Random things stick out in my mind. No, really. I realise if I constructed the narrative of my life it wouldn’t be an accurate record of what actually happened but rather the key clutch moments that were important enough to me to commit to memory. Though my memory is far from reliable. My mind filters and stores information based on how it relates to earlier experiences and other personal prejudices.
Somebody asked me a really innocent question recently. At the time I sort of smiled politely and gave an official-sounding somewhat defensive response. Our conversation ended and we went our separate ways. And suddenly I was filled with such resentment and anger. How dare they ask such a question?! What are they insinuating?! Were they just trying to bait me?!
I lost sleep over it at the time. I sent this person a handful of lines expressing my anger. The particular technology I employed allowed me to delete those same lines the next day before they were viewed by the recipient. The truth was by this stage I was beginning to understand why I was so angry and it had surprisingly little to do with the question or the person who asked it or even the person the question pertained to. It did have a lot to do with my fears and a few negative experiences from my past. And the more I thought about it the more I had to admit that there were a few negative experiences that I haven’t made peace with.
I came clean with the person who posed the question. I told them pretty much everything. I admitted that I had a fear that people were making really unkind assumptions about me based on a little information and a lot of prejudice. And the experience that kept coming to mind was not the most offensive demonstration of a particular prejudice but it was the one that affected me the most. It was a very long time ago in the scheme of things. The person who said those things and I talked extensively about it the time. It should be water under the proverbial bridge. But as I told the person who posed the question, ‘It happened a lifetime ago but it still burns like it happened thirty seconds ago.’
But what does this mean? I mean, the person who said the things that are etched into my brain weren’t addressing me individually, they were just expressing a theological disposition they had. They were quite upset that I had been hurt by the remarks. They went to great lengths to discuss what they meant exclusively for my benefit. They meant me no harm then and they still do not. Even at the time random third parties were talking to me on the sidelines seemingly dumbfounded at the problems I had with the content. This did my head in, actually. I felt blindsighted. I didn’t see this coming and then BAM! There it was. This diatribe about some aspect of my being. And I wonder, who else feels this way? How many other people are smiling and talking to me and then going home and thinking these sorts of things about me and other people I care about?!
Wild insecure baseless speculations aside, I don’t expect a lot of people I consider friends do actually share these opinions. At least, intellectually. There are still moments when I seem to lash out at people and exclaim things like, “But, of course, THIS is what you really mean… right?!” I guess I’m just scared. I learnt that a lot of people were actually quite fickle and I decided to be as open and transparent as I could be at the start of a relationship so if it was a problem it would at least be a problem before I felt emotionally invested. I just want to know the people who are around me are people who love me and will support me. Is that so much to ask? Probably not. And yet that is only part of the overall equation. It isn’t just about having these people in your corner, it’s also about choosing to believe that they are in your corner. This is the other dimension of faith; the part that doesn’t relate to the paranormal or the religious. It is the collection of smaller assumptions you embrace about your daily life. Its choosing to believe that if you drive on a road that the cars going in the opposite direction will stick to their side of the road. Its choosing to believe that if you leave your home today that an acorn or the sky or an atomic bomb won’t fall on your head. Because at the moment I am not being critcised or chastized by my friends, I am just plagued by this anxiety that it could happen. I am waiting for some unseen axe to drop.
And this is actually something the new age and self-help literature understands quite well. You choose to believe good things will happen not because they necessarily will (you’re probably not clairvoyant) but because this will have a bearing on how you feel, and this will in turn affect how you act. You make different choices when you’re feeling optimistic than you do when you’re feeling anxious. You react differently. You are more resourceful.
So this is something I have to work on. It is something that I am working on. I thank you all for your patience and support and love.
