time to unload

Whoah! Two weeks since I've posted. The funny thing is, I haven't been able to speak for almost that whole time. You'd think that might make me want to write more. Guess not. Till now, I guess.

It's been two weeks of ups and downs, and introspection. There's a peculiar social challenge sort of haunting the margins of my thought lately, a specific recurring situation which seems to contain the most implausible number of angles on several of my life themes. I can tell that larger forces are at work, because not only it is perfectly clear that I have been, and am, on both "sides" of this type of challenge, its two-sides-of-the-same-coin aspect is so prominent as to verge on the comic. I like when God makes things so obvious that the only sensible option is a big cosmic stooge slap. (God as Moe? Oh, dear.)

Still, my ironic big-picture detachment on how hilarious it is to be feeling inclined to complain about the very sort of thing that I detest most to experience complaints around when I do it, for instance, and even my lack of personal engagement on any painful or negative level at all, seem not yet enough to facilitate healing and mutual understanding. It will come eventually. It always does, in some form. But in the meantime, I wonder yet again at the gulf between my thoughts and intentions about people and (some of) their perceptions of me and corresponding reactions. I seem to have a special knack for pushing buttons. If someone within a five hundred-foot radius is nursing a painful insecurity or spoiling for a fight, there seems to be a better than decent chance that they will decide that I am provoking them and lash out accordingly.

I'm definitely no angel. I can get negative when I feel frustrated, which is more often then I'd like, and I can certainly be bitchy when I'm emotionally strung out. But even at those times, I'm usually just doing my best to deal with my own discomforts and sensitivities. I tend to take on too much rather than too little responsibility, and although, for this reason among others, I can really get riled when singled out unfairly, I'm usually painfully aware that when I feel prickly--though a hundred lifetimes ago it may have been tempting to blame someone else's annoying behavior--my prickly-ness belongs to me alone; it's my responsibility. And that's hard enough. Anyway, I don't mean to whine, God, but some people do just seem to project the most fascinatingly dark motives onto my speech and actions, even when I'm at my most happy and relaxed.

It's been a pattern all my life, of course, so I'm sure I'm inadvertently colluding in the proceedings somehow. Wish I could figure out how. One thing that I see happening is that I can tell when someone's on edge in this way about me, and I start to energetically walk on eggshells. Nervousness just never seems to help anything. Funny thing, though--when someone has decided I'm judging them, even sincere niceness and genuine, heartfelt overtures can be perceived as disingenuous, even nefarious snarkyness. When that happens, which is way too often, it's absolutely stunning. There's just nothing I can do.

Here's a garden-variety example of my experience of this type of misunderstanding: One day when I was about nineteen and had just returned home from college for the summer, I saw my sister in the kitchen and said hello. She had bleached her (dark blonde) hair since I'd seen her last. I smiled and said, "Your hair is so blonde!" Her face instantly contorted into a mask of seething rage. She called me a f@$%ing bitch, stomped away, and stayed palpably mad at me for about three weeks. I think it may have taken years, actually, to finally live that down. She had simply assumed utterly that I was critical of her appearance, and therefore expected the worst. I think she thought I was patronizing her, criticizing her with a smile. Her new hair color was noticeable, and it would have been rude not to acknowledge it, but I can assure you, I felt nothing critical at the time. I thought nothing much of it at all, really, and was just making conversation, so any attitude she perceived from me was pure projection. But project she did. Hoo-boy. I had been very, very bad.

But that's my sister, and sisters just have this sort of stuff, you say? Well, how about this one: A massage therapist once yelled at me so hard that I left sobbing, for walking into her workroom at my appointment time instead of waiting in the room outside. I didn't even know that was her waiting room. I'd seen her three times, and had always just walked through her open door. She knew that this was my first experience with massage therapy. She also knew why I was there--on the recommendation of a doctor, for stress-related neck and shoulder pain. I had even explained to her at my first appointment that I felt a little uncomfortable with the whole idea. I was concerned that my nervousness and discomfort might impede the process, and I even told her that I was stressed and might seem edgy. She assured me that she was a professional and a healer, smiling warmly.

