Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Depth of Hurt

The Depth of Hurt

Beneath and deep within is a black stone.  A seed, or a pit, no bigger than a pit maybe, but burning like a piece of coal.  Once ignited, like coal, it cannot be put out.  It continues to burn.  It is possible to grow some kind of hard shell to contain it.  It’s affect on the host organism can be insulated.  It cannot be cut out though – only insulated through much effort, discipline and total commitment.

The host can move forward, but retreat is never an option.  Reflection is to be avoided at nearly all cost.  I find that I don’t envy those who can have walls covered with photographs of their past years and those others they shared those years with.  Knowing that I cannot do that without more pain than I know I can tolerate, I don’t have anything to remind me of my past. 

It is possible to live without a limb – an arm, leg.  You can live without eyesight or hearing.  Even if these conditions happen later in life due to accidents, the spirit can revive and overcome.  There are things that can happen that can be more devastation than any of those other conditions.  How is it possible, you say, to have anything more horrible happen than – say – loosing your eyesight?  Loosing a child to cancer.  Loosing a child to suicide.  Loosing any loved one to suicide.

There are many things that can hurt worse than a physical injury – no matter how devastating at the time.  It is far more devastating to loose contact with the mortal and normal world from the standpoint of a mental illness.  Often because in the beginning, the symptoms for unnoticed and therefore uncontrolled until the person’s life is ruined.  Marriage lost.  Job lost.  Family lost.  Sanity lost.  And the person affected can’t figure it out, doesn’t understand, is left isolated and socially condemned.

Often, finding on this condemnation so complete the mentally ill cannot find the road back.  They become so lost even a path with blazes on every tree goes unnoticed.  And because it is their mind that is ruined, as opposed to a limb or a sense, and is therefore not obvious, empathy is nearly impossible by those surrounding them.  Only sympathy is possible and then it is often begrudgingly given.  Noting that sympathy, a more accurate synonym would be pity, is one of the most destructive emotions, or forces, that can be inflicted by one person on another – no matter how well meant.

Sympathy states simply, “I am superior to you and feel sorry for you.  I will help out of, or from, my superior position.”  Whether a person is disabled physically or even mentally, they recognize this as being not only duplicitous, but degrading.  They might be nice about it, even appreciate it on the surface, but honestly inside they are saying, “Fuck You!   And, “Either help me because I need it and you want to, or leave me the fuck alone.  I don’t need your pity.”

The hurt can be so deep, so encrusted with time pushing backwards that at times it seems even possible it is gone.

Then it isn’t, the host – the person surrounding the hurt – feels it again.  It’s there.  The deep knowledge that it is always there, returns.  So, what then …

The Aboriginals say, “Always face the sun, then you will never fear the shadows.”  Maybe that’s an answer.

Dalepeterson.us



Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Guy Next To Me

The Guy Next To Me

When traveling a person must always contend with person who sits next to them on the airplane, or bus or subway, camel, elephant, etc..  Dog sled.  And in front of them, or behind.  Who this person is makes a huge difference in the comfort and dispatch of time during the journey.

You find your seat on the plane.  Whichever one it is, unless you’re a Shah or celebrity and in First Class, you’re cramped.  I’m always cramped and I’m not all that tall or big.  Still, it’s endurable.  Driving the trip would take days, flying cuts it down to hours.  A little bit of discomfort is okay to save days otherwise. 

The plane, taxies around and stuff and shortly you’re at altitude and you can pull out your laptop, get a little work done, watch a movie you downloaded -  whap!  The jerk in front of you has to recline his seat as far as it will go.  Now your laptop is crunched at … like… a thirty degree angle.  You can’t see the screen.  Looking up, you are looking at the bald spot on his head – not a pretty sight.  The thought runs through my head, when this happens, “What does he think, the people behind him disappear when he wants to unfold his belly fat?”

I have a back strategy when this happens.  I bump the back of the seat, doing this … or doing that … every time I bump it I say, “Oh I’m sorry.”  Bump, “Oh I’m sorry.” Bump, “Oh I’m sorry”.  If it’s sleep he wants, either all the periodic bumping is going to get to him, or all of my apologizing.  After a bit, they always grumble something and put their seats back in the upright position.  I can be so annoying in a super-nice way when somebody breaks the rules of travel.

The guy beside, on either side have different sets of issues.  Being in the middle seat – well, middle seat tickets should be twenty dollars less than all the other tickets.  I mean they charge you that much and more for a seat in the Emergency Row because you get more room.  They should charge less if you’re stuck between two other seats.  If you don’t make your reservation at least six months in advance, you will get stuck in the middle.  Don’t know about you, but I can’t predict my life that far ahead.  Two weeks is about my limit.  I ride the middle a lot.

The window seat; I love to look outside and down at the world below, at the clouds … unless it’s a red eye flight.  When the guy next to the window decides to pull the blind down, that upsets me.  I start to get claustrophobic.  “Put it up, put it up!  I gotta see the sky!  Whoah!  Then the guy sitting on the aisle seat goes to sleep.  And he is always like huge.  As soon as I notice that he’s in a deep sleep, I find (for some reason) I have to take a piss.   And I mean it’s really uncomfortable and I have to go right now! 

If, perchance he wakes up, that feeling of immediacy goes away immediately.  And why, staying on this topic for a few words, why does the person by the window – who is generally a woman – always seem to want the whole can of soda.  Knowing that in ten minutes she is going to need the ladies room and both of us between her and aisle are going to have to get up and then wait standing in the aisle until she gets back.

And this is also just about when the stewards come squishing the cart back down that aisle forcing he and I all the way to the back of the airplane to turn around to go back to our seats, just about the time the plane hits turbulence and the seat belt lights go on.

On my last flight we hit some real heavy turbulence going over the Gulf of Mexico.  Why during the worst of it where so many people having to get up and head to the bathrooms?  Right after the pilot came on and said, “Stay in your seats.” ???  There was like a line of them. 

My rules for “The Guy Next To Me”:
1. If you have a weak bladder, buy an aisle seat.
2. If you have a weak bladder, DON’T drink a huge can of soda during the middle of the flight.
3. If you have a bag that won’t fit in the overhead, DON’T TRY TO STUFF IT INTO THE OVERHEAD.
4. If you’re too short to put your bag in the overhead, ask for help.
5. Don’t choose the window seat if you’re afraid to fly.  That seat is for people who LIKE to fly and look out the window.
6. If you’re 200 pounds overweight, don’t choose – or in some way, get out of – using the middle seat.
7. If you’re in the aisle seat, when the plane lands and is ready to deplane, stand up in the aisle immediately so the other people next to you can stretch a little bit.

Dalepeterson.us