107. END FIRST KISS PART 8: A WALKING TALKING CONTRADICTION OF REALITY (107)

Once a person's sense of centeredness tips, what might we expect to happen?

Rather than seeing myself as I am, I'll see only that which I believe to be true.


As long as my self image remains rooted in what had shaped up at an earlier time, I'll not recognize changes, taking place, right along.  As long as my self-image remains stuck in the past, certain aspects of my current life will confound me, to say the least.  In short, I'll walk further and further into a maze, where my mental block will blind me from seeing doors, windows and safety nets, offering me freedom from inner conflict and pain.

When self-image and reality do not match, we see ourselves as though peering into a fun house mirror.  And though it seems as though everyone else is moving forward (while I'm unknowingly hanging on to what’s past), every attempt to provide me with a new picture of myself may drive me even more fearfully into denial—because La La Land may be the only place where I'll feel safe—safe from what?  Safe from THE TRUTH, which always tries to emerge.

At times denial minimizes pain.  At times denial exacerbates pain in this way:  If we can’t see ourselves as we are, then we can’t see those times when blindness to certain traits, within ourselves, flings pain at those we love.

You see, we can't be ‘true’ to those we love until we've learned to be true to ourselves—however …

We can’t be true to ourselves until we know ourselves.
And
We can't know ourselves until we've identified hidden fears

and

If we can't muster the courage to know the sum of our parts

Then this mind twister makes me ask:

Who, in truth, do we really know?

Only the Shadow (mind) knows for sure.

Today, when I feel dispirited, I no longer sit others in the hot seat, pointing fingers of blame, pining for days gone by.  The days of asking:  Why me?  Are long gone.  Instead, I consider the duplicitous state of human nature and the unpredictability of life.  And with those thoughts in mind, I reconsider which of my perceptions may be as half-baked, today, as when I was a vulnerable, inexperienced child.  In short, it’s no easier to be a person, at any stage of life, than it is for Kermit to be green.

With that train of thought stoking our minds, let's walk into the cloak room of my sixth grade class and watch Joseph stuff a newly laundered hat into a sleeve right before he hangs his jacket on a hook.  Annie has just entered the cloakroom, as well, and while removing her jacket and hanging it next to his, she smiles up at the back of Joseph's head and says hi.  At this point, before exposing what happens when Joseph turns and sees Annie, I’d like to invite you to ride sidekick in my time machine.  You see, this portends to be a perfect time to collect a few more pieces to my puzzle—thus enabling us to assemble the bigger picture of my story—so please buckle up, because once I throw the gear shift into reverse, back we'll we go—

After attending a large city school, the building that housed my small suburban school came as quite a surprise.  In fact, the first time that my mom, sister, and I approached this little red school house, I felt like Laura in LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, because here is what met our eyes:  I saw a proverbial, square shaped, red brick structure with four classrooms on the first floor and four on the second.

Each classroom housed grades one through eight.  I think the kindergarten may have been in the basement—but that memory's not for certain.  Whereas certain details, like the location of the kindergarten, are of no consequence to a story, the exclusion of or twists to pertinent details can twist a tale (or a person’s most admirable traits) completely out of wack.  The school was small, because the suburb was in its infancy.

If I direct your attention back to the corner lot, where my father had built his dream house and if I ask you to look one block to the north, you’ll see a lonely, three-story, brown, brick apartment building, standing all alone.  However before too long, this lonely structure will be surrounded by new homes on every side, causing the apartment building, which been there first, to seem out of place.  I brought that detail your attention for this reason:  As soon as Joseph takes a step toward me in my classroom’s cloak room, the morning after our FIRST KISS, I am going to feel as ‘out of place’, as I had while riding THAT BUS.

It’s easy to forget that every living thing remains in a constant state of change. Since people are living things, that means you and I are, constantly, undergoing the process of change, too—some ways for the better, other ways for the worse.  So, if the only constant in life is change, then people who say they can’t change (with the times) must be sadly mistaken, because, in truth, nothing that lives stays the same, very long.

