G - FORCE!

THE CHANGES KEEP ON COMING

A few months ago, I pissed off one of my dearest online friends.  She was upset with me because I made a comment that I fully knew that she would find incendiary.  While the question of, “why would you purposely say something that you knew would make someone upset?” is valid, I would have countered, at that time, anywho, with, “That is what I do  and who I am.”  But the incident and my  uncomfortableness with it, that set things in motion came off awkwardly, and the exchange between afterwards felt clumsy.  Yet, however awkward, I pressed the issue and I would end up being “unfriended”. The emotion that I felt upon being unfriended, was, for me, strange.  It was one that was akin to a loss, much along the impact of saying good-bye to those who were among your graduating class in high school.  The point of the matter, my pose of “me being me” and this new sensation caused me to reflect on what was going on.  I did offer my apology, sincere and heartfelt, and it would be accepted.  But she still isn’t my “friend” and the department in my mind that is in charge of responsibility for my actions accepts the result of my mistake, emotionally, I was left feeling some kind of way about things.

See, the exchange was one that I once had found to be typical of my interactions with people.  I had long believed that I was immune to the emotional connections that people make with one another.  The kid that I told to, “enjoy your family and friends”, when we left AIT at Christmas when I was in the Army, that moment, defined how I felt towards people.  See, I never understood what it was about me that drew people to me.  I only know that people are drawn to me, in spite of what I thought the Motor instilled in me, and that people see in me, something that I exude in spite of myself.  The exchange with my online friend would set off a cascade of emotions that led to my making decisions and pondering a philosophical paradigm shift, which is why I have not been able to journal.  My internal landscape has drastically changed, and I am still sorting out what is what.

First, I had to reflect on my identity.  I had to ask myself if the standards that I was using to identify myself were valid and useful to me.  Much of who I am was developed when I was teenager, which flies in the face of the Ali quote about “a man who sees the world at 50 as he did at 20, has wasted 30 years of his life.”  I understand the truth of these words, but I felt that I was immune to that thinking.  Rather, or so it seemed to me, I felt that the world was evolving and that I was already there.  From growing up with a gay younger brother, having faced questions of nearly all facets of my character, and not shirking the responsibilities, as well as the contributing traits of my failings as a life partner, I did not think that, socially, seeing the world with a “y’all caught up” attitude was a failing.  But pride goeth before the fall, and the exchange that I had with my friend sent me into a period of reflection, one where the question of being the person that I was, was now, on the table.  Was I still, “Mark, the much hated”, or was I something else.  The pain that I felt for losing the friendship of a person that I have never seen and only know through technological means, said to me that I was now, “someone else”.

I’VE BEEN REBORN SO MANY TIMES…

The persistence of identity is one of the questions that makes the lesson of “The Ship of Theseus” the thought experiment and the philosophical paradox that it is.  Are we who we were moments ago, are we who we are now reading these words, or is it the person that is somewhere in a space and time that has yet to come?  Hell, the idiosyncratic trait that adopted the header of this section of my entry, who WAS that person as well as the person that he was attempting to describe??

Back in November when I was hoping to be blogging more or less regularly, it was because I could sense a “change of things” coming my way.  Nothing particular or dramatic was on the horizon or anything like that, but one thing that I have always been able to trust in was anticipating “when the party was over”.  One of the things that I have had to trust since I had my brain injury confirmed, is this sensing when the winds begin to shift in my life.  Rather than waiting until something occurred to give the coming change more substance, I chose to act. 

It was in the midst of the changes that kept on coming, so fast and hard that I could not process the happenings and journal, I could only let the forces that drew me along, flow and draw me downstream from where I was… and from WHO I was.

Leaving Pinnacle Fitness confirmed for me the uncomfortableness that I had when I fell out with my online friend.  It was more or less instantaneous, this feeling that I felt with Babz, that not only was I wrong for offending her, but that I WAS NOT THAT PERSON ANYMORE.  I was someone else, and it was a new person that reached out to her and gave a personal apology.  The feelings that I have been flowing through me for most of the last year has been my coming to awareness that I was truly becoming a different person, a different Mark.  It was something that I experienced as members came back to visit me, a custodian, over the Christmas holiday, as well as the heartfelt goodbyes that came with them.  The personal conversations that some of the guests chose to have with me…  I mean, what is it about me, some old underachiever who was living on the margins of society, made them feel comfortable sharing the messy details of their own comings and goings?  Who did they think that they were talking to??

I wish that coming to this conclusion did not mean losing Babz facebook friendship.  Still, change is often spurred by the need to overcome and I was comfortable with the character I had erected for myself.  Now, I am uncomfortable with what I have set out for me, and that is a good sign.  The hallmark of progress is the risk of failure and reaching beyond the reach failure, and grasping the potential of becoming the person that I intend on being.