Bow Tie o’ the Day and one Tie o’ the Day offer up a batch of kitties in their festive Christmas hats. The other Tie o’ the Day lets us watch a Santa-hatted penguin do some ice fishing with a candy cane. Love me my critter ties.
I have done my fake research and come up with the fake fact that the internet was originally created for the sole purpose of distributing sappy cute animal pictures, memes, and videos. That might be fake news, but sometimes my Facebook news feed makes me wonder if it might actually be true. Cute animals and political posts that haven’t been fact-checked– that’s the bulk of what shows up for me on Facebook.
I don’t have to sift through all that extra stuff when I’m on my tie website, and that’s nice. But it’s also worth it to me to stay on Facebook to connect with my pals. I’ll wade through the malarkey posts in order to get to my “friends.” I mean– we all do interesting stuff. And the things we do differ significantly from each other. I find it fascinating to see what we’ve all done– and continue to do– with our lives. We are diverse, and we are much the same. I guess that’s what makes us human beings.
We have approached our adult lives with varied plans. And I imagine most of us are not quite where we thought we would be at this point on our mortal journey. Stuff happens. Let’s be honest: shit happens. Not every circumstance in our lives is under our control. We do the best we can to stay out of our own way when we can, but sometimes we’re just stooopid idiots. For whatever reason, we occasionally make choices that create havoc in our own lives, diverting us from any brilliant plan we might have had. But we are, in fact, still here. That’s a good thing.
If you haven’t already– and you most likely have– you will experience tragedy, pain, loneliness, and disappointment to a degree you could never have imagined existed before they found you. These sadnesses will become part of your story. You can make it through these storms. You can learn the lessons these floods can teach you. Your Facebook friends– and tblog friends– are part of your cheerleading squad. Their LIKE’s and COMMENT’s can build you up.
And that idea leads me to this: In your life’s trek, you will meet people you don’t especially care for. Maybe they simply bug you in some minor way, like the way they hold their chopsticks. Maybe they mock you because you have a website about ties. Maybe they slashed your car tires when you broke up with them. But remember– tragedy, pain, loneliness, and disappointment will surely visit them too. It will punch them in the gut as hard as it punches you. It will bring them to their knees. And you might be on your knees at exactly the same time. You might as well pray together while you’re both kneeling down there in the mud, because you’re gonna need to help each other up.
That’s part of what it means to love your neighbor– chopsticks and all.
TIE TALLY: I’ve worn 5 holiday bow ties and 5 holiday neckties so far. That’s 10 pieces o’ Christmas neckwear in only 3 days. I wonder how high I can count.