Jean Cocteau says that there are two kinds of people – kids and adults. I have always perceived myself as an adult. At the age of thirteen I looked the way I look today, at 36.
Though I resented it, I went out in the street to clean off the pavement the broken glass bottle and the glue that had spilled out of it, thrown out the balcony by my mom. I shouted that the one who had made the mass should be the one to clean it up. Still I went out and did it, as my mom wouldn’t. She elbowed me out and locked the door, so there I was – a fat teenage girl, in shorts and slippers, a baggy T-shirt, and I could have been spotted by a boy I was in love with. I was mad, helpless, frustrated, and … I marched downtown to the construction site where my dad was telling the workers what to do, and I told him, “She is your wife. She made the mess. You should take care of her.” He asked me to calm down and go home, so … I went back to clean the mess.
I have so often cleaned up other people’s mess. I have so often believed that if you see a chocolate bar wrap in the street and you just pass by without picking it up and throwing it into the bin, you are as responsible as the person who dropped the wrap on the pavement. So, whenever my boyfriend failed to give money to his ex-wife for his daughter or buy new boots for his child, I was the one to drag him to the store and pay for the boots, etc.
However, I feel that not all situations are equivalent. Yes, I still believe that whenever I can, I should try to prevent people from harming other people, but … should I try to prevent them from harming themselves?
If I always clean up a person’s mess, will he ever learn how to do it on his own, will he ever grow up?
