To break
Almost everything in my life turns into a good memory.
Memories of old fights, injuries, disappointments, fears, frustrations -- I wouldn't erase them. When I think back, now, on dislocating my knee, on sitting in the computer lounge in Hallowell basement at three in the morning crying on the phone, on driving along Georges Road searching desperately for Patti the night we got her, on the surges of pure pain and jealousy that overwhelmed me whenever Max would flirt with Laura S., on the sinking dread in my stomach sitting in class knowing I was about to have to give a presentation I'd barely prepared for, on sitting in the animal hospital in the middle of the night watching infomercials while the doctors examined Polar...when I think back on those things, it feels right; they are part of the experience of living -- albeit a painful part -- and I can remember them now and appreciate the power and importance of feeling things. A whole range of things. Not just the good things.
But,
I remember a day in third grade, in the Meeting Room, just before Morning Gathering. It was time to turn the light out for a few moments of silence, and I happened to be sitting right next to the switch. So I reached up for it. Richard saw me, and quickly leaned over and said, gruffly but not really unkindly, "Let a teacher do that."
This memory remained, for years and years and years, too painful to think of without cringing and having a small dip in my mood.
The feeling of misunderstanding sticks in my mind. I was just trying to be helpful! Something about his tone made me feel that he saw me as trying, somehow, to cause trouble, when I wasn't. And I had no recourse to explain. I hate, hate, hate misunderstanding. I will refrain from saying anything at all if I feel there is any risk that I didn't understand the question or topic right. I begged my dad to let us show up just a little bit later for spring training games, because if we were there so early that no one else was around, someone who saw us might mistake us for people with some special connection to the team, rather than just random fans. When I get tests back I feel a compulsion to explain to the teacher exactly why I made any errors I made, so that he or she doesn't misunderstand my thought processes somehow. I can't stand the feeling that there might be assumptions made about me that are false, and perhaps because of this, if I'm ever caught making assumptions about a situation that are false, it will keep me up at night with a sinking, nauseous feeling. Even if it's completely trivial.
Related but not exactly the same is how much I hate being wrong when I acted like I believed I was right. I don't mind not knowing something, but I will be deeply embarrassed if something that I claim to know turns out to be wrong. This is significantly less true than it used to be -- when I played the Jeopardy! computer game with my dad in middle school, I would routinely fail to answer questions that in fact I had known, because the idea of giving a guess that turned out to be wrong was too horrible. ("Yikes, how could you have thought that? What kind of moron are you?" So much better to at least be correct about my ignorance...) At this point I can usually brush of getting factual details wrong, or even being proven wrong about a math problem or something. This is a healthy development. But the old embarrassment will still surface occasionally.
And I still hate misunderstanding. Since I have been lucky enough to avoid ever experiencing real tragedy directly, the only memories I can think of that are unpleasant to remember even after a long time are memories of misunderstanding.
In other news: If anyone actually clicks on the links along the side of this blog ever, they might be puzzled as to why one of the links is to something about auto loans. Well puzzle no longer, for I shall enlighten you: it used to be a link to a site called 1000 Ridiculous Tragedies, which was awesome. But the domain expired in February, and I was incredibly, incredibly sad, since I had specifically put off reading most of the stories on it so as not to run out. So this morning I was depressed. Adam, trying to help me find mindless things to read to distract from my mood, suggested graphjam, but instead of cheering me up this served to remind me that 1000 Ridiculous Tragedies had had a section of silly charts and graphs, which I would never get to see again. To which Adam responded "is it not archived at archive.org?" To which, after a couple minutes of investigation, I responded ".... !!!"
So yes: it is archived. ...Mostly. There are a handful of stories that seem to be randomly missing. And, perhaps ironically, the majority of the charts and graphs aren't there. But I cared much more about the stories. And now almost all of them are saved onto my computer, for me to read at my leisure. And the link on the right shall be updated.
Yay!
This goes on the list of things that have made me incredibly happy recently, along with getting to tell one of my first-year classes what prime numbers are, and buying a yukata, and doing skip-change along a crowded street in the pouring rain.
My life right now is composed of things that make me incredibly happy and things that make me want to curl up and cry.
Here is a quote I liked from one of the stories I had thought I'd never get to read:
She filled me with water, and I can see in every direction. I’ve never been in this room before, either. It’s white all around, like milk, and everything looks soft. She must care to put me in here, even the floor is covered with a kind of shaggy white fluff. I’ll never fall and break in here. I’m on the night table, too, so it’s not far to the ground.
It might be kind of wonderful to break. But it is frightening, too, and I’m glad this room is so soft and safe.
