So I’m sitting in my
car at 9pm at night, driving back through the cold, dark forest that leads to
Mendooran after the night of merry madrigals that is my choir rehearsal. It
occurs to me that I have not blogged in a while, almost a year to be exact, and
I think I have been quite selfish. Many people enjoyed reading what I had to
say and I stopped writing. You people are telepaths right? If you want to know
my thoughts just come on in to the scaryland that is my brainscape.
I have had several
things over this period of time that have been worthy to post about, but for
whatever reason my enthusiasm fell away and it became a maintenance job to blog
regularly.
Now as I’m here
driving I’m thinking to myself its time to get back into it and for some reason
tonight on my own in the car I have an excellent stream of consciousness
happening, so out comes to trusty recording app on my iPhone.
Today’s blog is about
Resilience. Now, this is a big buzzword in the current educational climate.
Resilience. Just read it. Now think about what it means to you. With bullying
seemingly on the rise globally, or becoming epidemic, as the mass media would
have us believe, it is leading to a definite increase in problems in kids everywhere, even at my school, both Primary and Secondary. At times it is a really unpleasant
environment with many kids just plain unhappy. Unfortunately for me I’m one of
those empathetic sorts that take on other people’s moods easily. So when
everyone around me is negative and/or upset I tend to join them. So what I try
and do, both within classrooms and in the playground is to try and make people
happy. That’s just the way I’m wired.
We are now explicitly
teaching kids in schools that you have to have resilience and along with that
is self-esteem. To have the two is like having a glowing ball of energy within
you sustaining you, which expands into a Harry Potteresque shield protecting
you from the incoming bad stuff.
To be honest though,
when I relate my story to the kids, I honestly don’t think I developed
resilience until about half way through Year 12. Now I think about it more, so
many wrong decisions I made in High School were as a result of avoiding bullies
or trying to save face in front of my peers, as I felt pressured to conform to
their norms.
Case in point: Year
9/10 Music. I shouldn’t have done it. I had no real talent in Music. I could compose
a little, I could sing, but that didn’t help me and I just ended having a
really shit 4 periods per week. The main reasons I picked Music were that I
wanted to become better friends with some of the kids in Music (I know right,
go back in time and slap myself) and that I actively wanted to avoid Drama
because of a bully in that class. Having taught Drama now for 2 years (making
up for lost time much?) I can safely say I would have enjoyed it and probably
been quite good at it. But at the time, the idea of subjecting myself willingly
to 4 more periods with this bully was a no brainer.
Now that I think a
little more about it, when I had my big epiphany in Year 12, that “Hey, I’m not
going to be seeing these people like EVER again in 6 months” moment along with
the “Fuck those guys I like myself the way I am” revelation, things finally
started looking up. I found self esteem, that inner spark was allowed to catch
fire, and I developed resilience against anyone that wanted to bring me down.
Granted it was 4.5 years into High School, but better late than never right?
Nowadays, I’m 29 (yikes…). Call me ‘fat’ and I’ll be like “Yep.” (Pats belly).
Call me ‘gay’ and I’ll be like “Der.” (Shows rainbow tattoo), call me ‘stupid’
and I’ll cop to that too. I admit I have no knowledge of sports, or cars, or
politics or particle physics… I don’t know any of that shit!
I see the kids in my
school and everything gets to them until some of them start to fray at the
seams. Its heartbreaking that I can’t just give them some of my self esteem to
give them a boost, or protect them from the onslaught of negative thoughts and
feelings with my magical resilience bubble.
However, for as strong
and resilient as a person that I am, I can still be wounded. For example, at
work, most people are used to me being very loud, very extroverted, and very
gregarious. Perhaps annoyingly so at times. Yet when I’m having a down day, or
even just a flat day, where I don’t talk as much or keep more to myself,
everyone seems to notice. Last week in 2 days 5 different people came up to me
to ask me what was wrong, I seemed depressed, I “wasn’t myself”. One lady
assumed something had happened to my Mother… I brushed them aside with
assurance I was fine, just being pensive. I will admit when I get pensive I get
more introverted and like to absorb myself in thought. Why do people assume
that just because one day my flame is turned down a little (and no, this isn’t
a Gay reference) that my Mum has died??
I then began to ponder
further, why have I been so flat lately? I’m not depressed, I don’t think that
its actually biochemically possible for me to get depressed as (ooh, kangaroo)
I’m sure my neurons are perpetually soaked in serotonin… But I don’t know,
lately I’ve been just a bit low and flat and I finally put my finger on it.
Someone got inside my protective shield and slipped a knife in me,
metaphorically speaking. This person wounded me and I haven’t been able to pick
myself back up.
I’m not going to name
names or use gender pronouns, but this person really kicked me in the guts
emotionally. They came along when I was feeling pretty low and then they chose that
point to drop another tonne of emotional shit on me. Now this person and I, who
I thought were quite close, have lost what we had. It wasn’t even a fight,
something spectacular that culminated in the loss of a friendship (love you,
Joanna); it was the fact that my presence became offensive to them. No
warnings, no “hey, you’re being a dick cut it out”, no “oh hey can you stop doing x, y, z” just “I’ve had enough, I need a break from you”.
Wow. How do you raise
your resilient shield to that? How do I stop being me? I didn’t respond, I left
and dissolved into thought but I’ve finally come to a conclusion as I sit here
and talk to myself travelling through dark forests at 100 km/h. I was entitled
to reply, I was entitled to get angry. But I couldn’t. I was stunned. I was
hurt. Now, almost two months later, I’m still thinking on it. About what was lost
and in particular how they other person probably doesn’t even know how this has
affected me, or just simply doesn’t give a shit. They tell me to suck it up, get
over it etc. etc. like I’m not allowed to have feelings or to be hurt.
Why the fuck not? Why
do I have to always be strong? Why can’t I dissolve into a teary mess or have a
rampaging bitch fit if the mood strikes? Why aren’t I entitled to that? It’s
not masculine? Like I give two fucks about that in my limp-wristed world. You
shouldn’t say harsh truths to friends? Well, pretty sure this friendship is
irreparably harmed… I might have said something I would end up regretting? Ha!
I regret saying nothing; letting them say their peace and acting like
everything was resolved. Right now I am wallowing in regret!
It comes back to
Resilience once again. This wound still stings. But I carry on. I have strength
to continue, and the continued barbs from this person are harsh, but I carry
on. This person, I don’t know why, but they seemingly can’t be happy for me, or
let me enjoy success or recognition. Every time I get something to feel good
about it’s immediately trodden upon. Why? Why do that to a friend?
The final answer is I
guess we’re not friends. What we had is now dead and buried and what we’ve made
since is ugly and sterile. I’m not going to bow to this person’s criticism; I
am not going to let their scorn weigh upon me. Hopefully by writing this I have
allowed some processing to occur and the healing can begin. I doubt the person
I am writing this about will read this, but if they do, please know that it's not within me to hate. I miss what has been lost but I don’t think that we
can hope to continue on as we were, if you want to discuss new terms of
friendship, however, I am open to this.
Final thought to my readers. Go
about your lives secure in the knowledge that you are an awesome person who is
loved. You are a child of the Universe with as much power and potential as you
can envision. Exude positivity like a palpable aura and turn away all the
negative stuff people throw your way. If you get a person, like I have in both past and present, that
seems intent on your destruction, turn their negative thoughts and emotions
away and replace them with love for yourself. Be resilient.
End rant.
No comments:
Post a Comment