in an exchange today with a friend, the following written. as usual, i don’t know what i’ve written until i go back and read it. when i did, decided to add it here for a reminder.
it is so easy to be certain that people enjoy being hateful and cruel. but most times, they are like wounded animals, who know nothing better than to lash out because they long since lost touch with how to do anything other. pain breeds it’s own thoughtlessness, and humans are so often mired in hurt that they forget that we all hurt, or that we are all easily hurt.
in many moments, hurting and angry for it seeming no one even cared to notice i was so, i have been the one to strike out. seeing the soft spots so well because i know where they are within me, to gleefully (shamefully) lash out and comfort myself with the knowledge that at least then, they too, feel as i do.
but it is a heavy thing, i truly never wish to hurt others. and in aftermath, sick and heavy hearted for having done it again, it feels like despair. do you know that feeling? the feeling of thinking you can never be good enough? that somehow, everything you touch or try is tainted by your presence?
it never is, of course, but when i look at some of the things i’ve done over time, i feel so disheartened that i just don’t know what to do. and when i used to look at my family, how ugly and cold and cruel they were to one another, i always felt as if somehow, it was either my fault or i was flawed for not being able to help any of it.
i too, see deeply and often with great clarity… but it is no help to me or anyone if all i ever do with that insight is use it as bullets or arrows or rocks to inflict hurt.
i remember when i was a very little girl, back before the children’s homes and a lot of other things i will not bore you by going into… a wren had flown into the sliding glass door of my grandparents house. it had broken its neck on impact and was dead.
i was four years old and i didn’t know what death was… i toddled outside and picked it up and was trying to help it fly… of course, it wouldn’t. and i couldn’t bear to have it made that sick, thud sound on the decking so i eventually stopped trying… and just sat there with it and cried my eyes out… because i was so helpless.
my grandmother found me like that, some minutes later. she snatched it from my hands and told me it was filthy and carried mites and i should not touch such things. she didn’t realize where i was, what i was feeling.
i looked up at her and sobbed for it all, and told her it was not filthy and it should fly, not be all quiet like that. she finally noticed i was upset at it being dead. but as you know, grownups rarely encourage such things and she pushed me off to go wash my face as she disposed of it.
it was my grandfather who took me aside shortly thereafter and comforted me, hugged me and let me bawl my eyes out for being a little one who couldn’t manage anything.
he was the one to tell me that it wasn’t my fault, that all things died eventually, and that wanting to see it healed and healthy again was a beautiful thing that made him feel proud of me.
my first lesson in compassion, really. i have never forgotten it. and here and there, i remember it when i see people walking about all broken up inside, or being ugly at one another because they’re so hurt they don’t know how else to be… i dunno… just felt compelled to tell you that. for whatever it’s worth.