The rain started just after the dog and I finished our walk (fortuitous – this usually plays out the other way around). I’ve never been one to believe in fate or divine timing – I suppose I’ve always just thought of coincidence as coincidence. Though like most people, I find many instances to pause and say, “hmmm, that’s weird, I was just thinking about that…” Usually, this manifests in countless awkward moments like the neighbor walking out the front door just as my dog is shitting on her lawn, or traffic picking up just as I approach the intersection… you know, all of those moments when you utter, “of course!” under your breath. But every once in a while, these coincidences seem to have a deeper, more cosmic feel.
The other day I had written a post called Drivel. At some point in that writing and thinking, I was referencing my approach to memory as a way of honoring the self and others. That night, a writer I follow on Twitter posted a quote from Sophia Loren, “I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.” Hmmm, that’s a little of what I was getting at – how did they know?
This morning, as I was contemplating the day’s blog post, this blog post, I was mulling over three ideas… I had passed a house being rehabbed on our morning walk and began thinking about a woman who had gotten in the habit of moving and rehabbing homes – she was good at making places look like a home but maybe struggled with the interpersonal aspects of building an emotional home. I’m on the opposite end of that spectrum, I struggle to decorate, but place a high value on the people in my home. The second thought I was contemplating was wanting to wake up in a different city. For some reason I was thinking about my last trip to Asheville. I think this was influenced by a dream in which I was living in a city (maybe Philadelphia). The third thing I was thinking about was how quiet my life is (literally quiet) compared to when I have company and the tv is frequently on or someone is talking (which is the current situation – I have guests for the week). More specifically, I was thinking about what a shock it might have been for my ex to be living with someone after having been alone for two or three years… It’s easy to grow accustomed to the independence and maybe resent the intrusions on one’s solitude. I sometimes wish we had better conversations about that. She would say she needed time alone, and not understanding, I would ask what that looked like. The response was always, “just half-an-hour after work,” but now having lived the way I’ve lived these past few years, I suspect it was more complicated than that.
Not quite sure if that’s what I wanted to write about, I opened my LinkedIn notifications (because I scroll social media to fill in the blank spaces the way people say ummm). A writer / nonprofit guru I follow posted a new piece with a title that begins “Hyper-independence as a trauma response…” This was my, “ummm, that’s strange – I was just thinking about hyper-independence” moment. I struck out on my on as a response to a difficult situation… and it all makes sense in the context of attachment theory. Sometimes, when faced with overwhelming disappointment in the world (the notion that we can’t trust people to walk with us), we respond with the almost childlike folding of arms, pouting utterance, “fine, I’ll just do it myself.” I don’t know if this is a good or bad response, but it is a response and I sometimes wonder how such a response conditions us for future responses.
Yesterday I walked into to town to have breakfast with my brother and his family. As we talked I shared that I’m afraid I’m becoming a crank. I get mad at the jerks driving 50 in the 25 on pedestrian heavy weekends. I don’t find myself joking around and laughing nearly as much as I used to. Secretly, I was thinking about how this is a potential byproduct of isolation and hyper-independence (though that wasn’t quite the phrase I was thinking of). When one spends the bulk of their time on their own doing whatever it is they wish, it can be easy to begin to believe that the rest of the world is in our way. It’s easy to be “put out” when one lives a life with little compromise.
…
I’ve lost my train of thought – not that it was going anywhere. QVC is on in the other room and two women are talking incessantly about the beautiful golds and reds and greens of holiday decorations. Peppermint and icy blues and illumination and everything is wonderful and durable and gingerbread fantastic. I can’t tune it out and I think my head is about to explode. Aside from becoming a crank, I feel as though my brain has broken or changed. My memory feels shot my head sometimes hurts. I’m much more easily overwhelmed by too many distractions as though I hear everything and can’t process it all. Noise and interruptions throw me off more than they used to and I just feel dumb. People (co-workers and the guys at the bar) assure me I’m making perfect sense, but it doesn’t feel that way. I’m starting to feel like Kafka’s bug in Metamorphosis or Hal Incandenza in Infinite Jest, where the internal monologue might make sense, but you’re speaking complete gibberish to the outside world.
I don’t know what to do with any of that – aside from stop and find some quiet away from the crinkle of the cereal bag, the prop plane above, the heart-stopping fabulous trees being sold on QVC.