{"id":31,"date":"2013-02-03T03:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/?p=31"},"modified":"2013-02-03T03:27:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T03:27:00","slug":"angel-in-my-mouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/2013\/02\/03\/angel-in-my-mouth\/","title":{"rendered":""Angel" in my mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"
I use endearments because I’m an affectionate person. “Sweetie” and “honey” and (my personal favorite) “sweet pea” are terms I use whenever the urge strikes. <\/span>
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One word I never used, because it was just too hokey, was “angel.” <\/p>\n

Yes, I used “sweet pea” with perfect ease, but couldn’t bring myself to call anyone “angel” with a straight face. <\/p>\n

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What can I say? We all have our limits, however idiosyncratic.<\/p>\n

I thought, What an overused, overfluffy, overly silly word to use about someone who is decidedly human<\/em> — as everyone I’ve met so far is.<\/p>\n

Then I went through the Years from Hell, a period of about 3 years I try not to even think about because it was so bloody harrowing it’s unbearable to remember, and there’s nothing to be done now to change that. <\/p>\n

One set of surprises were some of the people who I was sure would come through, but fell from view when their actions were supposed to match their words. <\/p>\n

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Many people who seem awfully nice are more socially adept than genuinely good. It’s an important distinction. <\/p>\n

Starting late 2011, I found myself using the word “angel” as an endearment for a very particular set of people. It came naturally to my mouth as a substitute for “sweetie” or “sweet pea” when speaking to those who showed up when the going became almost impossible, <\/p>\n

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who never gave up on me despite good reason to do so, <\/p>\n

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and who showed up for me through thick and thicker. <\/p>\n

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The handful of people who made the key difference between my living and dying, are the ones I call “angel” — and find it easy to do so. <\/p>\n

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It’s not over- anything. It barely does them justice. And, I have to say, some of them were a real surprise: people who aren’t apparently nice can be genuinely decent and deeply good.<\/p>\n

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Like every ER nurse ever, I used to preen myself on how good a judge of character I was. This disease, and the many versions of Hell that it comes with, teaches us a thing or two about human nature. <\/p>\n

It’s fair to say that, even at my most brain-frozen, my judgement about people’s core attributes is better than it used to be. <\/p>\n

I know where to find the real angels on this earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Among my besties, that’s where.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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I use endearments because I’m an affectionate person. “Sweetie” and “honey” and (my personal favorite) “sweet pea” are terms I use whenever the urge strikes. One word I never used, because it was just too hokey, was “angel.” Yes, I used “sweet pea” with perfect ease, but couldn’t bring myself to call anyone “angel” with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,2,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crps-knock-on-effects","category-loved-ones","category-perspective","category-sheeple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livinganyway.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}