And the first two massages seemed to go fine, even amiably. I thought it was possible that this could be helping. But on the third visit, on the third time that I went to walk through her open door at the time of our appointment, she blocked my entrance and barked some awful rhetorical question like did I have any idea how disrespectful it was of me to just march right into her space. I was beyond stunned. Tears welled up right away, and I stammered something about how I had no idea that I was meant to wait, but it only got worse from there. It seems it had never occurred to her that I might simply be ignorant. She yelled more--I can't possibly express just how out-of-left-field this all seemed to me--, telling me about other things I had done wrong, how she thought I was ripping her off because insurance companies never paid her, and how terrible my attitude was. I tried to defend myself between sobs. But on she went, not softening in the slightest. A therapist from another office came out into the hallway--we were making quite the racket, I'm sure. I wished he'd come down and administered the stooge slap. I almost called for his help. Eventually I just fled.

One of the cosmically comic things that happened over the past couple of weeks is that when I could not speak at all, when I struggled just to whisper and was trying to avoid doing even that, G kept getting angry at me during the resulting absurdist pantomime interactions for "copping a 'tude." I may have been a bit frustrated trying to express myself, plus I really didn't feel well, but I don't even remember feeling all that edgy. I was trying to be straightforward and as brief as possible. Makes sense, right? You'd think. But it turns out my "tone" is misread even when I can't make a sound! It was just too much.

Of course, I am also very free with my thoughts generally, "good" and "bad." I lavish praise and thanks. I make yummy noises when I eat. I also think nothing of outwardly acknowledging my own personal foibles and failings, but I'm correspondingly loose-lipped about others'. I just don't take my own crap very seriously, and I'm afraid I tend to expect, perhaps irrationally, similar detachment from others. If I have something to say, I'll say it, to their faces. For me that's just the Golden Rule--I feel respected and trusted when someone brings an issue to me rather than stewing about it or griping about it to others. I'm not a big fan of talking negatively about others behind their backs, actually. When I do it, it's out of frustration rather than malice, and it's generally tempered with acknowledgments of my own stuff, observations about the difficulty of growth, and lots of praise for effort made. If you look deep enough, all of us have good intentions at heart. I see people as perfect in Truth and doing their best in this world, and my heart is often broken by the sheer pointlessness of personal difficulties, even as it seems to be being stomped on.

That being said, in keeping with this pattern of judgment and ill-will being projected onto me, God help me when I actually do take issue with something someone has said or done. That's when the boom might really come down. Oh, Lawd. Like I said, I tend to take too much responsibility when things go awry, so even though I will speak up when I feel hurt, I know what it feels like to have the worst assumed, and I'm careful to keep it in terms of my own experience. Sometimes that works great. But with the Eggshell crowd, forget it. "Ow, that hurt," rather than becoming an opportunity for communication and greater understanding, is heard instead as "I think you are a bad person." Then I'm really in trouble.

Of course, I do believe there is such a thing as douche-y behavior, objectively speaking and without regard to motive or intentions. And in this world, we all seem to do stupid things and adopt attitudes which hurt each other, whether we mean to or not. It's not always about misunderstanding--sometimes it is about a kind of judgment. But it's judgment in the sense of discernment, not condemnation. Even if I were to comment on the unprofessional behavior of that massage therapist, for instance, I would merely be making a factual observation, and I don't care what might be said about negativity or judgment, facts is facts.

In any case, this tendency of mine to unwittingly act as a projection screen, as well as my general lack of restraint with regard to self-expression, have over time made me better suited than most to see and accept that some of my own behaviors and attitudes, however they are intended, may tend to be problematic under certain circumstances. I may not always see a reason to modify how I act, but I sometimes do. I'm generally willing to at least tone it down here or there as needed. And in any case, I'm truly, definitely, always eager to talk objectively about how the way I act might be affecting someone else, and to work with that person to find a solution to any resulting problems. The solution is often the talking itself, and the resulting mutual awareness and--hopefully--understanding.

