Aside

Aside

…be the same

I just remembered a poem I wrote in French while attending an immersion program the summer of 1999. Like a song, I repeated three lines that spoke to how the summer had changed me and to how different I was from classmates. I wrote it during the final week of six.

And then I remembered the gut emptying feeling I experience when I realized I’d left my fleece jacket on the train, my warmest item, and I lacked the vocabulary necessary to tell anyone and was scared to admit to my crazy mistake. That was the very first day.

We weren’t allowed to speak English. It was a very small town. I figured not only would the teachers catch us but so would the locals who were probably spies for the school. I mean, why not? Fear makes us suspicious. Fear is unhealthy. Of all the times to break the rule, you’d think I’d have tried that first day which was actually night, fully dark by the time I exited the train and began the awkward search for whoever it was I was to meet. I don’t remember how I got from there to my host’s home but I did and I met an equally shy student who stayed in a room adjacent to mine.

We ate together but never at our residence. A man a couple of streets over provided all three of our daily meals. We sat around an oblong table with maybe six other students. Our chef was happy, kind, generous, and sweaty as he hurriedly got our food placed. He was never late, just made sure we had what we needed when we needed it. I can still see the white porcelain ramekins that held our individual pasta dishes. Fancy. I wanted to buy crates of the apple jam we’d often have at breakfast.

The Saint Lawrence River ran by our little town. I’d sit by the shore, mostly when the tide was out, mostly alone. By the time I found my people, it was just about time to go home. Somewhere, there’s a picture of us sitting at a table, smiling.

Insecure memories are weighty and still clear years later, so clear that I can’t believe I submitted my poem without which this memory lane wouldn’t be as sweet.

Je ne pu jamais
Je ne pourrai jamais
Être la même

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“no” = “I don’t love you”?

Sometime in the last few years, Facebook changed it’s event settings to going, maybe, and can’t go. They used to be something along the simple lines of yes and no/decline…I don’t remember but they were less, shall we say, gentle.

“Facebook’s goal is likely to get more people accurately responding to invitations by making them feel less rude for declining.”

I can’t be mad at that. It’s strategic. And, for those of us on the planning side, it’s definitely appreciated. Yet just about every time I’m on the invitee end of Facebook events, I wonder if we’re making things too simple, softening life up too much. Here’s what I mean by that.

Many of us (and I completely include myself in this) struggle with being upfront about how we feel when we think there’s a chance we’ll hurt someone’s feelings. That’s actually a good thing, on a certain level. We’re caring. Check.

However, these many of us often struggle because our pride is greater than our care and we don’t want to be known as the “bad guy.” So we play nice. We say we’re caring but we’re constantly massaging the truth so that we look good or so that we don’t “have” to feel bad. This is a sign of an immature emotional state. We really don’t have to feel bad–it’s typically a choice we’re making based on our insecurities.

This isn’t the same thing as being politically correct. I believe in political correctness because what I believe to be at the heart of political correctness is intentional respect for who people say they are. I don’t think of political correctness as a movement against honesty. Sometimes “telling it like it is” is an excuse for being lazy and/or plain old rude.

I believe in developing my awareness of who someone says they are so that I can respect them in a way they can grasp. That’s not always possible, yet I’m committed to trying.* What I’m afraid of is that we’re creating so many gentle approaches that it’s harder to grow in an emotional maturity that can actually be honest.

It’s becoming somewhat dangerous, it seems, to simply say, “I disagree” And when we disagree, it’s seems impossible to have a non-debate explanation of our differences. We go toe-to-toe and the person who can sound the smartest tends to “win”. And this word battle is best done in public where others can side with us otherwise the other person could go home thinking they’ve won and we wouldn’t want that so we opt for public encounters…too chicken to talk one-on-one.

We’re afraid to be honest but when we are honest we’re afraid to be wrong so then we lose all sense of gentleness. It’s a mess.

It’s all part of our emotional immaturity, an inability to separate our worth from what others say to us or what we say to them.

Or should a say, “Perhaps it’s all part of our emotional immaturity, an inability to separate our worth from what others say to us or what we say to them”? Does “perhaps” soften it for you? Does that one word position me more clearly as someone trying to figure things out vs someone who thinks she’s figured things out? And is that helpful to you? (I’m rolling my eyes as I write this.)

