Although I’m home from our Florida “Benjamin Button” themed journey, I am still reflecting. Spending time with people who have already finished the greater part of their lives and are now reflecting on who they were and what happened has created a lasting impression in my mind.
I guess a by the time you’re 80 you become wiser- you know you will either survive or not and fighting it just is a waste of the moment.
Sweetness is much more important than confrontation, so what does it matter?
My grandparents and my mother in law and Idora (who is Idora?), are for sure living from a place of sweetness and deciding not to view life with “Hi I Hold On To Things” eyes.
I spent most of my days (in Florida?) sitting at a small table in the kitchen with Idora. Idora was a perfect meal mate; she has to chew 50 times (her teeth are not so good anymore) which led to both chewing and eating in silence.
Every once in a while she would look up and stare out the window, shake her head, giggle to herself and say “I’m Old and I’m Black.”
Soon enough, my daughter, Lola, was walking around the house singing to the music only she could hear in her head: “She’s Old and She’s Black..She’s Old and She’s Black…” Then she’d giggle like Doe… (Who is Doe?- is it Idora?)
What I really wonder is, do we ever really see the person standing in front of us?
Or, do we only see our memories of someone or of a situation that is triggered by that person standing before us?
Let me explain: One of the women that works for my mother-in-law got herself all worked up and in a tizzy. You see, years ago her husband suffered from Cancer. He went on a strict diet and wouldn’t allow her to assist him in any way, and subsequently, he also got very thin. The good news is that whatever ailed him went away and he is now in his 80′s and healthy!
Instead being happy that he was well and alive or being happy watching me take the time to prepare my food and think about the choices I offer my children, my mother-in-law failed to see MEE. Instead she could only see her husband and how he isolated her. She was unable to listen to any of the great conversation I thought we shared because she was all tangled up in her own personal fearful and judgmental memories. She was unable to separate the past from present and passed her past poison onto me…
This happens to everyone all the time; we do it in almost all of our interactions and relationships, especially our male-female relationships.
I just wonder, can we ever really see the person in front of us? hmmmm…
Another example is high school reunions. Mine is coming up soon and I wonder, how many of us will be able to see the people that are actually before us rather than the memory of who they were in high school?
Sure, some folks won’t have changed a bit inside, arrested in their emotional development – but most people have spent the past 10 to 20 years stepping up to the plate and stretching our minds and hearts. This created new people, returning to the old world of high school.
Image is also a very interesting thing; some people never look past the mask that is presented. They form an opinion (opinions are NEVER true- they are always JUDGMENTS) of the mask and then tie it to some memory of another situation so that they can’t even hear whatever “convo” is going on around them… They are set off in another direction by the image, because their relationships are based on their own “IMAGE” that they present to the world – rather than their deeper relationship with life.
The lady who couldn’t hear or see me was so caught up in all of the things she was afraid of that every time she looked at me she could only see fear and hear fear (we twist everything we hear when we hear with fearful ears). She felt so rejected by her husband that this rejection sat inside her, turning to anger and then poison… total bummer dude.
