Bracing myself to eat in a packed and lively Whole Foods, my seat at the bar carefully chosen to avoid the dreaded inquiry, “May I join you?” I notice a woman out of the corner of my eye, looking in my direction. I look away- polite, but you know- very busy with this food here in front of me. A familiar apprehension creeps in as I sense people all around, their possible desire to approach, and my wish to get away.
Strangely, after all these years of giving and receiving therapy, it remains a struggle-not in my role as therapist- just in the more complex character lived outside of that room, as “me”. In my work, I set personal struggles aside and attend to the person in front of me- focusing on them, seeking to understand them, appreciating them. It’s easy, so natural and rewarding- one of my greatest passions in life. Every day I think, “God I love what I do.” But outside my office, instead of relishing contact, luxuriating in the preciousness of our fascinating, ephemeral lives alongside one another, I prefer my distance. In fact, I’d like the woman in question and any interested others, to drop (safely) into a hole in the middle of the earth right now. I feel badly about this, though, the way I’m compelled to avoid others for no logical, discernible reason. It’s nothing personal. I’m sure this woman is a very nice person. Still, I long for an enormous hook to emerge from stage left and whisk her away.
No such deliverance. I see her advancing like a cheetah, past the throngs towards me. My gut drops. I look down. Please don’t come over…. Please don’t come over….
She’s standing in front of me now as I lift my buried, guilty gaze. Smiling at me, her head tilted slightly, she says, “You have really pretty hair.”
“Oh!” I say brightly (big painful smile) “Thanks so much!”
She stands there for a moment longer, nodding. Then with a vague, wistful grin, and no further encouragement from me, she wishes me a good night and walks back out into the crowd. A light, sickening mist of self-reproach washes over me. Ugh. This lovely human is out here, trying her best like the rest of us to get through life in one piece- just wanting to share a moment. What is UP with me? Why??
But I know why. I understand implicit memory, unconscious drives, survival strategies, fight/flight/freeze/(not much “tend and befriend” where I came from…). I know that part of my adaptation to the life I lived as a kid was to stay safe within myself, to feel much better on my own. I just imagined that over time, and with enough healing, that would change. But I’m realizing that instead of reaching a point someday where I’ll morph into some saintly maternal beacon of magnanimous warmth for others, a welcomer of all people, at all times, I just am who I am, however evolving. My choice at this point is to realize when I’m lost energetically in time- not truly present, and make an effort to come back. Instead of being stuck feeling that others pose some nameless threat, I can have compassion for my terrified little reptilian mind that is just trying to protect me and make efforts to balance my course.
I’ve been lucky since leaving my childhood home. Though people have felt scary, most have been pretty wonderful to me. As much as I’ve guarded against them, strangers have shown up like angels- stepping in at points where I thought it made more sense to just give up. Some will never know how much they impacted me, helped me see that I somehow mattered, that people can be a source of kindness and comfort, that I wasn’t as infinitely alone as I felt.
A lush, warm wind flows through the UT campus- summer of ‘94. It’s unusually placid on the streets as I drive from my marble-clad condo on 26th to the grungy Player’s drive-through at 2am. Tears fall unceremoniously down my face as they’ve done all day, all year, and years before that. I don’t bother to hide them. It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing else to show anyway. I order my burger, tired of myself, my “pathetic” endless sadness juxtaposed against how good I have it- all the privilege, money, time and freedom to have whatever I want- and all I want is to fade away. I steep myself in intolerance, my far-off gaze fixed on nothing. When it’s my turn, I pull up to the window, offer a quiet hello and reach out to pay for food to feed a body that feels quite done with living. The middle-aged, African-American man with luminous brown eyes like grace itself takes my cash and then pauses, holding us together, suspended in time.
He hands me my order. And with more true compassion than my 19-year-old self has ever dreamed of experiencing, he adds, “I hope that whatever’s making you sad right now gets better real soon.”
His kindness hits me- touching and intolerable. My eyes sting and close; tears pour even faster, like I’m a machine and they are my only program, all that exists inside of me. Feeling unworthy of so much love, I summon a “thank you”, drive away, and never forget him.
Though I’ve healed a lot, that deeply hurt and disconnected young girl is still evident at times. But this raw and so cherished memory of human exaltedness also lives on, urging me to stay more open to others than I naturally would, to remember the impact we can have as even minor players in someone else’s life. I’m not religious, but a quote that I love is: “We are each God’s hands for one another.” The decency, generosity and humanity I’ve been shown, that we all can show, is why we’re here. Our willingness to see and care about another person can provide the hope that life might actually be worth living. We all have that power.
We don’t have to be perfect; we can just remember to try.