at least pieces of what we despise, though it is worthwhile when discovered to attempt to be otherwise.

If in fact I did not sicken myself in much more profound ways than others ever could, I would feel a fool of another color completely- one casting judgments from a fake ivory tower, thinking their path has not also been riddled with judge-able acts.

To the contrary, I am the pot simply noticing that the kettle is black.

Not calling it such, yet keenly aware of the differences in the appearance and execution of life between myself and my would-be theatre mate… Similar only in physical location, we have arrived there by remarkably different routes and with quite polarizing life intentions.