If working toward positive change or not working toward positive change is a personal choice, and if people, like all livings things, exist in a state of flux, then common sense suggests that every person is shrinking back from some area of life while expanding forth in another.  And in most cases, shrinking back is due to fear.  In short, a fearful mind is afraid of working toward accepting a difficult change.  Once fear fastens blinders over one person's eyes, one assumes that change is not taking place, while the other goes crazy or finally steps away—unless, of course, both remain blind—and so it goes.

While leafing through old albums, my eyes land on photos of me in fifth grade, and it becomes clear that I was unable to see changes, taking place, at that time—just as I’m uncertain of the ways in which I change, day in and day out, today.  In fact, whenever my mom and I look back at those photos I laugh, because Mom's head always shakes in disbelief as she says, “But, Annie—you never looked like that.”  My response is always the same.  I smile, hold her close and say, “Mom, love is as blind as denial.” This means:

Love can be just as blinding as—SUBCONSCIOUS fear.

On my first day in the little red schoolhouse, in March of 1955, I walked into that fifth grade class without a hint of fear about being the new kid on the block.  After all, I enjoyed people, and people enjoyed me.  And having never tasted the bitter, ostracizing power of any social clique, my social standing in the world felt secure.  So there was no rhyme or reason to surmise that this change in schools would rock ‘my world’.

Memory suggests that my eyes sparkled with adventure when my new teacher introduced me to the class. If a self-conscious blush colored my cheeks rosy when I left her side and walked down the row that led to my new desk that was because every pair of eyes in the room had remained glued to me till I sat down.

This is what my classmates saw upon giving me the once over, from head to toe:  Smiling blue eyes and long, thick, dark hair, held back by a headband or pulled up into a pony tail, which would have swung merrily back and forth as I made my way to my desk.  I proudly wore a brand new, white, long sleeved sailor ‘over’ blouse with a navy tie and a long string of flapper-like ‘pearls’—because pop beads had been all the rage.  I'd also chosen a navy pleated skirt and white bobby socks, which had been rolled down twice to make a cuff before they disappeared into my fashionably scuffed, black and white, saddle shoes—indicating that I was—cool.

As to that one physical detail to which I’ll be mercifully unaware until I ride that bus, later that day—suffice to say that had my new teacher assigned me the task of drawing myself, she might have thought I’d never looked into a mirror.  Upon taking my seat, that morning, I'd no bones to pick with myself.  However, that doth not mean I'd had no Boogie Man, lurking in my closet.        

(As I approach this fourth stage of life (What? Impossible!), I wonder what surprises fate may have in store for me, next.  I say that because during the first three stages, life's surprises never ceased to blow my mind!)

Once my teacher recaptured the attention of the class, it was my turn to do the checking out, and as luck would have it, Mom and Dad must have timed our move just right.  Most of the boys in my class were still more interested in snails and puppy dog tails than in girls.  That meant I’d have time to connect with the high-spirited, self-confident kids before ‘the popular pre-teen clique’ had been defined.  Needless to say, I didn’t consciously figure that out.  I just sensed that I’d fit in fine.

Upon storing my belongings, neatly, inside my desk, my eyes spied those two guys, cute enough to rate a second look.  Both were tall, lanky, blue-eyed blonds—one thin, one wiry.


As I’d chosen and won the attentions of my first boyfriend, Gregory, who’d been left behind at my old school, I assumed to do the choosing, again.  And if that doesn’t describe the folly of child-like, egocentric, self-confidence—based in too little experience—then I don’t know what does.  On the other hand, Joseph did invite Annie to that first couples' party and even more amazing than that—he'd kissed her ... so ...


If we assume to know what will take place after a major change occurs, we are asking to be shocked—especially if one sees change taking place while the other has no clue that change has been on the march, yet again.  As each story continues to unfold, you'll get a bird’s eye view of the domino effect that goes down when an innocent mind remains lost inside a hazy maze for decades on end.  And thus much of what Annie 'sees' and 'thinks' will be a walking-talking contradiction of—reality—because that which she assumes to be true and that which is true will not match.