déjà vu 2
This month marks the one-year anniversary of a loss for me. I would like to share it with you.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I often include links in reference to past posts or to sites outside of my own that illustrate a point. But never, to my knowledge, have I link to another post that is “required reading” before the current post will be fully understood. Today, I’ll need to do exactly that. Please allow me this diversion from the norm for the sake of telling my story today; I believe that it will be worth the small amount of extra time invested.
That said, you’ll notice that this post is called “déjà vu 2.” As you may have guessed (or remembered), that is because nearly three years ago I wrote a post called “déjà vu.” Please click on the link to read (or re-read) that post before continuing. I’ve added another link to the bottom of the original post, so that you can get right back here in a jiffy when you're done.
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Welcome back!
Now let me tell you about this not-so-fun anniversary I mentioned at the start of this post.
déjà vu
Hello, friends. It's been a while. Rather than spend an undue amount of time explaining my absence, I'll just enjoy the moment of presence and do what I came to do – write.
First, a brief commercial break. I will have you know that I passed the first lemonade stand of the post-Memorial-Day season this weekend and practiced exactly what I preach. Two boys, who I'm guessing were five and seven, were standing street side, holding a torn, brown, cardboard sign with thin, white writing on it – which of course no one could read from their cars. The younger of the pair was calling out passionately to the drivers as they whizzed by (I know this not because I heard him, but only due to the fact that I saw his little mouth working exaggeratedly to form words). He and his sign twisted at the waist with every passing car, as if forced to do so by their sheer velocity. No one was stopping. It was a pitiful sight. Well, in addition to stopping and buying two cups of lemonade, I offered some sound marketing advice, as well: using white poster board instead of the brown cardboard, writing with thick black marker instead of white crayon, and exchanging the screaming for smiling REAL BIG and with teeth (which, as it turned out, were not so many at the moment). They were very grateful, and before running indoors to hunt for the suggested supplies, the older boy offered me a quarter of my money back "for the good advice" (which, of course, I let him keep after complimenting his outstanding manners). For Pete's sake, don't be a whiz-by-er. Make a kid's day. Stop and buy the lemonade!
We now return to our regularly-scheduled programming.
Let me tell you about my new friend Dave. I met Dave about six months ago. We have a lot in common. Graphics and computer skills. Musical abilities. Core beliefs. Youth mentoring.
Dave looks like a younger version of Hugh Jackman. I just thought I'd throw that in there. We do not have this in common. I do not look very much like Hugh Jackman.
But Dave also has quite a bit in common with some other people I have known. People who haven't been very nice to me, I'm afraid. People who, if truth be told, have been downright mean to me.
Dave has the same hair color as someone who recently betrayed me. The rise and fall of his voice is uncannily similar to the same former friend.
Dave has the same career as someone who recently gossiped and spread lies about me.
Dave uses certain obscure phrases that I've only ever heard used by a couple of people in my life – people who have hurt me. Dave goes places those people go, and reads books those people have touted as good reads.
On the flip side, one of the first times Dave and I talked, he told me that I rather reminded him of someone, as well. Dave had heard me singing. He figured out pretty quickly that I was outgoing and talked easily with people. And these things reminded him of someone else who was outgoing and could sing well, someone he'd invested a lot of time into in recent years. In the end, this person had broken Dave's trust in irreparable ways and hurt people that Dave cared about. In short, this person had made Dave's life quite hard for quite a long time.
We both acknowledged, from the very first time we talked, that it was a temptation to avoid getting to know one another altogether. "This guy is too much like the last one who caused me so much pain." Engaging again with someone so similar in so many ways would just be asking for trouble -- opening the door for the painful past to repeat itself. Wouldn't it?
The truth is that Dave is a great guy and a welcome new friend. I enjoy talking with him. I feel excited about possibilities after we hang out. He values my input and I value his. We've started into writing a little music together, and he wasn't afraid to sing in "girl voice" in front of me. I like his sense of humor, and he gets mine. We laugh a lot. I like Dave. I trust Dave.
Brace yourself for this next bit. Trust is a choice.
It's hard to trust new people who are a lot (or even a little) like people who have betrayed our trust in the past. So, yes, it's a potentially difficult choice – but a choice nonetheless.
What's more, basing all new relationships on bad past relationships is irrational, if we really stop and think about it.
Every chair does not give us splinters – even if that one did when we were nine. Will we never sit again?
And that lobster red burn two summers later – the one that had us unable to sleep for days and cleaning skin peelings from our sheets for weeks – is hardly grounds to lock ourselves away in the cellar every time the sun comes up.
There's a line in Anne of Green Gables, where Anne's trusted mentor and friend, Ms. Stacy, has this to say: "Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it." And that is true of new relationships, as well. Each one is fresh, with no mistakes in it.
So, if you are afraid, then go ahead and say so. Decide together to do things differently. Be different, if there are things in you that could use changing this time around. But by all means, do choose to trust again. For to choose otherwise – to live within a self-made fortress of skepticism and fear – is to rob ourselves of the potential for future joy, as well.
gun shy
Some of you will recall that, a little over two weeks ago, I took a trip from Boston to North Carolina. By way of quick summary, this involved driving down and flying back. The trip down, which would already have been long at 16 hours, turned into 27+ hours when the car's transmission overdrive kicked out in the Bronx. This required that we drive all the way back home at low speed in the breakdown lane and with the blinkers on, then switch vehicles, and head out again that night. Mind you, this was all on no sleep.
Well, this past weekend was the reverse version of the trip. The plan was to fly back down to North Carolina to arrive Friday evening, and then set back out early Saturday morning by car for the return trip home. If you did happen to read that previous post, you can imagine how this second trip – a mere two weeks later – might have seemed to me going into it.
I arrived at the airport more than two hours prior to my 3:00 flight. I only had carry-on luggage and had already printed my boarding pass from home, so there was no need to stand in a line at the ticket counter. I went straight to security where, other than my laptop being randomly selected for "testing" with some sort of feather duster, it was uneventful. I was through in less than five minutes. So I bought myself a bottle of water with essence of pomegranate and tangerine, because it seemed like the type of thing people might drink when things were going swimmingly. Then I settled into a chair to read and await boarding.
While waiting (and as had happened many times during the previous two weeks), thoughts about the return drive crept in. As I told you, I feel I made positive choices in handling that fated erstwhile trip. But it still was by no means something I was eager to repeat. So, when my mind turned to consideration of the next day's road travel, I told myself things.
I told myself that it would be another adventure.
I told myself that I was exceptionally resilient and youthful.
I told myself that I was really proving my mettle.
I told myself how much cooler my party story would seem, after tacking on another 18 or 20 hours of travel within such a short span of time.
I'm not sure I quite believed myself.
It was the best I could do.
Somewhere in the midst of telling myself such things, I became aware that it was approaching 2:15 and there was no plane at the gate. My ticket said boarding would begin at 2:30. When 2:30 and then 2:45 rolled around, still without a plane, people began to stir. The LCD display behind the service counter hadn't changed. It still said 3:00. No announcement had been made as to the nature of the delay or the plan for our flight.
Or if there would be a flight at all.
I texted my mother and brother in North Carolina to inform them of the delay and to see if they could dig up any more information on their end. No word. I was in the dark.
Around ten-of-three, a plane taxied onto the tarmac nearby. Still no announcements were made to inform passengers. Eventually, the plane circled around and the accordion walkway protruded to meet it. Passengers exited. Food trucks and luggage trains and cleaning crews swarmed around outside. Finally, boarding began. Even if all went smoothly in the air, we would be 30 minutes delayed in landing.
All did not go smoothly in the air.
Approaching Charlotte, the captain's voice came over the speakers, announcing that no planes were being allowed to land, due to thunderstorms over the airfield. We would have to enter a holding pattern indefinitely. If the airport did not give clearance within 20 minutes, we would have to reroute to another airport.
I started mentally running the numbers. Even if things had gone perfectly, I would only have gotten 12 hours at my brother's place before facing the demanding drive the next morning. That number was rapidly dwindling. And now, there was even talk of rerouting to another airport. Just like the last trip, things were starting off on the wrong foot. Or wing, I guess.
Stop.
Consider my last line in the paragraph above. I said, "Just like the last trip…" It's technically true. The last trip had presented some unforeseen problems. The current trip was likewise presenting some unforeseen problems. Therefore, it seems perfectly legitimate to say that this trip was, in fact, "just like the last trip." Right?
Except that this trip wasn't the last trip. This was a new trip, with its own set of unique circumstances.
By allowing ourselves to think that something in the present is "just like" some past thing, we add the baggage of that past thing to our present. We rob ourselves of experiencing the present for its uniqueness and wonder.
Don't we give in to this all the time?
The food or service at a local restaurant wasn't quite to our liking, so we decide then and there that we will never return, launching into a missive about their ills every time we drive by the place thereafter.
A previous employer took advantage of us. So we start updating our resumé as soon as our new boss asks if we might take on some task that isn't technically part of our job description.
A friend betrayed us. So we choose not to trust the next person fully. Or any future person. Ever.
A past lover became controlling or cheated on us. So we see the horns growing from our current partner whenever they make the slightest move without consulting us. Or we turn any mention of their lifelong friend – who happens to be of the opposite sex – into an emotional upheaval and certain proof that we really should just break up.
But the wonderful truth is that this server is not that server. And this boss is not that boss.
This new friend is not that other friend who hurt us.
This lover is not that abusive one.
While I waited for boarding in the airport, I used the extra time to observe.
A teen girl picked up where she'd left off in a novel, turning pages with the kind of fervor and wide eyes and slack mouth that come with total engagement.
A father got on the floor and played a card game with his kids.
An older gentleman pulled his concerned wife in closer and kissed her forehead, smiling.
And later, as we traveled in circles over Charlotte, I looked down and thought, How many people throughout all of time, past or present, have had the opportunity to witness the awe of a lightning storm -- from above it? Yet there I was, one of them.
We did not reroute. We landed twenty minutes later. My brother was waiting. I got hugs from my niece and nephew upon arrival back at my brother's place. We enjoyed a comfort meal of pork loin and potatoes and pineapple casserole, compliments of mom.
And you know what? While there was no way around the fact that the car trip back was still sixteen hours long, it was smooth sailing, without traffic, construction or other incident. The dog slept peacefully in the back seat. Mom and I listened and sang along to music, from her era and mine. We enjoyed the continuation of an audio book we'd started on the trip down. There were many opportunities for good conversation. We learned more about one another.
We let it be its own trip. And it was a good one.
Every journey in life is its own journey.
Today is not yesterday.
In fact, this moment is not the last moment. It's this one. It's new. It's special.
Let it be.