If shame is the strongest emotional currency, is self-awareness the only effective way to learn a lesson?
I dissect someone who I know to be conniving as they pretend to be vulnerable and all I see is sadness in their eyes. A sociopath, they call him. The way he pinches at the skin between his thumb and index finger. I pull mine taught and run my other hand’s pointer along the thin, sensational ridge. I remember what it felt like to have my consciousness be separate from myself. Remember what it felt like to have my insides whipped into knots; lies wrapped at random around the maypole of my spine. I don’t have sympathy for him, but I wonder if he decided to get caught. I became numb to shame because I learned very young that it’s a lie.
One of my dear old neighbors turned 70 recently. He isn’t a drunk, but he hydrates with cans of American water-beer most of the days. He is wobbly stone cold sober, and even more so when he’s had a few Buds. The night of his birthday, he twisted his ankle and was on a crutch for a couple of weeks. He’s sturdy and drinks fresh juice every day, so he made a relatively swift recovery. After that incident though, he cut out the beer.
I told him I didn't drink anymore either - had one too many tumbles myself!
He told me he was sleeping better.
I saw him when I took out the recycling some night since then and he avoided my eyes a little as we did our usual hug-hello song and dance. It seemed like he was mad at me. I was on the third floor before I realized he’d dodged my eyes and mumbled because he’d been drinking. The idea that he feared my judgment baffled me, but our happy interactions in the earlier hours of the days subsequent promised I’d done no wrong. Crucially, neither had he.
I wish I could say: “Please don’t be embarrassed in front of me. I am never humiliating you in my mind.”
This is the only thing you’ve written that I have read. And I had not read much before I started reading faster, to get to the Subscribe button.
"Nothing WRONG with smoking cigarettes, but there IS consequences" not sure where I read that but it seems to fit. Forgive yourself and do the things that you ACTUALLY want to do with eyes wide open ❤️