For once, I had today’s reflection all planned out. I’d been watching a movie that I had been meaning for watch for a long time, and I was kind of surprised by my response to it. It gave me some good things to think about, and as I opened up Facebook to check what reflection number this was going to be, I got sidetracked by a quote that a friend of mine had shared.
I have no idea who ‘Roach-works’ on Tumblr is, or even if this quote belongs to them. All I know is it stopped me cold, and I realized that my carefully planned and thought out reflection was going to have to wait for another day, because I had something rather different to share.
The quote is simply this: “I think ultimately you become whoever would have saved you at the time that no one did”.
There’s so much wisdom in that one line that I honestly struggled finding out where to begin unpacking it. It hit me like a thunderbolt, and for a moment I just sat here riding a wave of intense emotion. I took a couple of deep breaths, and tried to pick my way through the multitude of feelings washing over me. It took a little while, but I was finally able to uncover the truth of why this struck me so forcefully.
And I suddenly realized why I have been writing this work.
Because honestly, there have been a number of times in my life where I think the presence of somebody older and wiser could have really helped. As some of you know, I don’t have a great relationship with my dad, in fact it’s been over 26 years since I’ve seen him, about half of my life. Even when he was there when I was younger, he was too busy trying to survive the trauma of his own childhood to really be present emotionally.
And since I was scared of one grandfather and have almost no memory of the other, I didn’t really have anyone I could connect with as a father figure when I was a child.
So when it came time to be a parent, I was doing a lot of things on instinct rather than experience. I can honestly tell you that I made a lot of mistakes in my life, but if there is one area that I can look at and think that I really did okay, it’s in my relationship with my children. I wasn’t a perfect parent, and I’m still not, but I can honestly say that my two boys are my best friends, and that the relationship we have is so very different from the one that I grew up with.
And yet even now, in my early 50s, there are still many times where I wish I had somebody who I could talk to about things. Someone who I felt had the wisdom that I needed, and that could have made such a difference in my life both years ago and now.
And then it struck me… I’ve been trying to be that person for everybody else.
This work, whatever it is, began over five years ago at a time in my life where I was really struggling. I wanted to find myself, I wanted to understand what I really felt, and most of all I wanted to share something that may be helped somebody else. Because I know what it’s like to sit there in the dark and feel like there is no one who I can turn to.
I honestly don’t want anyone else to feel that way.
It’s kind of a sobering thought to realize that what I’m really doing is trying to heal myself through helping others. I know enough about my own psychology to realize that probably some of this work is my attempt to forge a different meaning out of the events of my life, and find a meaning that essentially gives value to things that I’ve gone through, so that I could help others.
It’s kind of funny how, as creatures of meaning, we do things subconsciously so that we might find our way to the stories that allow us to live with who we are and what has happened.
In the words of one of my mentors who was there for me, “in the end we are all just stories, make yours a good one”.
As I sit here in my office at home crafting this piece, I’m struck by an incredible sense of responsibility for every word that I write, because I understand that there are those of you who read this who didn’t have somebody show up at a time in your life when you needed them to. I don’t claim to be able to “save” anybody, but I promise you that every word you read on this page is born out of a deep desire to help you in any way that I can.
Because in the end, we do have a choice in who we become. We don’t get to choose the circumstances of our birth, and we have far less control over the daily lives that we live and we would like to believe. What it comes right down to is the person who we turn ourselves into, through our choices, our actions, and the way we spend the time which we have been given.
I guess for me, it’s about becoming somebody who can share something that helps people get through this thing we call life, and maybe, just maybe, find a modicum of peace on the journey.
Despite how it looks, none of us have it easy. Being human is never without trials and struggles and difficulties. All of us have our mountains to climb, our rivers to cross, and our burdens to bear.
May we lift one another where we can, so that we may save each other from any more suffering than is absolutely necessary.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings