Monthly Archives: March 2016

Memory Problems

03 Thursday Mar 2016

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Memories constantly fool us, much more than I think most people would realize or admit. Memories that we carry with us from childhood are particularly tricky because our brains were less developed and time can drastically change memories.

I have many memories from childhood and each of them I hold onto knowing that what I remember and what the reality was may be two wildly different things.

I recently had a revelation of one such memory that brought-about this approach and encouraged me to never fully trust my recollection of events, or anyone else’s for that matter.

When my parents were splitting-up I remember going to family counselling. I don’t recall how many times we attended, but to me it seemed like once. It may have been more.

As we sat in the room with its professional grey, muted tones, and uncomfortable furniture, there were a lot of words being said and as a child I struggled to fully grasp what was going on.

My world was spiraling out of control and all that I had known was crumbling around me but my little brain was not able to process it all and separate what was happening between my parents from what was happening to me.

During this meeting my Dad said something that, for over 20 years I believed he had said directly to me:

‘I will never love you like I love her.’

What I heard: “I don’t love you anymore.”

In my mind, my Dad just told me that he doesn’t love me. Or, at least, that he loved someone more, which meant I wasn’t good enough-I could never measure up.

This moment in time changed my life forever.

It’s no wonder that my relationship with my Dad has been difficult. I would struggle during our weekends with him because I had these words playing over and over in the back of my mind.

It wasn’t until the past year when I was on the phone with my Mom and she mentioned that time that my Dad had told her that he would never love her like he loved his new partner that it all became clear.

He had never said it to me. It had nothing to do with me. That wasn’t how he felt about me.

I instantly felt such a great sadness for all those years that had been lost because of a misunderstood experience as a child that evolved into a destructive and heartbreaking memory.

As I grew up, I had held onto the memory of being told I was not good enough, not lovable, not important and it has been a memory that has shaped who I am today.

That is time I can never get back.

I often wonder how different my life may have been if someone had been able to set it straight so many years ago.

I always wish I could have that time with my Dad again, to be able to go back and have a relationship with him without that destructive memory getting in the way. To be able to grow up without feeling like I needed to constantly prove myself as being worthy of love or good enough to love and being able to enjoy just being loved.

Because, I know he loves me.

Love exists despite the pain, despite the sadness, despite the sad memories and lost time.

And, from this point forward I will go through life with the words of Marcel Proust forefront in my mind:

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”

And I will be a little more careful with my memories.

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Failure

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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We’ve all heard the jokes about high school locker rooms and seen tv shows and movies that use them as comical fodder. But, for some of us, there was nothing funny about these moments of our lives.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were talking about Volleyball and he made a comment about how someone wouldn’t make a good volleyball player. When I asked why, he replied “she’s too short”. I had never considered the actual physical attributes of women in sports as being part of the reason they had made a sports team. Because, I grew up with none of these barriers, as in my small school, everyone played every sport. 

I went to a small, public school in the country where everyone was involved in all the sports, and I was good in them all. I could keep up with most of the boys playing soccer and football and often surpassed their talents in ball hockey, volleyball and softball. 

High School, however, was a whole new playing field. It brought sports to a new level that I haven’t been able to understand or appreciate until recently.

I tried-out for the volleyball team in high school, and had failed to make the team. I was devastated. I had been one of the best players in my school. During tryouts I did more push-ups and sit-ups than most of the other girls who tried-out; I was very ‘verbal’ and encouraging to my fellow teammates in the try-out games; I kept up with the endurance and proved my exellence in my ability to serve. 

How could I have not made the cut?

And, more than 10 years later, it dawned on me…At 5″2, I was too short. 

But, for years I beat myself up for not being good enough to make the team. I thought that it was just another way that I failed to live up to my peers. I wish someone had talked to me about this failure at the time. I internalized it and let it write a narrative over my life that would so often hold me back from doing things that seemed difficult and carried a high risk of failure. 

Because of this fear I have missed out on so many life experiences that I should have had. I could have been on community sports teams, done more adventure-seeking stuff, gone to more school dances, made more friends, involved myself in more social events…

The older I get, I am starting to understand how important it is to embrace failure, learn from it and let it strengthen and not weaken me.

I’m working on a new mantra:

Try always.

Fail often.

Quit never.

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We’re All in this Together

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

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“They’re more emotionally reactive. People who are highly sensitive will react more in a situation. For instance, they will have more empathy and feel more concern for a friend’s problems, according to Aron. They may also have more concern about how another person may be reacting in the face of a negative event.” (See Original Article Here.)

I’m not really sure what is meant by “react more”, but I can definitely relate to having “more empathy” and feeling “more concern”.

In fact, I often feel more for someone’s concern than they do.

For the most part, I just became invisible in high school.

I was an independent.

But, a highly sensitive independent.

As someone who walked the halls practically invisible, I observed.

I observed the groups, the cliques, the fights, the horrible words spoken about and sometimes to other students…and felt it all.

When someone is being hurt around me, it always feels  as if it is happening to me-to my own flesh. No, worse than that, it’s as if it is happening to the most important person in the world to me-and I can’t reconcile it.

As if all the mean words and heartless acts done to poor souls in high school weren’t enough, I remember a cold morning in my first period History class that tipped me over the breaking-point.

It was the day after the Columbine shooting.

We had a substitute teacher. The students in class were shaken and wanted to talk about these current events. But, the shallow things that were being said had my teeth on edge. As if watching the news wasn’t enough to deeply impact me and set me at unrest, I had also been experiencing nightmares about being in school and watching as friends, classmates, teachers and family members were gunned-down.

And then one of my classmates said the coldest, least sensitive thing I’d ever heard anyone say.

She said: “I could see ‘Brandon’ bringing a gun to school and shooting us all.
He seems like the type of person who would do that.” 

(The name has been changed for obvious reasons)

Even now it makes my blood boil and my hands shake.

I don’t know how I managed to keep it together, but I manageto raised  my hand and somewhat calmly, asked my teacher if I could be excused to go and work in the Library.
As substitute teachers go, this one did something amazing that day – he let me go.

Unfortunately, the damage had been done. I tried to talk to a few people about what had happened, but no one seemed to think it was important or understand how much it had affected me. I don’t get how someone could say something so judgmental, so damning.

There wasn’t enough space in my mind for everything that was going on.

There still isn’t.

I still have zero capacity to understand hatred, racism, bigotry or even someone just being impatient or mean at a checkout in the grocery store. I can’t understand why it’s so difficult for people to be nice to one another.When these kinds of negative things come across my path I feel like I’m suddenly a robot that was only ever programmed to encounter positivity and all I can hear is “cannot compute-cannot compute”.

I can’t understand why everyone, as it says in the iconic words of that high school movie, can’t understand that “we’re all in this together”.

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