Can we chat?
SPOILER ALERT: This week’s post isn’t all fun and games. But it’s important. I was going to blog about social constructs this week because I’ve been thinking about the ways these constructs guide our behavior and even determine aspects of our identity. But then I thought -- nah, to honor next week's national impetus to be grateful (and to eat more than anyone thinks they can), I'll blog about pain. Which sounds odd, I know. But I can’t write about pain on the actual day of Thanksgiving, so here goes. Part of being human, I think, is coping with occurrences we aren’t truly grateful for. Or that we’d prefer to live without entirely. Like words that harm and actions that haunt; like diseases that threaten to destroy our bodies; like the deaths of people we love; like things that just plain suck. So why, to borrow a cliche that feels more like a valid question than an actual cliche, do bad things happen to good people? The short answer (from a laywoman who enjoys occa...