The Paralysis of Fear

I found myself in an uncomfortable position today.  

A couple came into my workplace.  The young man was Caucasian, the young woman, Asian.  Her demeanour was stereotypical: quiet and submissive, soft-spoken when she spoke at all.  He impressed me as the kind of guy who lives in his parents' basement until an embarrassingly advanced age; the type who has no real power of his own; the sort of dweeb who, if a member of a Christian denomination, gets into missionary work because he subconsciously craves a power and authority that he has not earned.  

I paid them little mind as they browsed, but, when they came to my service area, I couldn't help but notice the way he spoke to her.  It's the way one speaks to children when they have expressed a desire for something expensive and trendy.  

Are you sure that's what you want?  
Are you absolutely positive?

Except his tone seemed less inclined to provoke consideration of choices than to convey the message that she was incapable of making decisions on her own.  If anyone ever spoke to a daughter of mine that way, I would have to fight the impulse to knock his teeth down his throat.  And I would kick the crap out of any of my sons who dared to treat a woman that way.

I was starting to see red, but I felt impotent.  I really wanted to say something as I witnessed this infantilizing behaviour disguised as support.  I really did.  But what?

Why do you let him talk to you that way?
She's an adult, not a child.
Stop belittling her.
Darling, you're allowed to have a voice.  

In the end, to my shame, I remained silent on the subject.  I did my best to address my remarks to her, since she was the one driving the sale and would doubtless be the one using the purchases. More than that, I felt uncomfortable about doing.  

Something about their interaction, in retrospect, is giving me the willies.  I hope she finds the strength to ensure that the relationship becomes more equitable.  I hope that he can accept her growth.  And I hope that she has the courage to do whatever is best for herself, if worst comes to worst.  

Ross, Larche, Gevaudan

It's hard to say what hits home the hardest about the recent tragedy in Moncton.  As a Canadian, as someone with family ties to the Maritimes, as the sister of an RCMP constable and the mother of a son also in uniformed service, there are so many layers to the sadness that connect me to these unthinkable events, but I think what makes it hardest is the immediacy of it all.
It is easy to admire military veterans who served in the great conflicts of the past, in part because those events are remote from us in both distance and time.  How can it be any less admirable to know that your life is at risk every time you go to work, and yet go anyway because it is the right and necessary thing to do.
So I just want to say "thank you" to all those heroes who quietly work to keep us safe everyday.  God bless you and the work you do.

"Mean bone": forgiveness is a heavy burden

"She doesn't have a mean bone in her body."

I heard someone say that the other day, and my initial reaction was, "that's nice".  But it's been niggling at me, as random overheard comments sometimes will, and my reaction to that now is succinct.

Bullshit.

They used to say that about me, years ago, that and all the other truisms that mean the same thing.

Wouldn't say boo.  Wouldn't hurt a fly.  Big pussycat (or teddy bear).  Heart made of marshmallow fluff.  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I actually believed it about myself.  Central to my image of myself was the affirmation that I was a kind person.  All through high school, it was easy to believe.  I was well-liked, if not popular.  I didn't have the right clothes, go to the right church, participate in the right activities for that.  And I liked geeks better than jocks.  Kiss of death for '80s high school popularity right there.

Even when I left home for university, I believed it.  And then I met him.  I had gone to the fall formal with a group of friends, the only one without a date, but that didn't seem to matter.  I was sitting on the sidelines when my friend Jocelyn came over with her date and invited me to come over to their table to meet, as she put it, "some single guys".  That was how I met Greg and Mike and, well, let's just call him JP.

We made awkward small talk as a group, and Jocelyn and her date left to dance, and JP invited me to dance, as well.  Finding him attractive and engagingly awkward, and admiring the courage it had taken to ask me, I assented.  We ended up dancing together for the rest of the evening.  He was everything my romance-novel-reading soul could ask for.  Tall, blond, devastatingly handsome, incredibly intelligent, romantic, thoughtful, a great kisser.  I fell, and I fell hard.  I was in love, real love, not merely high school infatuation, for the first time in my life.  Or at least, that was how I interpreted it. 

I spent the next while on a cloud, even when I couldn't see him as often as I would have liked.  As a romantic young woman will, I was sure that he felt about me just as intensely as I did about him.  Maybe he did, but I imagine that I will never know. 

Then it happened.  It was probably just bad timing, catching him at a bad moment, but I telephoned him and he blew me off, sounding testy, saying "shouldn't you be studying, goddammit".  Well, I had called him because I was finished my homework for the nonce, and I was feeling somewhat isolated, since my friends had all gone out to the movies, for which I did not have the funds.  Instead of making allowances for his bad temper, I took it personally.  Very personally. 

I spent the next two hours composing a four page letter.  Four single-spaced, closely written pages.  Full of every insult and slur I could think of or create.  I attacked his origins, his birthplace, his ancestry, and I laboured long and lovingly over my descriptions of the heartache I suffered because of him and his behaviour.  I don't remember much of the details of the letter, but I do remember calling him a "blue-nosed bastard" and a "Cape Breton conman".  To use twenty-first century parlance, I flamed him but good.  I think the only area I did not attack was his sexual competence, and that was chiefly because a) we hadn't gotten that far, and b) I had no standard of comparison. 

I then signed it, sealed it, and delivered it by sliding it under his dormroom door where he would be sure to find it when he returned from wherever he was out to.  Then I went to bed and slept the sleep of the self-righteous.  I awoke a couple of hours later to the sound of something being slid under my dormroom door. 

It was his response.  Even drunk, sarcastic, and hurt, two things came through.  First, he was disappointed, because he had seen in my "china doll pureness" some form of redemption for himself after a devastating end to a previous bad relationship. (Heavy burden for anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old romantic, to be someone else's redemption.)  Second, he forgave me.  (Forgiveness unsought, another heavy burden.) 

I couldn't see it then, but looking back, I am in awe at how maturely this twenty-year-old boy handled my childish tantrum, and my subsequent course of action, which could not have been easy for him to handle -- such truly stupid choices as dating his best friend with the intention of destroying him for the "crime" of introducing me to JP (which backfired on me because said young man saw it as an opportunity for revenge on JP's behalf). 

Not only did he keep forgiving me, but he also kept pursuing me, for the rest of that year and the next, whenever he found the courage in the bottom of a bottle.  I wanteed to take the redemption I was being offered, but the burdens of guilt and shame, combined with the blows I had inflicted on my own self-image and self-esteem, kept me from reinstating the relationship.  That, and resentment of the fact that he only seemed capable of approaching me when he was well, traveling under full sail.  Now I realize that he was inoculating himself against the pain of further rejection. 

When I finally realized what I had done and was trying to do, I was devastated.  It's true what they say, that revenge can destroy the one seeking it.  I am living proof.  I have since done my best to rebuild my soul, but it is a haphazard and patched thing, full of scars and pitfalls.

But I have digressed somewhat.  My point is, if the "nice" person I was and try to be can harbour such potential for darkness and meanness, anyone can.  I believe that everyone has a "mean bone".  We can only choose not to indulge it. 

JP, wherever you are, I hope you are well.  I hope your soul is intact.  Our stories are linked, making you a part of me.  I hope that you have found happiness commensurate with your past suffering.  While our story does not have a happy ending, I have found one, at least for now.  I hope you do the same.  They say God has a special openness to the prayers of sinners.  I hope so.  This my prayer for you.