Learn From Me — To Be Better Than Me

"You cannot do that to your children's father!" Morgan protested after listening to Kora's plans while they enjoyed brunch.

"Why the hell not?" she demands, facing her across the oblong-shaped table.

"First, your children are watching what you are doing to their father and will think it's ok to be irresponsible and cruel!" Morgan dictates to all three of them.

"Well," Kora fired back, "I don't have the perfect husband, marriage, or children like you!"

Morgan swallowed her response, and her eyes turned to Evelyn, sitting to her left, who said, "Sorry, dear, but we must agree with her."

Stacy to her right nods in unity with the other two.

"Do any of you want the perfect marriage and children?" her frustration asked.

"Hell yes," they sang in unison.

"You really want an illusion?"

"Uh," they sang again.

"Perfection is an illusion. There is no perfect marriage or children. Clive and I have problems like everyone else," Morgan explained.

"Then give me your problems, so I can use them to beat Ken," Evelyn said. "I am on the edge of leaving him."

"I am sleeping in my guest bedroom," Stacy revealed. "I can't be perfect like you," her eyes on Morgan.

"None of us can," Kora admits.

"It seems like only you know how to be perfect," Evelyn eyed Morgan.

Morgan listened as they all criticized her life.

"I can't be like you. My children can't be like yours. My home can't be as clean as yours. My husband isn't perfect!"

Her silence demanded their attention and Morgan smiled as they dropped their fork in their plates and stared at her.

"Do you remember when we were in college and went to Professor Janet Lindo's lecture?" she asked dragging them up Memory's Mountain.

Three pairs of eyes aimed and focused on her.

She smiled and refreshed memories, "She encouraged us that wherever we go, whomever we meet, whatever qualities we admire about them, we shouldn't envy or criticize them."

Morgan glared back at them waiting for the truth to hit hearts, minds, and souls, then explode to the surface. When it did, she scored the goal, "All you do is criticize me, my life, my family, my relationship, and anything else you can find. Professor Lindo suggests that we, 'learn from the ones we admire, to be better than them.'"

Silence paraded, then was interrupted when Kora apologized, "I am sorry, it's just that relationships are hard."

"Who told you it was easy?" Morgan demands.

"You made it look easy," Evelyn said.

"Then learn from me, to be better than me!" Morgan burst out angrily

Silence takes over allowing anger to simmer.

Moments later, Evelyn asked after apologizing, "So, when will you start teaching us?"

"I am not teaching any of you anything!" Morgan said pushing her half-finished plate of blueberry pancakes away. Standing up, she put thirty dollars on the table and said, "I don't want friends who tear me down. I want friends who lift me up!"

She stormed out as three pairs of eyes followed her. She turned to the left to exit the café and then peeked at them from a large mirror behind the counter allowing her to see many of the patrons as they enjoyed their meal.

She counted to fifty absorbing the sadness on their faces, then walked back in, grabbing the hint of hope in their eye. She sat down and said, "I miss you guys already."

After a group hug, along with more apologies, she demanded of them, "Learn from me, to be better than me!"

All of us have met people with qualities we admire. Many of us criticize them instead of learning from them.

If your heart could speak, what would it say?

Perfection is an illusion, so for the people in our lives that we think are perfect, with qualities we admire and want, learn from them, to be better than them.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.