There are days in life where I feel like no matter what happens, I can't be deterred from the path I'm on--the one that's full of doing all the good things I need to in order to raise a family up to God, the one that is very hard, but still full of far too much joy to allow anyone's criticisms to create a detour that distracts. Truly, all that critique from unknowing people do to us is distract; I call them "unknowing" because it's a kinder way to say ignorant--and ignorant sounds far too harsh for me. I wish that phrase was easier to say, but when the critics are people who's critique you may respect, it hurts beyond the superficial layer of resilience. It doesn't have to be that they have any large realm of influence over you, but the love you naturally have for them is such that you would never assume they had feelings towards you that were of any nature but good; after-all, your feelings for them have been kind and given them the benefit of the doubt. We all deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I'll start by merely making mention of why this hurts even more than it could. I will not give any name or hint to the nature of my relationship with anyone involved in this story, except to say that each person is someone I know or would love to know on a deeper level than I already do. Each person holds a place of reverence in my heart, not only because of their natural relationship to me, but because when I choose to think about how I have made acquaintance with them, I have never chosen anything but seeing them for their good qualities. I'd be stupid, by now, if I believed that same respect could be paid towards me, but it's that stupid naive nature I have that caused so much pain to be stirred in the wee hours of the morning, as I cared for my patient at work.
I have had few physical contacts with this person before, but every one I did, I enjoyed them. There was always a desire within me to be noticeable to this person, and as hard as I tried, I think I was just made to look a fool. Childlike adoration can do that to us, make us look like admiring fools. I never sought myself to be a comparison to her, however, because within myself, I felt I was still worthy enough to be beautiful in my own regards. The many adults who surrounded us at this time in my life, well, they seemed to favor this beautiful blossoming princess that I made no comparison to; still, I didn't really care...I honestly thought my time would come when I would be admired someday too. In thus doing, I created a happiness for myself that wasn't there by another persons opinion of who I was, it was only there by my knowledge of who I believed I could be, I wish I was still so young and innocently believing in that little girls potential.
Time passed, envy for this woman grew amongst others. I saw it, heard it, and I even participated in some of the conversations at one time, but it never felt right--and so, I chose to not be a part of the green eyed monsters goal. Jealousy tries relentlessly to capture us in a fit of "it's not fair", "I wish I had", and "but you don't" statements that only do one thing--destroy. As quickly as I caught myself falling into that awful degrading behavior, I stopped. What had this person ever done to me to be so deserving of such judgement and rebuke from my lips? Nothing.
At work last night, I received a message from this person. To my surprise there were statements of disappointment in something I had failed to do while I visited an area recently--it was something we all probably do to someone at one time or another, we fail to make contact, we fail to write that short note that could dispel people's worries that our failure to send that note was not about them in the end, but it was only about the situation and inability for connection on such shot notice. Life is full of commitments, time restraints, energy drainers, and unpredictable happenings which keep all of us from our desired outcomes. It is actually a normal part of existence, if you think about it. We all have expectations of what life should look like, and then we have the reality of what life really does look like, The gap between expectation and reality is called disappointment. We are able to influence how big that gap is for us in our personal conduct and our personal goals that do not require another person for fulfillment, but we can never force or expect someone else to live up to the standards that prevent disappointment unless we are allowing our personal happiness to be swayed by another individual in the end. Of course, there are times when it is necessary to hold others in your life to a standard of conduct. Our spouses, children, employees--all of these people should know what their expectations for our healthy relationships should be. When they don't reach those levels of conduct we desire, we can choose to be disappointed, or we can assess whether we have been too critical in our expectation of their action. Even if we find that we haven't been too demanding, we can still choose to be disappointed to the point of it effecting us and causing resentment or we can choose to simply allow the consequences of unfulfilled expectations to be enacted; a decrease in trust, less happiness in the relationship, and a longer road to a trusting and fulfilling relationship for both people.
To continue, this message had a purpose, but I believe the purpose was dug too deep by the distracting feelings which caused the damage that created a very hard day for me. The purpose was to let me know that my lack of action in sending a courtesy note to advise this woman that I wasn't going to see her in the course of my short trip was hurtful. I can understand that. That could've been communicated very kindly in a number of ways, and I am not ridiculous enough to assume that even a less than polite manner of addressing that topic would warrant hurt on my part. Instead of stopping there, the message continued....
This is where the dagger of feeling misunderstood and misperceived dug into my heart, bypassing those superficial layers of my skin that can easily be healed. It always hurts to know people think we are doing things wrong, but it kills me to know that people believe my character is flawed...while all along I have innocently believed the best of these people when others have torn them down. To me, it is always right to assume the best of people until there is evidence that they truly have no good to give--until there is evidence, I believe people are just that, good. Here is where the naive Crystal gets in the way--people don't believe the same things about me.
I was told that, from what she sees in me, I appear to have a desire for empathizing, nonjudgmental relationships, but I am only willing to reciprocate those relationships with my immediate family or members of my church. I was left in shock as I read her words because I have such a deep love for many, a great tolerance for all faiths, and all I did that communicated "failure" was forget to send a note to say I wouldn't be able to see her...I never even gave her or anyone else the hope that I would be seeing them on this very short trip.
I can easily say that this is exactly what I described above--a persons choice to be disappointed in what she thought my actions should be. She had every right to tell me how she felt, it is not her sorrow in not seeing me or not getting a note from me that hurts. We all navigate, at times, with forgetful patterns and mindless mistakes. I am okay with a criticism that tells me I am of the sort, and if it ended there, I would have very kindly apologized for being absent minded. The greatest way we can hurt someone is by picking apart their character and judging them from afar, it is exactly what we are striving to teach our children not to do, it is bullying. When we take to appease our sense of pain by tearing down another person's character, we have hurt a part of them that is very hard to repair, we have hurt their heart.
Today was hard. I cried many tears and wished I could run away to a far corner of the world to be alone. I still desire to do that. Instead, however, I made lunches, brushed hair, chauffeured children, and in the quiet moments when I was alone, I cried.
Let's be less critical of people's character. Let us resolve our differences, but in no way by belittling people with reflections of the type of people they appear to be in our narrow minded vision. Let us all try to give each other the benefit of the doubt and take less offense to people's innocent actions, or inaction. Hold back the character bashing and leave it to never be said or written--you never know when the person you are criticizing is moments away from feeling like their existence can end today...and it wouldn't make a difference.
Bullying is real.
Suicide is real.
At all ages, and in all forms--they are real.
Love is real, as well.
Choose love.
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