Memories of old fights, injuries, disappointments, fears, frustrations -- I wouldn't erase them. When I think back, now, on dislocating my knee, on sitting in the computer lounge in Hallowell basement at three in the morning crying on the phone, on driving along Georges Road searching desperately for Patti the night we got her, on the surges of pure pain and jealousy that overwhelmed me whenever Max would flirt with Laura S., on the sinking dread in my stomach sitting in class knowing I was about to have to give a presentation I'd barely prepared for, on sitting in the animal hospital in the middle of the night watching infomercials while the doctors examined Polar...when I think back on those things, it feels right; they are part of the experience of living -- albeit a painful part -- and I can remember them now and appreciate the power and importance of feeling things. A whole range of things. Not just the good things.
But,
I remember a day in third grade, in the Meeting Room, just before Morning Gathering. It was time to turn the light out for a few moments of silence, and I happened to be sitting right next to the switch. So I reached up for it. Richard saw me, and quickly leaned over and said, gruffly but not really unkindly, "Let a teacher do that."
This memory remained, for years and years and years, too painful to think of without cringing and having a small dip in my mood.
The feeling of misunderstanding sticks in my mind. I was just trying to be helpful! Something about his tone made me feel that he saw me as trying, somehow, to cause trouble, when I wasn't. And I had no recourse to explain. I hate, hate, hate misunderstanding. I will refrain from saying anything at all if I feel there is any risk that I didn't understand the question or topic right. I begged my dad to let us show up just a little bit later for spring training games, because if we were there so early that no one else was around, someone who saw us might mistake us for people with some special connection to the team, rather than just random fans. When I get tests back I feel a compulsion to explain to the teacher exactly why I made any errors I made, so that he or she doesn't misunderstand my thought processes somehow. I can't stand the feeling that there might be assumptions made about me that are false, and perhaps because of this, if I'm ever caught making assumptions about a situation that are false, it will keep me up at night with a sinking, nauseous feeling. Even if it's completely trivial.
Related but not exactly the same is how much I hate being wrong when I acted like I believed I was right. I don't mind not knowing something, but I will be deeply embarrassed if something that I claim to know turns out to be wrong. This is significantly less true than it used to be -- when I played the Jeopardy! computer game with my dad in middle school, I would routinely fail to answer questions that in fact I had known, because the idea of giving a guess that turned out to be wrong was too horrible. ("Yikes, how could you have thought that? What kind of moron are you?" So much better to at least be correct about my ignorance...) At this point I can usually brush of getting factual details wrong, or even being proven wrong about a math problem or something. This is a healthy development. But the old embarrassment will still surface occasionally.
And I still hate misunderstanding. Since I have been lucky enough to avoid ever experiencing real tragedy directly, the only memories I can think of that are unpleasant to remember even after a long time are memories of misunderstanding.
In other news: If anyone actually clicks on the links along the side of this blog ever, they might be puzzled as to why one of the links is to something about auto loans. Well puzzle no longer, for I shall enlighten you: it used to be a link to a site called 1000 Ridiculous Tragedies, which was awesome. But the domain expired in February, and I was incredibly, incredibly sad, since I had specifically put off reading most of the stories on it so as not to run out. So this morning I was depressed. Adam, trying to help me find mindless things to read to distract from my mood, suggested graphjam, but instead of cheering me up this served to remind me that 1000 Ridiculous Tragedies had had a section of silly charts and graphs, which I would never get to see again. To which Adam responded "is it not archived at archive.org?" To which, after a couple minutes of investigation, I responded ".... !!!"
So yes: it is archived. ...Mostly. There are a handful of stories that seem to be randomly missing. And, perhaps ironically, the majority of the charts and graphs aren't there. But I cared much more about the stories. And now almost all of them are saved onto my computer, for me to read at my leisure. And the link on the right shall be updated.
Yay!
This goes on the list of things that have made me incredibly happy recently, along with getting to tell one of my first-year classes what prime numbers are, and buying a yukata, and doing skip-change along a crowded street in the pouring rain.
My life right now is composed of things that make me incredibly happy and things that make me want to curl up and cry.
Here is a quote I liked from one of the stories I had thought I'd never get to read:
She filled me with water, and I can see in every direction. I’ve never been in this room before, either. It’s white all around, like milk, and everything looks soft. She must care to put me in here, even the floor is covered with a kind of shaggy white fluff. I’ll never fall and break in here. I’m on the night table, too, so it’s not far to the ground.
It might be kind of wonderful to break. But it is frightening, too, and I’m glad this room is so soft and safe.
posted by Ashila at 8:27 AM
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