My fear of being real, of being seen, paralyzes me into silence. I crave the touch and the connection, but I'm not always brave enough to open my hand and reach out. This is the great challenge: to be seen, accepted, and loved, I must first reveal, offer, and surrender.
Anna White Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
Possibly controversial thought: people fear trusting so much, they forget how terrifying it is to be vulnerable. Whether to "wrong" or "right" people only dictates the fallout, less so the emotion.
So perhaps the most potentially damaging combination that could arise from this premise, is when someone just can't seem to help from trusting the "wrong" people and are as vulnerable to them as they are to "right" people. And we know it happens; children are groomed by family & close friends, the elderly are taken advantage of by their family & caregivers, and quid pro quo is used as often to characterize sexual coercion in the workplace as it is political & capitalistic favors.
Sometimes in popular media & elsewhere, these people are characterized by similar-sounding labels:
"Kind, gentle soul who loved everyone and did their best for those around them."
"Caring, empathetic person who just wanted to help."
"The kind that has faith in all people."
And if you're watching certain kinds of popular media, usually either jaded to the point of the ludicrous, or just generally toxically bigoted, they'll spin it like this:
"Ready-made victim."
So why is it that as I look back on my life, I want to put myself squarely under that last label?
That's a rhetorical question. My reasonable, rational side knows that I have no control over others, really, though I may hope to have some influence in the ways that matter. I know that I can only be me, I can only be the person who doesn't see the train till it's on top of her.
But I also do know that when you're walking along the tracks, and it starts getting a bit bright... Well...
It comes down to a choice. Move or don't. Get out of the way, away from that train, or die. Whether or not that be a metaphorical death or literal is fallout. That's dependent on the specifics of the situation.
No matter what though, if you stay on those tracks, something dies. Your hope, your passion, faith, trust, whatever it is, will die and be gone and you may never reclaim it again.
Then again...
Maybe the train works a bit like Platform 9¾, and if you just run full tilt, suddenly you're somewhere, someone, that you could never have dreamed of.
And that's where the dilemma lies, because to someone like me, the bright light on those trains look much alike, so I don't know what I'm going to get until I'm nearly under the engine. If there's no magic waiting on the other side of that train, I'm done for. Maybe sometimes I'll get lucky and jump out of the way just in time, but I won't be unscathed. But what if I'm not sure? What if I can't tell, because I'm so blinded by the light shining on me?
What if I mistake the danger for something else? Worse - what if I miss the magic?
Be resilient, they say.
Be strong, they plead.
Be patient, they beg.
To someone like me, that lands a little like, You've dealt with it for so long already, what's any more?
What if I don't, though? What if I pitch myself off those tracks, and stand back up, bloodied & bruised & head held high, only to discover... There's no happy ending to this little scene? There's just another set of tracks to walk along and pray the train leads to Hogwarts...
No comments:
Post a Comment