“Le Bal des Ardents” image: Isaius,
“Reading is antisocial.”
That was the clincher… his final word on the argument. I put the book down. For the best part of the next seven years… at least when anyone was around. Me, who had been a bookworm all my life. And why? Fear.
No, it doesn’t reflect well on me. It highlights the weakness, the neediness, the dependency on a relationship in which there was no equal partnership… just the expectation, from both of us to be fair, that I would conform to his requirements in order to make it work. Hundreds of books were gradually moved to the attic, stored in boxes I couldn’t get to, as their higgledy-piggledy sizes and well-thumbed spines offended his ideas of neatness, he said… though I think it was unconsciously hiding something of me, in the same way my few family photos had to be put out of sight. And I? I allowed it. Instead I sat in silence through interminable hours of mind numbing TV, which, for some reason, was not seen as antisocial.
I gradually migrated to the far end of the living room when the football was on TV…and for a couple of hours I could use the computer to read, write and stay in touch with distant friends… as long as the keyboard was a quiet one and didn’t interrupt the game with its tapping. This was still seen as antisocial behaviour on my part, but at least it prevented me from asking inane questions about a game I couldn’t possibly understand, being a woman. And I was on hand to ferry the beer from the kitchen.
Don’t misunderstand me, although there were a lot of things fundamentally wrong with that relationship, there were also a lot of things that were good and for some things I will be eternally grateful as few could have done more than he when my son was attacked. The biggest problem was the emotional damage life had left in both of us, and the need it engendered in each of us to conform to patterns of behaviour that only reinforced our respective weaknesses.
I wrote yesterday of the need to step back from a situation in order to see it more clearly. It isn’t easy when you are so caught up in it that it forms the frame of your self-image and your days. Sometimes it needs something to jolt you into clarity… for me that jolt came with the attack on my son. Life had, with amazing regularity, attempted to get me to wake up over a number of years, giving me countless opportunities, in hindsight, with increasingly severe kicks in the metaphorical nether regions. And I, with equally amazing obtuseness had refused to see. It wasn’t that I couldn’t… but fear of change, even of changing the things that you know are inherently wrong, gives the imagination creative license to find reasons to be blind. We are good at that.
The attack on my son in 2009 pressed a reset button for many of us, forcing us, through the severity of the events, to reassess many aspects of our own lives as the impact was felt in the wide rippling pool. And, although the reboot was slow, I personally realised an inner strength in the fight for my sons’ survival and recovery that I had lost sight of in the fogged years of habit and fear for myself. Focussing on the greater and far bigger fear for someone else shifted the balance. I began to remember who I am.
Could I have done it sooner? Yes, on one level, of course I could… the opportunities were given with regular and ever increasing emphasis. On the other hand, no, probably not… I wasn’t ready, hadn’t grown enough, lived enough or understood enough. I may kick myself with hindsight for those missed opportunities, yet I am doing so from here and now… with a different understanding and a clearer vision than I had then. I am not now who I was then. I had to learn to let go… of many things, but mostly of the cherished illusions and excuses I had made for myself.
The books moved back downstairs. They are part of my history. Stories shared with several generations of my family in both directions; most of them hold memories…worlds I have visited in imagination, ideas I have drunk and taken as the raw materials of thought. Some of my earliest memories are of reading or being read to by those I loved, and that is something I still delight in today. The books were a symbol of something bigger and their reinstatement in my life signalled a deeper change than mere words on paper, just as those words convey ideas, something far more than the symbolic arrangement of letters might indicate. Inevitably, the relationship failed. “You’ve changed.”
Or did it fail? Perhaps that too was part of the journey to now… an essential ingredient in the mix of events that have allowed me to learn to be who I am today… and that is simply the raw material of my tomorrows. To take responsibility for cleaning the lens through which we see ourselves can be a hard and painful thing, and the clearer we can make it, the more we can see of the mistakes we have made in the past. That can hurt, make us cringe… but those mistakes too have been part of the journey and we can carry away from our realisation an understanding that allows us to grow.
We can live in regret for the errors, chiding our past selves for what we have done, thought or left undone. Yet that past self may not have had the ability at that time to act any differently. It may well be that it is only through having lived those mistakes that we can now see them. What we can do is recognise them, learn from them and carry the lessons into the future. And the future starts now. It always does.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
What a great picture.
