THINKERS WHO TANK
What I love about people who assume A LOT, is that talking to them will allow you the chance to explore possibilities you have never even thought of. They will twist, turn, make up a version of anything they can, as long as they have an audience to share their story. If Disney Studios ever needed more ideas, these are the people they should definitely consult. However, what I hate about the ‘assumers club’ is that they will have you reduced to the lowest of scum that society can ever see, and they will do it without thought to truth, fact or consequence. Maybe their actions are derived from pleasure or they have become so disillusioned from watching too many soap operas, they somehow lose the ability to differentiate fact from fiction. These are the people who, when combined with someone like the Gossip Queen, can put any social network to shame.
They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another. They are more than fully capable of taking any morsel of information and then coating it with another ten layers of inaccuracies just to make sure they are heard. Very often, they can even be mistaken for friends, especially when they smile at you and hug you goodbye, and you think, “this is nice, I have someone who cares for me”. What we do not see is how their mind is constantly at work about the assumptions they can share with you and about you. Telling them “something is private” does not mean you are entitled to privacy, instead it means you have something to hide and it is their right to pile it with as many stories as they can. For people who can think so much about what is happening in someone else’s life, one would think their own lives are close to perfection. Wrong.
Be it from spending too much time listening to stories and conjuring up some more or making even more assumptions about their own lives and the way things are ‘supposed’ to be, these are people who fail to face reality if it whacks them on the head. And because they go around creating so many stories, their own lives are filled with misunderstandings, but of course, they do not see it this way. Failure to understand things clearly in their world only means more assumptions. Take for instance, the dirty old pervert down the road living in a house with two girls who have probably only just turned eighteen. How can such a thing be allowed in society? He must be spending so much money on the girls to keep them as mistresses. He must be doing something illegal to get all that money, in the first place. What does he need to do with two girls? He must be at least 60 plus, how can he even keep up with them? Oh yes, so many assumptions. So many thoughts.
It goes on and on. Until you find out because you are told to your face, on Father’s Day, that the girls are his daughters and they have only recently moved in with him since the death of their mother. Which makes me wonder even more, Dad. Are people so bored with their own lives that they need to make someone else’s life more interesting?
There is the other famous set of assumptions we drive ourselves to when we catch wind that someone is sick. Maybe it is cancer. When is she dying? Why is her hair like that? Do you think she will die in a hospital or at home? If she is dying, how do you think the marriage is? Maybe it is falling apart already. Maybe the cancer is from all the wrong things she did. I wonder how many cigarettes she smoked. Maybe she drank a lot too. Let us not forget all those men she must have been sleeping with before she got married. Or maybe it isn’t cancer. Maybe it is AIDS. Maybe they both, husband and wife, have it.
Sigh. So very entertaining and yet so very aimless. There are some people who are so used to having assumptions made about them, they sometimes joke that it is rather flattering that people can take that much time out of their day to think and talk about them. The “assumers club” does not need a gathering date or time, they are able to do it from anywhere they are, be it lunch, dinner, wedding or funeral. If for an hour, they do not create an assumption about someone else, something so very terrible will happen to them. At least, that is what they believe. Where can you find members of this prestigious club? Apparently, anywhere and everywhere. As elite and as exclusive as they would like to think they are, they aren’t that special. They may never realize the inaccuracies of what they share, or even have the courage to correct the versions they have spread about you, but there are only so many stories you can share about a person before someone else makes up another story about you.
SHINING IMPERFECTIONS
January 10, 2011
Someone recently asked if everything was going okay between Bruce and I, because they had not seen us together in quite awhile. When I said, we have not fought and we have just been busy with our own work schedules, she wanted to know how to keep a relationship free from fights or more appropriately ‘misunderstandings’. Honestly, and I speak for myself, this is a feat you just cannot achieve. If you have figured this out differently or know someone who has then please let me know, Dad?
Brain surgery or not, Bruce and I have our moments too. Just yesterday, Stubbly and I had him saying, “Babe, you have me banging my head again.” What happened was, I laid down for a nap because Stubbly was intent on acting up, then woke up with an even further intent of being in a really bad, okay, foul mood and taking it out on guess who?
It is easy to think your pain encompasses the whole world and to go sit in a corner, whimpering like a wounded puppy. It is one thing when your partner does not make any attempt to grasp what you are going through or when he keeps going at you like wanting to win the next Constant Critic Of The Year Award, but it is a whole different thing when you visibly see and feel your best friend reaching out to you and for you. You see, there is just not many of his kind around and when you cannot put your pain aside and see this amazing person in front of you, you are dragging yourself down even further. Yes, he is fully capable of driving you up the wall, sometimes.