I want to be caring. I want to be sensitive. I also want us to all be mature enough to have freer conversations, conversations that aren’t always perfectly framed. I want us to  choose to extend to each other the belief that our hearts seek understanding. I want our patience with each other to grow deeper. Yes, we want to be valued, but at the end of the conversation, I’d love for us to recognize our value without having to receive a “yeah, you’re right” or an “I concede…you’re smarter than me.”

I truly don’t have this figured out. I’m sure of one thing, though: we’ve gotta get healthier. And perhaps a good place to start is by asking ourselves where we find our worth. Surely we can dare to answer that honestly, at least in our heads. Surely?

(By the way, if you can’t attend an event, just say so. Declining an invitation doesn’t make you the devil and doesn’t communicate to the host that they are the devil unless they have some serious self-worth issues for which you’re probably not responsible.)

 

*Let’s keep it real. I’m not always committed. Respecting folk in a way they can grasp is downright difficult. But I’m committed to trying to be committed…

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i typically write when i have a clear idea of what i want to say. those moments are loaded with energy, excitement, readiness and there’s almost an urgency–these words must be shared.

so when a day like today rolls around, a day without “ah ha” moments to speak of, it’s easy to find more joy and purpose in Pinterest. but i’ve challenged myself to post at least once a week. i’ve even set up a reminder and as we speak, an email sits unopened in my inbox. it’s from WordPress and says something along the lines of, “hey, you haven’t written yet this week.” i didn’t want to read it lest its unmarked status encourage me to forget. and being the avid email-checker that i am (and don’t need to be) i’ve seen the email many times now in the last 24 hours. i’m coming!

sticking to things that appear negotiable or optional is hard. there are enough required pursuits in a day to fill a decade. this creative stuff can wait. it’s not my job. it’s not my marriage. it’s just a nice idea. sure, it’s something i get to be proud of, but for what? so that the number of visitors to my blog can increase?

i’ve recently taken to cutting stuff out of my life–unread books, old shoes, receipts, bitterness, the words “i can’t”,  filling a glass jar daily with slips of paper that detail what i’m grateful for. you wouldn’t think so but that last one was the hardest. as i tossed out the few pieces of paper that had successfully made it into the jar (during early 2013) and read my words, i felt bad for not being able to complete a really great initiative. i toyed with the idea of keeping the paper so that i could remember what i was grateful for but quickly tossed the idea and the paper in the trash. after all, the point is to be reminded of God’s goodness and that’s evident every day not just last March. and, i’ve got far too many slips of paper in my possession that do absolutely nothing for me or the world.

though i knew my actions were right for me, i had to fight the feeling of guilt. yet again, i’ve been unable to finish something. yet again. thanks to how i relate to Pinterest, i now battled inadequacy. if i could just manage my time more effectively, i’d have time to fill this jar.

suuuure. i’m sure that’s true. if i kept a stricter regimen, there’s a host of activity i’d be able to engage in where now there are only, like, 3 things. sure.

i washed out the jar and asked my husband to place it on top of the kitchen cupboard alongside the other glass jars. it’s an Ikea jar, the kind with a cool clasp that seals tightly and keeps air at bay. it’s the kind of jar that’s good for raisins or flour…or simple decoration. just like some moments in the day, it doesn’t need to be filled.

as for the moments that should be filled, i’d like to stick to activities that breed life and not misplaced guilt. like writing. writing isn’t for all of us just as Brussels sprouts aren’t for all of us. (BTW, did you know there’s an “s” on the end of Brussel like the city? all my life i’ve said “Brussel sprouts” until just now when i googled the name. #mindblown #wellnotreally)

writing is how i process, how i make sense of life. the more i write, the more i understand. and because i spend so much time in my head, i need to take time to get out and distinguish what matters from what’s noisy. i could only journal but those words are my prayers. blog posts are different. aside from being public, they challenge me to write for more than myself and to end well.

and for the times when neither of those happen, i’m just glad i’ve tried, that i didn’t quit early. it’s easy to quit early.

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