Wowza. Spend one week flat-out sick, spend the next week flailing and catching up. And discovering that I am still not as jaded as I’d like to believe. What’s up with that? I want to take everything life gives me like Kathleen Turner would, with almond eyes half-shut, gazing unflinching at the bullshit and nodding to myself, “Yep. Saw that coming.” Then I’d toss back a shot of whiskey and laugh.
My husband is an amazing judge of character. He has met people and told me later to watch out, or that he got a bad vibe from them, or that he doesn’t trust them. Inevitably, he’s right. I just realized how self-serving this could sound – since he decided to marry me, that would mean he’s STUPENDOUS at character assessment, eh? ;) But I envy his unfiltered eye. I find I tend to give people some benefit of the doubt, or I see their association with other people I like and trust and transfer that to them, or I just go off the face value of things, and I don’t make instant determinations or decisions about people. And sometimes that can really bite you in the ass, because not only is the bad behavior unexpected, but the trust you invested up to that point has been betrayed.
Not going to bother elaborating, it’s not bloggable anyway, I just know that I can’t trust everyone, and I have to temper my expectations of people. I would prefer to not become cynical in the process! I had lunch yesterday with an old friend of mine, and I was telling her about some of the crazy things that have been going on, and there’s one situation where five of the six people involved are all confused and spending time worrying about it, and me? I’m the freaking poster child for the Tao of Pooh. I shrug. I narrow my eyes. I smile, and toss back a shot of scotch. And laugh. Because I can’t control it or influence it or even predict it, and therefore, I should spend my time minding my knitting, instead!
It is SO FREEING. To just stop caring about every single thing. Including the potential things. (Believe you me, I haven’t mastered this, but I’m going to trumpet when I do to remind myself it’s possible!) I have spent a better part of my life in the role of Piglet (if you have read the Tao of Pooh this will make sense… Pooh is the model of Buddhism), racing and worrying and fleeing and running with the balloon and being so frantic he eventually pops the balloon. And I sure as hell don’t want to be Eeyore, god love him, but that dude’s a goddamned downer.
Long ago, I toyed with the idea of volunteering at a hospital that was near my apartment. I met with the volunteer co-ordinator, a man, probably 20 years my senior. I’ve never forgotten one observation he made, because it was so wildly inconsistent with my view of myself. He said could see me in the emergency department, because he felt there was a calmness about me, that would be reassuring to families coming in under crisis. I still don’t know if I fully believe him, or if he was just looking for someone to fit a need. But I liked it. My thing is that if I have room to panic, I do. I ruminate, I dwell, I worry. But if someone else is doing it, I tend not to. I fear we’ll all lose our way if someone isn’t minding reality.
So, discovering someone’s true colors, and the resulting anger and sense of betrayal, well, it’s normal. But today I feel confident and centered. Ten years ago I would have been frothing at the mouth for weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I love to be agitated, I love sensory input and drama and zombies and things to move at a brisk clip. But I also enjoy – now more than ever – the ability to not be drowned by that wave.
In some ways, I think, the peace and perspective are results of my father’s death, and the ebbing away of some of my grief. I will cry, be immobilized by my sadness, for moments as short as a minute. Yesterday, for example, I was listening to a story on Morning Edition about Darwin, and how he and his wife were so different philosophically, yet when their daughter Anne died, it brought them even closer together. The author of the biography believes that much of his grief influenced his writings. I’m going to quote the part that really resonated – it’s the author’s viewpoint of Darwin, and it was so beautifully put:
Darwin is stating what “we now call the existential dilemma,” says Gopnik in his biography. He is saying there are two things that are true: One is that everything dies, and things die for no reason and to no apparent end. And their death is painful. And, that process of living and dying produces something amazing and beautiful and astonishing.
The process. Amazing and beautiful and astonishing. I love when things so profoundly move me, like a sharp twisting of muscle, when they resonate in my core like the vibration from a bass cello. My own evolution from inexperience and naivete.
This is a great post, Jen. I was actually just thinking about quick judgment part earlier today, as I can usually gauge a person’s personality pretty quickly — even from a picture. But one of the downsides is that it does kind of make you cyncial and/or people sometimes think you’re being catty or negative (I prefer being called a “realist”). I don’t know if JWo experiences that, or maybe it’s because woman tend to get labeled that more quickly. When Ted and I first got together, he thought that some of my initial criticisms/mistrusts of people (esp. other women) was almost a form of jealousy, but then I was proven right enough times that he now trusts my instinct.
i like to think i can glean a lot from the first meeting of people, much like jWo. sometimes, there are sneaky bastards who fool me for a little while, until they can’t hide their true colors anymore. and when they do, it’s a smack in the head of realization…there are always clues. sometimes, it’s hard to see them.