Cuts Both Ways

Tiddleywinks baby, the human imagination is a two-edged sword. If it’s sharp enough, it can cut your life to shreds, too dull and you’ll bore yourself to death. In fact, I believe many ailments and illments can be credited to the imagination. Not just the famous one, hypochondria, which is medically defined as “imaginary ill health,” but to a host of sneakier symptoms as well.

Let’s not panic here folks, I know the sensations are real. The pain is tangible, the throb palpable, I’m just tossing an idea into the ring that perhaps our imagination has more power and control over our lives than we realize…(I wish I could play really scary, ominous music right here to underscore my point).

If wishes were fishes I could ride a horse - wait a minute, how does that Grandfatherly wisdom go? Since I’m wishing a lot right now, I wish I could tell this next story and not make myself look like such a dork. Last week, I bared my soul to you about baring my soul to the seminar group. It all had a happy ending. I left Sunday evening full of hope and spring renewal, having lowered my shield to bond with 50 new people.

In our take-home packets, we were given a list of everybody’s names and contact information and encouraged to stay connected. Peace, love and Kumbaya, Batman, the facilitator did not need to encourage me, for I was ready, willing and able to reach out. I was free, Hallelujah!

When I arrived back at the homestead Sunday evening at the conclusion of the four day intensive, I checked my emails. Something resembling an hour had passed since the group said goodbye, so I really didn’t expect to hear from anybody that soon.

Companion and I took a walk in the waning sun and a neighbor inquired what on earth we’d been up to as we looked “so happy, content, tuned-in and appearing to have more than beans for dinner.” We graciously smiled and thanked her, oohed and aahed over her multi-colored tulips and were invited to participate in a spontaneous celebration of watering with her inaugural rain barrel collection. Eco-friendly, living green, you know, sustainability.

Well, we thought, this experience is already paying off as a neighbor can clearly see how energized we are and we giggled inwardly as a pot of beans simmered on the stove for our supper.

After a deep and sensual night’s sleep, we awoke refreshed and excited to start our day. I checked the emails. When names from the seminar failed to fill our “in box,” I told myself it was too early to hear from anybody and that most of the participants had to return to the “real world” and get straight back to work.

We nurtured ourselves all that day, basking in the afterglow, and on Tuesday, when I still hadn’t heard from anybody, I shrugged it off and reminded myself that many of them lived in other towns and probably hadn’t even made it home yet.

Wednesday, I had to soothe myself a little more. Work, kids, laundry, playing catch-up… I listed a few tasks that might prevent me from contacting new people right away.

By Thursday, the more mature aspect of my personality asked why I hadn’t reached out to anybody yet? After all, I have no children, no corporate job, no mountains of laundry or travel to recoup from. “Because I want them to contact me first,” replied the stubborn, bruised squishy part. “That will make it more special and meaningful.”

The developed voice prodded me further, coaxing me to step an inch out of my discomfort zone, “But if everybody felt that way, nobody would stay connected.” Seeing the value in that logic I agreed, “Fine! I’ll do it.”

In a mood swinging between petulant and insightful, I hunted and gathered 50 cards. One participant had expressed a latent dream to be a rock star, so I found a card that, can you believe this, had rock star boots on the cover? Another wore a lot of faux animal print, so I found a card with a border of leopard print around its edges. I recalled little details about each person and bought stickers that applied. Another woman who had emerged from her cocoon to become a butterfly, well, you get the idea.

Together, with Companion, we divvied up the cards and wrote a note to each person. Then we walked to the Post Office, purchased stamps (50 X .42 = $21.00 just in case you’re curious), and mailed them. That evening, I received my first call from someone in the group. No, she had not had time to receive our card; she took the initiative and I was happy for it.

Until…

Her first question. She asked if I was on Facebook and excitedly told me how she had connected with a bunch of people from the seminar already. Frown. A puff of grey smoke out my ears, sagging shoulders.