When it comes to it, what is so terrible about dealing with that stuff? When you find someone who's equipped to deal, those corrective conversations can be the most fruitful and healing. With folks who can just show up, meet you halfway, take you at your word, and offer their own perspectives with an open heart and an open mind, it's just not a big deal. I have seen the promised land. We can talk to each other, sisters and brothers. Do not fear.

Of course, I have to allow that not everyone is equipped to deal. Or willing. Or... something. Sometimes emotion complicates things. And sometimes two people's stuff seems just too negatively complementary to ever get ironed out between them, even with repeated attempts at open corrective communication. At least in the short term. I really do believe that it all gets healed eventually.

But back to objective douche-y-ness. Once, a relative of mine, who is also in a mutual social subset, sent out invitations to a party at my house. The party in question, a double birthday celebration for her and G, had been hosted by her in previous years, and I had offered to throw it this time. I was waiting for a list from her of the friends she wanted me to invite (it was her birthday, after all) when I got the email invitation with the date, time, and my address, complete with a menu and food assignments. Needless to say, I was pretty upset by this. I saw no graceful way out, as I did not feel emotionally prepared to just let that party happen in that way--it would simply have been too uncomfortable for me. I had wanted to host them, to entertain--not just provide a space, for heaven's sake. What was she thinking?

This of course was one of the Eggshell folks in my life. It had always been pretty easy to spot that she was projecting critical attitudes onto me. She seemed intimidated by me--many of these folks do. She always seemed guarded, and sometimes hostile. But she was a family member--she hosts Thanksgiving!--and I did my best. Up to that point, she had been a social friend mostly of G's. They're all quite a bit younger than I am, as well as much more inclined to enjoy sitting around drinking (G only occasionally), so for the double birthday parties in previous years, along with many other such events, I often either made a short appearance or none at all. It was understood that it just wasn't my scene, and that was fine. But this was going to be my chance to offer something fun back to this group that I could enjoy, too. I'd planned to cook like mad and keep the focus on some great party games I know--on interacting rather than "partying." I figured we could all get to know each other better, and I was looking forward to it. It was not to be.

The message I sent in response to the invitation I'd shockingly received to my own party basically said, wow, I'm really upset by this and I just have no idea what to do next. I said, please call me; we need to talk. I think I asked her why she hadn't called before. I also complained that she used an email invitation format that I find tacky and would never have used--a snarky error, for sure, but it's not like I impugned her moral fabric. Anyway, the next thing that happened was that she canceled the party without talking with me. After that, she told me just how horrible I was to have attacked her like that.

It came out over the following days that she had basically pretended to assume that I didn't want to host the party, because she was afraid to talk with me about it. She never did apologize. So the question for me then became, what the hell do I do now? Did I forgive her? Sure. That's necessary for my own well-being. And I find it tends to be easier when a personality seems this messed up, anyway. But on a practical, gotta-see-her-around level, it wasn't easy to know how to actually proceed--what with not only the lack of an apology, but the ferocious insistence that we were somehow mutually culpable, since my response to her action had hurt her feelings. (By the way, she didn't like my dissing her evite, but she wasn't dwelling on it, either: She was hurt and angry because I was upset. Because I had told her that I was upset.) But besides, it was all just so awkward and embarrassing. Where do you go from there? I mean, I'm pretty clueless about social niceties. Maybe I should have consulted Emily Post. What the hell do you do in a situation like this so that everybody gets to save face? Not in a demanding, petulant way, but sheesh, just in a practical one for heaven's sake. How does one politely proceed?

I'm sure I could have made things easier if I'd thought to suck it up and say, you know, I'm sorry that you were hurt. That was the big lesson/reminder from that one for me, and a huge duh!, not that I always remember to apply it even now. At the time, I was just so flabbergasted that she had perpetrated what appeared to me a clearly, objectively massive faux pas--on the face of it!--and yet would not even begin to approach responsibility for the resulting difficulties. I did not know how to clean up the mess alone.

