Sympathy (not Empathy)

• I've never survived a flood.
• I've never been in a serious earthquake.
• I've never been so broke that I had to sleep at work and couldn't afford to buy breakfast or cigarettes.
• I've never been a smoker, so I've never tried to quit.
• I never had to cut all ties with a parent for my own self-preservation.
• I was never a child of divorce.
• My parents never had any boyfriends or girlfriends that I had to meet.
• I am not a single parent.
• I have not raised teenagers.
• I have never sent a kid off to college.
• My people have never been nearly eradicated through wartime genocide.
• Shots never rang out in any street where I lived (a few blocks over sometimes, but not in my actual street).
• No one was ever burned or shunned or discriminated against or given shock therapy for having the same sexual orientation as me.
• I have been divorced, near enough, but there were no little kids involved (one kid, his, was pretty big and more or less unaffected by the whole thing), and I wasn't betrayed when he went off with an old girlfriend until a good amount of time afterward.
• My spouse never worked in another city for an extended period of time.
• I have never battled cancer (touch wood and thank God on that one).
• I never worried that my child might be autistic.
• I've never broken any bones.
• I've never lost any limbs.
• I've never been in weather colder than about -20F.
• I've never had my brain poisoned from a zombie fish chemical.
• I have, though, had to argue with the government about money. And lost, in the end, in fact.
• I don't have back problems.
• I've never turned 50 (I do hope to one day, though).
• People have died, sure, but never my landlord.
• My spouse did not die. My kid never had to attend grief camp.
• I can afford the guitars I want.
• I don't share custody with anybody.
• The quarterback of my team who was a beloved hero to me since childhood never retired and then ended up playing for my arch rival team, and then beating us.
• I never had to sleep in a park because I missed the last train.
• I don't ever have to listen to the Grateful Dead, if I don't want to.
• I've never had two jobs at once, much less three.
• I got to do my degrees full-time, except for the distance computer one which doesn't really count.
• I have been long-term-unemployed, but am not at the moment. I have been downsized but wasn't this last time. I have worked in a dying industry but don't at the moment.
• I haven't hit a deer or run my car into the ditch in the snow. Touch wood on that one too.
• No rheumatoid arthritis yet, vision fine except for middle-aged myopia, hearing pretty good.
• I never had to kick a smack habit. No hot shot ever killed me, I never overdosed and had to go to the hospital. And this never happened to a partner, although it did to a friend.
• I did once have quite a bit of weight to lose, but only 20 lbs (9 kilos), and touch wood I've kept it off since.
• No medical condition prevents me from travelling to high altitudes.
• I've never had a book manuscript rejected from a publisher (only academic papers and those stopped mattering the minute I left the field).
• I've never been brought up on sexual harrassment charges or discrimination or fraud or negligence.
• I've been locked out of cars, houses, work, but never in really bad weather.
• I've never been stuck in an elevator.
• I haven't eaten a bad oyster (only good ones).
• Never had complications during childbirth, or had to rush a sick baby to the emergency room (I visited one though, and sat by until we knew she was okay).
• Never had a mortgage foreclosed.
• Never had a dog vomit on me, although I've had plenty of homeless people yell senseless things at me as I passed.
• Never had a bank error or ATM error, especially not in their favor.
• Never been mugged.
• Never been pregnant and had to decide, never caught an STD.
• Never had a burn large enough that its size was described as being a percentage of my body.
• I've cried in front of every boss I ever had, but I've never punched a boss.

I don't really understand the difficult things all of you are going through, because the same things haven't happened to me, but I feel for you and send good thoughts.