132. END FIRST KISS Part 27 : OUT WITH THE OLD IN WITH THE NEW (134)

I hope you remember that whenever my stories pause and an essay or poem pops up in a post, that change, like every change, takes place for a reason.


I also hope this insight remains on the front burner of your mind:  I'm baring personal feelings and experiences that most people consider private for three reasons:


First, I'm consciously highlighting detour signs in hopes of warning you and yours away from a path which leads toward love's collapse.


Secondly, while highlighting insights concerning change, conflict, human nature, changing attitudes, defensive misperceptions and judgmental assumptions—as well as the rewards of self awareness, self empowerment, compassion and forgiveness (Whew!), my stories identify subconscious hot spots, which led me toward self defeat.


Thirdly, each time I muster the courage to identify a hot spot that unnerves me—today—my understanding of give and ye shall receive deepens, again.


You see, each time a hot spark pops out of my subconscious, the hair pin trigger, alerting my defense system to danger, spontaneously snaps.  And just like a mouse, snapped in trap, my ability to reveal a detail gets trapped in my head.  During conflict, the nature of this hair pin trigger causes two people to snap at each other, and life gets complicated.


Upon recognizing this, I chose to invent THE LINE OF CONTROL,  which inspires my hot sparks to cool down.  Once a hot spark cools down, the tension, constricting my muscles and brain relax, so pathways toward logical thought processing expand.  At this point, my Three Step Sanity Saving Problem Solving Plan shifts into gear, conflicts resolve, and life simplifies, all around.  Every time a conflict arises?  Are you kidding?  More like most of the time.  No kidding.  Ask my kids.


So here's what takes place each time a story is ready to reveal a detail, which causes my mind, muscles and organs to tense with latent fear:  My mind flicks the storytelling switch to off and the composition switch turns on.  And by way of writing essays and poetry the logical side of my mind is encouraged to regain control over any hot spot that my subconscious fires up.  And thus does my thought processor maintain a conscious sense of clarity.


For example while writing this post, I became aware of tension creeping up on logic.  Why?  I'm about to release a detail, concerning loneliness that I now see has had the power to unnerve me since childhood.


And while describing this visceral sense of tension emerging from my gray matter, I suddenly visualized:
THE POWER OF LOGIC GAINING CONTROL OVER INNER CONFLICT.


Let's use my conflict with Joseph as an example:
Let's say that one sorely stung, tightly strung, hot blooded, defensive Leader of the Pack packs the power to turn a tidal wave of peer pressure against me.  Does it make sense for me to cower?  To defend myself?  To fight?  Or does common sense suggest  that I work at developing the brain power to stave off anxiety that mashes my sense of logic to a pulp?   Too much too expect at twelve?  Who knows?  Perhaps too much for a twelve year old as sheltered as me.  When I was raising my kids, I remember saying:


Life offers me one experience after another
Some are successful experiences, some not
That makes me see my experiences as experiments
And when my experiments do not lead to success
I switch on my imagination
And figure out what's wrong
Until I get it right


Imagine what young minds are capable of learning from adults:
Three-year olds, left home alone, learn that they don't count for much.
Twelve-year old guttersnipes are trained to beg for coins.
Twelve year old gypsies, snatching wallets, are applauded.

While one culture applauds, another is appalled.

How does someone's beloved twelve year old become a dirty urchin, hiding from death at the hands of Nazis at the bottom of a deep, dark, dank sewer—living all alone except for the companionship of small rats, scurrying from here to there, foraging for food, while big rats in black boots with guard dogs, sniffing for prey, hunt down an innocent, motherless child?  That book was not fiction.


Great guns!  What change must adults hammer into the minds of Hitler's youth, who hunt down boyhood friends with whom they'd once played catch?  Pray tell, what change must develop in every day life as friends transform into frienemies?


When fear turns the switch off of logic, how easily brainwashed are we?
What if adults worked to develop the ability to switch off anxiety and switch back to logic during moments fraught with conflict?  What if adults chose to model and teach the value of logical problem solving skills to spongy, young minds, eager to soak up—the power of knowledge?  Now, wouldn't that step-by-step approach be something to celebrate!


How might THE POWER OF ONE turn the tide when others don blinders?
How might adults empower children to assert their needs without stepping on other people's toes?

Think of all that could change—for the better—if adults could show kids how to turn negatives into positives.
How do I know that can be?  Well, instead of asking me, ask my kids.  Or muster patience.  Stories down the road.


To my good fortune, I was a well sheltered child.  On the other hand, no way could the sheltered state of my twelve year old mind muster the courage to go toe to toe with the fact that love—believing itself dismissed as 'no biggie'—pointed its distorted grimace of grinding pain directly at me.  Proving, once again, that:


The little we show on the surface is not all there is to know.


