I gave a homeless man a beer

I know. I shouldn’t have. There’s usually substance abuse involved. But I did.

Just yesterday I was lamenting how hard it can be to settle in to relax when all your routines have been taken away. I was whining about how I can’t just sit and have a beer. I can’t just grab a pizza and watch a movie. It’s hard not just because I can’t have it any more, but fundamentally because I don’t want it anymore. But I still haven’t found a replacement for those rituals that let me relax in the same way. I bought myself some gluten free beer tonight just to make pretending a little bit easier.

On the way home I passed a guy pushing all his worldly possessions in a cart. He looked ragged and broken. But he walked with purpose. And he walked with a bounce in his step. And he asked if I might give him a beer. At first I said no. Then he offered to buy it with the change he’d collected today. I thought to myself…isn’t that enterprising. Then I realized that relaxing must be much much harder for him than my first world problems make it for me. I decided that he deserved the right to relax just as much as the next guy.

So I gave a homeless man a beer.