It’s well a documented phenomenon that as people grow older, their left-leaning beliefs start to skew rightward. The ideals they held dear as kids become muddled and seem more like flights of fancy than values to live by. I used to see the world in very black and white terms: actions and beliefs were either right or wrong. I think as kids our worlds are so small that it seems simple to define the things that happen to us, to compartmentalize them into digestible tidbits with vague titles like “good” and “bad.” But the older I get, the harder it becomes to divide and parse things so clearly. Feelings and actions have dimensions that I somehow missed before. Now I see that everything — relationships, motives, desires — is just way more complicated. This grayness, this in-between-ness, makes it much easier to fathom forgiveness, compassion, empathy.
My mother is combing through her life and forgiving the people that hurt her. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I understand why she feels it’s necessary. When we are young, passion is embarrassingly overemployed, but anger grows dull over the years. It becomes a lot easier to go back on statements like, “I would never do that” or “I’m never speaking to her again” because time distorts how you feel. I think that “never” has a shelf date of about 10 years before it starts to eat at you. But, like my mother, I’ve always been weak in that department. Forgiveness flows from me water-easy. I’m incapable of holding a grudge. I’ve only cut a handful of people out of my life, but they still send me e-mails to tell me how they’re doing. I do my best not to answer them back.
A few weeks ago I was talking to my new therapist about how crippling my social anxiety has become. I told him that I feel okay in small groups, but at parties or crowded places I completely lose my ability to conduct a normal conversation. I am always dying to connect with people, aching for a chance to dig around inside their souls, but really I’m much better at doing that from afar, like from across the street as I make note of their gait or from the other side of my Macbook screen.
Basically, I don’t know how to communicate with strangers or how to draw on visual cues for conversation topics. I’m aware this makes me seem autistic, but it’s actually kind of the opposite: I’m too in touch with my surroundings, too observant of my peers. As another therapist once said, I am “hyper-vigilant” and “susceptible to the moods of those around me.” I can’t talk to strangers because I am too busy picking up on the other cues they are subconsciously displaying, like the timbre of their voice or the way their shoulders hang. If they are sad, I am sad; that’s just the way it’s always been.
Out of them all (and there are MANY), sometimes I think my biggest flaw is my inability to make small talk. I suppose it’s less of an inability as a subconscious refusal to master it; I’ve always been terrified of turning into the working stiff discussing the weather in the elevator. If I’m talking, I want it to be about something important. I want my words to mean something. I don’t want to speak just to speak. And that’s what small talk feels like to me.
Last weekend I was enjoying the unremarkable view of abandoned warehouses from my balcony when a seemingly random thought struck. A family friend has been sick with cancer, and it occurred that I should send him an e-mail to tell him that I was thinking about him. I even started composing the e-mail in my head, how I would talk about how much I missed him and how amazing he was and how we were all rooting for him. But then something happened and the thought tumbled away. I never got around to sending it.
I usually regret the e-mails I’ve sent rather than the ones I haven’t sent, so this is a first. Last night, Mr. Taylor, the family friend to whom I considered sending my love this past weekend, lost his battle with cancer.
I suppose this is a crueler, more digital extension of the old adage, “Never go to sleep angry.” I regret going to sleep without sending that e-mail, though who knows if he would’ve received it anyway. Still, it gnaws at me. It is so important to say what you mean and say what you feel to the people you love before it’s too late. I don’t know why we are all so bad at this.