Long ago, I knew that fear (of what, pray tell?) made me recoil away from Joseph.  Today, I believe Joseph's fearing my rejection made his blood boil, so betrayed did he feel.  Two insecure attitudes double the sparks of negative energy zinging back and forth.  As long as insecurity gnaws away at both minds, no chance in hell of rekindling romance.  And this holds true at every age.


With no clue of how to turn the tides, all alone, I'll recoil each time I'm zapped with the fury that my 5'2" presence sparks in the sapphire eyes of this tall, handsome guy.  (Picture a blond Travolta looming menacingly over brunette Newton-John)  Each time our eyes chance to meet, I cringe at the rigid stance of his body—the visible twitch behind tightly clenched jaws.  And though, at twelve, I have no clue as to the meaning behind flipping the bird, it sure as heck makes me feel sad.


So in hopes of calming my defense system's autonomic reaction to latent fear, which is actually rising—right now—let's switch to a memory, bouncing with the kind of fun that an unexpected activity during the school day, offers up.  And hopefully, upon arousing my sense of positive focus, the state of unrest within my mind will be mollified (negative to positive).


Ah!  That didn't take long!  Here's the mixed bag of thoughts, which just flew out of my memory bank:


Due to the ungrounded fears of white flight, the sleepy little suburb, where Dad had built and landscaped his dream house on a large, grassy, corner lot, is growing by leaps and bounds.  So between fifth grade and seventh grade, construction is booming, and so many new kids bounce into our little, red school house that our 22 year old teacher feels like the old woman in the shoe, who doesn't know what to do.


As upper mobility flees the mean streets of the city's south side, north siders flee further north to the suburbs.  And this change leads to the construction of a brand new, blond brick school, built on the playground in such close proximity to our little, red brick school house that you'd think I'd remember the clatter of work men's hammers pounding nails while walls and ceilings rose and floors were laid, but I don't.  Maybe most of the work transpires during the summer, who knows?


What I vividly recall is how much fun we have, passing textbooks and supplies through open windows of the little, red school into the eager hands of smiling classmates, leaning out of brand new windows, waiting to accept whatever we're ready to hand off.  And you can believe me when I say that this exciting change takes place not a day too soon, because I recall a sizable portion of the old building's ceiling falling within inches of a child's head before hitting the floor, during a down pour.  And as one memory opens another, I can still hear the ping-ping-plop-plop-plop of rain drops falling through that leaky ceiling into pots strategically placed, here and there, throughout our classroom.  No point in spending on repairs once that referendum had finally passed.


So why doth
Change
Lead to
Conflict?


Because life is
NOT
Black and white
As we're misled to believe!


In short
Lots of
Gray matter
Is sadly squandered


And thus
When it comes down to
Who may be in the right
And who may have been wronged


Bottom line ...
Every time the melting pot boils over
Both left and right
Fear the pain of third degree burns


So
Right or wronged
I hope to inspire you
To see why


We need THE LINE OF CONTROL
And a THREE STEP PROBLEM SOLVING PLAN
If we are to right everything
That's gone wrong!


Anyway, classmates and staff are as happy about moving from the cramped old school to the new as Annie's family had been thrilled to move from sweltering, city dwelling to air conditioned, suburban living.  And as this new environment offers treats no tricks, all is well.  Except for one thing.  Now that the seventh grade is divided into two classrooms—Joseph is no where to be seen—and though Annie hates absorbing his glare—hunger deems a soggy potato chip better than no chip on the shoulder, at all.


Annie sorely misses glancing furtively at Joseph's handsome face.  She's never wanted him to disappear—only the sting of his anger, targeting her.  Somehow Annie's sense of loss has deepened—again.


As you may have noticed, I refer to 'the kids' as Annie's classmates.  That's because, so far, she can't figure out why no lasting friendships have been made.  Well, I guess we could count Michael—but not really, because their tete-a-tete proves unfruitful, and they never hang out.  So soon after leaving his house, Annie feels as lonely as before.


However, that's about to change, and as I sense a positively focused breath of fresh air creating a whole new thought pattern in my mind—right now—let's see if I've mustered the readiness to take you to school—our new school, if you will—where this displaced ring master's adventurous, young mind is about to venture forth and scout out new territory, which had been beyond her scope, —because—maybe, just maybe, the sun will come out—tomorrow.


In short, Annie's spirit overflows with hope just like a little, red headed orphan on the stage—however, my friends, please make no assumptions concerning why Annie became my pen name.  That piece of the puzzle will surface when I'm college bound.  As for now, my stories are piling up in the wings, awaiting their cues to take center stage, and since you've not yet had the pleasure of being charmed by the high jinks of my family—let's scoot back to seventh grade ...