The stories we tell ourselves keep us worlds apart.
What do we see? What do we hear? Between what the first person means and how they communicate that information and what the other person perceives and how their brain interprets it, there are layers upon layers of filters coming from our upbringing, our past experiences and all kinds of pre-programming we receive from our family, our teachers, our culture and so on…How the,n can we be sure that we can ever understand each other, trully?
Sometimes, I arrive in the kitchen to use a part of the counter by the stove. My father arrives in the kitchen at the same time, in the same spot…
My inner voice starts chatting “What? He had nothing to do all day and he chooses to come now exactly when I need that space. He is in my way. What a nuisance. He is doing it on purpose to annoy me, isn’t he?”
The inner voice of his subconscious is saying “I feel so lonely that I take any chance I get to be close to someone. I follow them where they are, even if it is in their way because it is my way to feel close.”
We often don’t know what is really going on in the background, deep inside. Only a higher perspective could tell us. So before I judge someone at first glance, I remember that behind their appearance, behind their behaviour, behind their hurtful words, there is a reason, there is a need, there is a desperate call for love and union. We all do it at some level and yet we don’t realise that this is what is going on.
Today we had a visit with my mum. The nurse that brings her in her wheelchair gives us a bag with mum’s dirty laundry and we have to wash it for the next visit. This time, as I opened the bag I noticed that it contained a photo album.
My sister spent some time to carefully choose photos to put online and she ordered that beautifully made photo album for mum. My mother had it in the first hospital she was in, and there it was in the bag. I asked the nurse. She replied that mum had purposely put it there. Inside it were cards and letters that had been sent to her directly.
I looked at mum with eyes searching for truth…She seemed clear and she even did a gesture of disgust. I insisted “Are you sure you don’t want to see us anymore?” She repeated the same gesture…It was hard to swallow and I couldn’t help it. I snapped “well if you didn’t want to see us anymore, you’ve done it. You are going to have the retirement you always wanted and we are not going to bother you.”
In retrospect I regret having snapped. It is just hard to see someone who has cared about you for so long, suddenly not giving much interest… She has had a passive-aggressive habit for years. Now it feels that she is taking her ultimate revenge on us. It felt unsettling and, for the first time, I was nearly relieved that our visit time was over. She hardly looked at us on the way out. So, am I lost in translation here or what?
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