Things eventually just mellowed with time. I wish her well. I still see her, and I wish her well often, and sincerely. But in this situation and in others like it, even over time, the question still is: beyond forgiveness, what do I do? After something like that, my only option generally seems to be to go away and stop trying to make it work. As one friend sagely and perversely put it, you don't have to join the golf club just because you hate golf so much. I was on eggshells! Why did I try to host her damn birthday party in the first place? G and I put that situation to bed by acknowledging that while she might not be great at being a friend, she's quite cool for a relative. We backed off. I don't know if she likes it, exactly, particularly since G is no longer her pal, but the arrangement does seem to work okay. It's just sad. Lonesome.

So. Does anyone else out there have this problem? It's self-fulfilling. Someone gets over-engaged with what they think I'm thinking. They feel insecure. The projector comes out, and they decide I'm judging them. Then their guardedness makes them say or do something so clueless or hurtful that, in the name of self-respect, as well as the hope of social stasis, I feel compelled to say something about. All that does is "prove" how I'm judging them. Sometimes things improve through communication. Sometimes they don't. I get more and more nervous around people, and somehow (how, for pete's sake?) that only makes things worse.

Then there's the other side of perceived judgment, the spiritual cops. When I went to one friend to share my difficulty about the story I just told as it was happening, she shut me down before I'd even gotten started, glowering at me as though I were poisoning her lunch with my negativity, and then--patronizingly, it seemed to me--reminding me that maybe I needed to forgive. She was pregnant at the time, and therefore possibly somewhat impaired, but I had two issues with this, both of which I decided to just table permanently after this disastrous lunch date: One--as I've been saying-- is that forgiveness, for all its ultimate and immediate rightness and goodness, did not seem to provide me with a road map for how to navigate around these land mines or how to proceed in day-to-day interactions after one has gone off. I'd been hoping to compare notes on that. And two, where's my forgiveness, forgiveness lady? I've been hurt and confounded, and I'm upset. I truly do not wish to be coddled or enabled, but I need a friend, not a spanking. I mean, come one! I see her on her path. I see her struggling. And she did something clueless and fear-based that hurt and embarrassed me! How 'bout a kind word? Even if in my anger I had somehow suddenly forgotten who I am as well as all my spiritual work, even if what sat before you was a fallen shell of a person, an egomaniacal harpy bent on revenge, seriously!--even then, how could your cold sternness have helped? How could it teach forgiveness, or Love, or understanding? What are we coming to?

I understood that I had inadvertently whaled my friend with my intensity, and that she had not been prepared to field it. I apologized, forgave her and let it go. She remains largely guarded around me. Just so pointless and sad. So lonesome.

There's one more aspect of this chronic craziness that I need to unload: Sometimes people refuse to believe I'm being honest when I tell them my side of things. They simply cannot accept that I'm anything other than judgmental. It complicates things that I'm intuitive, I think. Others can tell that I see them, but they fill in their own ideas about what specifically I see. One of the sometimes problematic peripheral characters in my life play actually said to me recently, "You think you see me. You think you know me. And you think I'm mean and sinister." This interesting guy definitely does douche-y, and his behavior has made me uncomfortable and/or unhappy from time to time. He's not what I would call careful with people's vulnerabilities. But I identify with him in his freedom of self-expression and boldness around just saying things. I like that. And we've also been friends! How did he think I missed the rest of him, the 98% that's not douche-y? Or for that matter, the Truth of who he is! And how did he miss seeing me? It's all just so sad and stupid. I wish I could show him how I do see him in this world: sweet, sensitive, too smart for comfort, conflicted and frustrated and striving to be good. So much like me, and--come to think of it--, how I wish I were seen, even through the bitchy moments (which by the way are really not particularly numerous). Why not?

Well, world. Well, brothers and sisters. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I am doing my best. And I do love you all. Fellow students of A Course In Miracles or for that matter any other spiritual discipline, if you've made it this far, by all means, chime in. How do you deal with the seeming gulf between the Truth and these bumps along the road of temporal experience?