Bruce has some episodes of “be back in a bit” and that means a good five hours or more with the guys, without calling to say he will be late, but guess what, I have my share of constant episodes too. I sometimes persist on issues that do not need dwelling on, I get so far ahead of myself that I cannot remember what the starting point was and I can a be a horrible listener. Right, please stop rolling your eyes, Dad.
I think that being in recovery for whatever surgery does not mean, lie down and behave like the whole world is on your shoulders. I have found this time dotted with little opportunities to do other things, like finding a new hobby, cleaning up things I previously put off, remembering that my body can and will tell my mind to slow down, getting my priorities in order and most of all, appreciating the ones who are with me in this constant fight of bad days.
When I first came home after surgery, I could not make it through reading, writing and talking for more than an hour. Everything hurt. Bruce was one of the first to spot the change but never pointed it out in any way that would bring me down. Another friend also noticed the way my right hand had severe problems gripping things like a mug or jar but nobody laughed and said, “Look! Baldie is dropping things again.” You do not need to be a genius to know that some people can be very hurtful.
My imperfections were shining bright and yet these are some of the few people who had their arms open wide for me. It has been less than six months and I have come a long way since then, but I would be lying to myself if I said I did it on my own. I was anything but alone.
We are so accustomed to the comforts of “I cannot”, “I do not want to” and “it is too difficult” that we forget to realize when we stop doing things for ourselves and expect others to dance around us, we are not achieving greatness by authority. We have made ourselves weak. Most of all, we are taking the best out of the people we love and using them for things they are not meant to be doing.
So, there will be a few hiccups. A loud word or two and some very hard stares. But in the words of Sam Keen - “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” There are very few, too few people like these around, hold on to them and love them back. Sometimes, that is all there is to it.
I wi
sh you, Dad, as with everyone else, arms to hold you for when you too have moments of shining imperfections.
I UNDERSTAND
You know Dad, at the rate some people use these two words so freely, I sometimes want to hit a pause button, roll on the floor with laughter and then listen to what they have to say next. Here you are pouring your heart out, not because you want their pity or because you want them to provide you with a detailed explanation about the way the world operates, sometimes you talk just so you know someone is listening. Even if the person turns around and says, I cannot imagine what you are going through or they stay silent and offer you assurance with a much needed hug, it is great. Chances are eight out of ten people who use this phrase occasionally have no clue whatsoever about what you have told them or how you feel in your present situation. For instance, they do not understand the excruciating painful sensation you feel during a lumbar puncture and the doctor performing the procedure very ironically tells you, “it will hurt, just a little bit”. I have a needle being stuck into my spine, can anyone please define “a little pain”?
How many people would actually be able to understand the stigma that comes with a rare disease? So few people are even aware about the disease that when you do talk about it, all you get are raised eyebrows and laughter, amidst whispers of “she must be crazy”. Then of course there are the physical aspects of a rare condition, the constant tiredness, the way it sometimes develops into other conditions, related or otherwise, such as blood disorders, reverse sinus thrombosis, hair loss that could put any balding sixty year old man to shame. So when someone says, “I understand” and you expect them to realize the nitty gritty of a rare medical condition you have never even wished for in the first place, do not expect a lot. Very often, a person uses this phrase to seem friendly or so you get the impression that you do have someone who cares.
As crass as it may seem, I think the phrase carries far more weight when the person saying it to you has gone through at least a little of what you have, if not most parts of it. Otherwise, the words “I understand” are just a cliche phrase that no longer means much. Am I being arrogant? Maybe. But I will rather be deemed arrogant or snobbish than to have the false impression that someone actually understands what I am going through when instead it can be likened to a situation where I say jelly and they think cake. I know Dad, it may seem like I am reading too much into the issue but think of it, how does a single non-medical practitioner tell you how much pain you are supposed and not supposed to be having during childbirth? If you have not experienced something, of course you can give it thought and you will be able to place overall emotions such as sad, happy, worried but to say, “I understand”, is stretching the truth a wee bit too much, don’t you think so?
There are some people who enjoy using this phrase so they can get into your head, and I am not referring to a psychiatrist, to figure out the different incidences in your life. Maybe, once they know everything that has happened in your life, they can figure how you are supposed to feel, here’s a thought. What is so wrong with being an individual who does not have the same experiences as someone else and hence reacting differently to a situation that other people would? Not everybody wails at funerals. Some people wail at weddings. My first lumbar puncture was greeted with so much confidence, I insisted on going back to work the very next day, medical leave or not, that is until I walked in and spent the next one hour puking my guts out while waiting for someone to send me home. We all react differently, that is a given. We do not have to understand everything that comes our way.
