I’m doing some cleanup on my iMac’s hard drive, and I ran across this. It’s labeled “..response_blogpost,” although I really think it was an email to a high school friend. Although it cuts off toward the end, it’s an explanation to my friend as to why I panicked at the thought of attending my high school reunion in August 2008, written just a few days afterward.
Hey D:
I often trivialize my life in conversation. Although I have no unusual drama or tragedy in my life, and I consider myself generally blessed, I’ll sometimes say things like:
(When asked where I’m from)
Well, I was born in Virginia Beach General Hospital, and this is as far as I’ve come in 37 years.
(When asked about my job)
I’m 37, and I work at the mall.
Of course, I know that it’s my choice to stay in Virginia Beach / Hampton Roads, and I know that my job is more than just a retail clerk in a mall shop. But I sometimes use self-effacing humor; I guess I always have.
What currently gnaws at my soul has nothing to do with job or status or material success. It has more to do with self-assessment, and I’m just coming to terms with the fact that, for the past 20 years, I have neglected to be who I really am.
It was that revelation that kept me from going to the reunion. I just needed time to work it out in my head.
When the chance came for me to see you and some other folks the night before the reunion, in a setting less immersed in nostalgia, I was grateful for the opportunity. I figured I could handle the smaller dose, and I did. Mostly.
I knew that there were words out there — words that were lurking in the shadows like ninja assassins, waiting for an innocent, well-intentioned conversation to be initiated before they sprung out at me.
The first was a blade in the side:
“Are you still playing music?”
Ouch. Kinda expected that one, but it still stung.
“No. I sold my keyboards back in college.”
Then the sucker punch:
“So what about art? Are you still painting and stuff?”
That one took the wind out of me.
“No, not really. Well, not as much as I like, but I’m trying to start to reconnect with that side of me again.”
The final assessment to my feeble replies was the same for both inquiries:
“Oh. That’s a shame.”
I could take it one time, maybe a few times. It’s only natural to expect to hear these things. But I couldn’t handle hearing them over and over and over again from everyone. And until I heard them last Friday night, I didn’t know just what it was that I was afraid to face.
I was afraid to face myself. I was afraid to see — afraid to accept — that I had neglected to nourish my own soul these past two decades.
I made a couple of bad choices early in life, just after high school, and somehow I got it into my head that I would pay for them the rest of my life. My life unraveled at 21, and I was so emotionally scarred, I just gave up.
I’m compelled to share this for a couple of reasons:
1) It may help to explain my frame of mind - if I seemed dismissive or distant in Summer 2008, this is probably why; and
2) looking at the writing, I can’t really believe I wrote this. Not that it’s great or anything…but it’s a fair sight better than what I feel I’m capable of doing now.
Then again, that (and this whole post, for that matter) could be explained away by the fact that it’s currently 3:12 a.m. as I write this.