Continuing to check the stupid computer, I had to wait until the next Monday to receive our first “thanks for the card” email. In the header, I noticed a bunch of other names listed from our group. A few more notes trickled in and the same thing - I could tell that many people had already written to each other via the internet and not only was I not a part of that, but only a few people responded to our hand-written, decorated and personally licked stamped cards.

&^$#*%(&@!

The pain was soooo deep. Fine, if I’d been hidden away beneath my armor and nobody responded, eat a dookey. But for heaven’s sake, I revealed myself. People stood in the lobby afterwards, waiting in line to talk to ME! They held my hands, asked if we could stay in touch, asked if we could get together afterwards, told me they thought I would be a fun person to hang out with, ETCETERA fricking Etcetera.

I had been on a natural high. If I had revealed myself that much and they liked me, a la Sally Fields, really liked me, then why were they not following up on ideas that they had introduced? It sucks big smelly rotten hairy toad eggs to throw down one’s shield and then be rejected. Why do you suppose I crafted my armor in the first place, huh? Rejection hurts. Duh.

As Brande Roderick (a blonde playboy bunny on Celebrity Apprentice) said in defense of using her beauty over her brains, she “forgooed.” I’m still laughing as I type this. You don’t need to know the end of that sentence or get caught up in the goofy speculation whether I actually watch the show to appreciate the spectacular use of the American language. Is “forgooed” the past tense of foregone?

I was waxing about rejection. Was that the foregone conclusion, the only outcome? Well, I forgooed it as such. What else could it be?

Complaining and forgooing to Sister, she asked me an excellent question that stopped me in my tracks. How many people did I actually want to spend time with from that group? As my word count on this week’s entry climbs higher, I must condense the conversation to its essential point. I observed a radical gap between what I truly desired and what my imagination said I should have.

One day, an acquaintance of mine was lamenting over the phone that she was so popular she was forced to turn down social invitations and although she was sorry, we would have to postpone our date to fit more people in. I’m glad we were not in person, because as she droned on, I used several creative facial and hand gestures to quietly express my distaste for her demeanor and approach. I felt ookey after our conversation and a little sour toward the reshuffling. And here’s the weird part. Even though I mocked her to Companion, telling him I was just toooo popular to dine with him that evening, something inside me wanted to be like her. What the-?

I suddenly wanted to be popular enough to have more social engagements than I could handle. If she was, then I needed to be. (I warned you I was going to come out of this looking Dorky!).

Sister’s question forced me to look at what I really preferred instead of some imaginary goal to keep up with the Smith-Joneses. I realized that my imagination had cleverly set up a requirement that all 50 people must contact me to prove that I had truly been a success. In reality, I liked several enough to stay connected, but what on earth would I do if 50 new people suddenly expected something from me???

I laughed with Sister, telling her that I had already received a few cards in the mail and some more emails and had been invited to various places with the people I really liked. I hadn’t been focusing on the ones that clicked, but instead, pouting over the ones who hadn’t reached out.

Last Saturday, a couple more people stopped by our booth at the Market to say hello, and, not being able to help myself, I asked (trying to assume an air of casual inquiry), “So have you heard from all the people in our group yet?” They laughed and said No, that they had heard from one or two, but had been so involved with getting back to work, dealing with loss and whatsuch that they hadn’t been able to think about anything else but what was on their plates.

I recalled other bits of information. Not everybody who attended the seminar was there for personal enlightenment. Some were barely hanging on, some were going through nasty divorces, some had lost children, some were having major health crises, and some were just plain lost, looking for a lifeline out of the depression.

Not everybody attended with their partner. Not everybody had a partner. One woman was homeless, carless and jobless. Not everybody was happy with their lives and simply looking for a tune-up. Some were trying to stay sober.

I understand why it’s called a punch line, because the lesson punched me in the gut. Question: If I am blessed with so much, why am I allowing my imagination to dictate an order to collect responses from people as proof that I’m valid? Some of these folks don’t have the ink to stamp their own papers, so why did I set up a fail-fail system where I need to get something from people who don’t have it to give? What kind of pathology is that?

If the pattern of writing this blog stays true to form, I expect I’ll discover an answer this week. Uh-oh, do I need to fasten my seatbelt?