We may want to know what happens to people we love, we may even read up on it, to know more but to understand every aspect of it when it has not happened to us, that is a task not all of us can begin and in some cases should not attempt. Of course, there are professionals who know what to say and when to say, which I think is a far better option than forcing the ultimate, “but you are supposed to feel this way” or “you must react like this and not like that”. If we all reacted exactly the same way to the same situation, the soap opera industry would have fizzled out years ago and psychiatry could have ended up being obsolete. After all, if emotions are that textbook, we could just buy a book that had a title similar to, “How To Feel ... 101”. Why bother with conversation? Sometimes, I think, the certainty of an “I do not know” is far better than a vague “I understand”.
THE PROCRASTINATOR
If you ever needed to know a sure way to fail in something you want to do, there is a definite ingredient you can add to your recipe and fail you will. What is this potent, ruthless ingredient you ask? It is procrastination. People the world over preach about how having a “seize the day” mentality yet come no where near to practicing it, because they appear to be completely settled in the comfort zones they have formed in their minds. What am I rambling on about? Think about it, Dad. How many people you know think of that phone call they “should have” made or something they “should have” said or even the places they “should have” gone. The tone is always filled with regret, coated with sadness and lined with guilt. We blame fate saying it was unkind, that God was teaching a lesson in appreciation. Yet how many of us can honestly say we truly seize each day we live?
When faced with the option of doing things immediately, we comfort ourselves by thinking that we have more time. Why rush around doing stuff? Yes, procrastination is not about setting too many goals for yourself and realizing at the end of the day you are so spread out, you cannot even breathe. Oh no, procrastination comes from the ability of not doing things right now, things that are staring you in the face and yet you smile, walk away knowing that you can get to it later. How does a procrastinator become an expert? I think it is by practicing with smaller, non-emotional issues at first, before things become messy. Maybe it starts in a child who waits until 11:00 p.m. on Sunday to get his homework done for school that starts on Monday at 7:00 a.m. Maybe it lies with the mother who knowingly postpones clearing medicines away from a shelf that her child can reach. Maybe it even starts in the father who keeps telling himself that there will always be a “prize giving” session to go to at school.
Yes, there are many ways it can start but only a few ways it can end, and none too well. Ultimately, we become so incapable of making a decision at the spur of the moment, each choice or situation that calls for a choice becomes a waiting game. Days are filled with the words, “Let us wait”, “We will see”, “Not now”, “Maybe later”. The words “Yes”, “No”, “Sure”, “Now” seem so foreign. Sometimes, being forced to make a decision on the spot can be almost the same as having heads roll off their sockets. Yes, we actually make it that difficult when we make procrastination our best friend. Let us of course remember the neighbour, who sees the grey clouds rolling, she hears the thunder bellow and says, “I will take in the clothes, in a bit”. Of course, it starts to rain heavily in a few minutes, she cannot step out to take in the clothes. When the rain lightens to a drizzle, she goes out, brings the clothes in, then placing them in the machine, washes them a second time. So much for water and energy conservation.
There are of course those ever important letters and emails we each need to write, everyday. And daily, we assure ourselves we can make the letters even better, if we just wait one more day. Most times, we are given this fabulous, “one more day”. Do not be too sure of it. Keep putting it to the test and you may just prove how some people actually run short of “one more day”. Procrastination often develops into another characteristic as well. We become content with the way things are, not only do we stop asking ourselves about how we can improve them, we refuse to accept the challenge of change when it is offered. Why should we change when there is the possibility that things and people are capable of changing for us? Yes, let us sit back and see how that works out in our favor. Complacency works well in the beginning but just like procrastination, we only enjoy such comforts at the start.
We have more time to snooze. We can have longer dinners with frien
ds. We can be out of the house everyday with different people doing things that are not required of us. After a while, we begin to see how far back we have allowed ourselves to fall from others who started at the same time. We start to question how they got ahead and we did not. We become annoyed. Jealous even. The children are grown up and they do not have prize giving sessions anymore. If anything, they do not even ask you to come around as much. Friends have moved on with other friends. People are changing. Things around us are changing. We can no longer keep up. What is happening? What are these new waves of emotion that are bringing about a sensation of loneliness and bitter thoughts with it? Truth be told, we have no one to blame. No situation to curse. We got to where we are all by ourselves, the minute we allowed procrastination to come and sit with us.
MY GRIEF, MY GOD
Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out Page 13