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Isn’t it? I’d never be able to do that at home.. I would always want the book that was the ‘keystone’ … 😉
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Excellent post. It’s easy for other people to say that a person should have done something years ago, but it might not have been right at that time. Making a change or taking a big step needs more than courage. It needs a certain mindset and maturity that allows the new path to take instead of bashing through it like a reckless beast. Not sure if that makes sense outside of my head.
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It does… we are all good at seeing what others ‘should’ do.. but we are not them, their mind, past and emotions not ours…and the same applies to our past selves. We can see from here what we could not see then… and if we couldn’t see it, or were not ready for whatever reason, then it wasn’t the right time.
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Timing definitely is everything.
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Yep…
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Superb, Sue. Very moving – and one I can identify with in so many ways. Thank you for sharing it today: very timely. xxx
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Thanks, Ali… xxx
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I’m not sure that ‘antisocial’ is a particularly bad thing – everyone deserves a bit of space sometimes. When somebody suggests to me that I’m antisocial, it usually means they are bored and want me to entertain them. (But it’s also true that I am ‘antisocial’ – my ideal job …. lighthouse keeper … so long as I have my photography gear with me)
(Just imagine if we started our lives knowing the person we were.)
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Oh I know…
I’m a very sociable person… I love to sit and talk with friends, but my ideal home would be miles from nowhere… though I would want a good internet connection and good plumbing!
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To me, Sue, the most horrific thing you’ve mentioned here is ” interminable hours of mind numbing TV” – dreadful, simply dreadful. I share your love of books and have mine around me – and I know several people who do not have a TV – and they are all very vibrant, characterful, alive and outgoing. Adrian
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The TV went with the partner… but I was given another. I never watch it, except to watch the odd DVD once a blue moon… Stuart is trying to fill in the gaps in my artistic education 🙂
On the other hand, the books are double stacked, floor to ceiling through the house… and in every available cupboard and corner…. with the odd pile or two to hand 🙂
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All been there. All done that.
You, know, the craziest part is that, during one of these interminable courses on “self improvement in the workplace” seminar thingies that my boss at the time loved (must have been a tax break involved, or something), I ACTUALLY wrote down, in the box marked “Things to do that cannot be put off”, “End relationship!” (I remember it so well because a colleague gasped while reading it over my shoulder, and I felt kind of shitty for having the audacity to put it down in black and white :-/)
Six and a half years later… finally got round to it. (Well, it couldn’t be put off, could it… :p )
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It is so damnably easy to get stuck, isn’t it? Habit is a hell of a set of chains x
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Thank you for sharing your brave and wise soul, Sue. xo
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xxx
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Interesting how experiences can be similar if not out right thesame.My partner even prayed to her “God” fervently to destroy that evil in me called “reading books”,especially metaphysical and mystical ones,and emitted so much of negative thoughts towards me each time I sat there reading something or had to do particular studies.Even when I sat down to meditate.Its unbelievable how much we at times have sacrificed in order to keep a relation going.May be the price we have to pay for an initial “wrong” choice,or not having listened to the Inner Self, when the right person was shown us, and we ignored it for some frivolous reason. Life, to a good extent is learning to deal with UNKNOWNS, for me.The longer it lasts the better am able to deal with them.Thanks Sue for this wonderful treat and good day.
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Thank you, Obi 🙂
I don’t think there are really any wrong choices… just better ones and worse ones, but either can teach us what we need to learn if we allow the lessons to reach us.
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and i am happy you found your way back to yourself and your books once more )
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so am I, Beth
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Thanks for sharing this so movingly. The idea of being cut off from books is unbearable: they have made the unbearable bearable for me so many times. It’s amazing how circumstances can blind us into accepting the unacceptable sometimes. Thank goodness you are reunited with them again.
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More to the point, that goodness I am reunited with me… we can be so very blind sometimes, when we simply react to need.
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You mean I’m not my books? I’ll have to ponder on that one!
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I know that feeling too 😉
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Books are a wonderful escape to let us try on different hats and situations. When we learn something from them … and from life … only then can we grow. Enjoy your journey, Sue. 😉
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They can be friends an comfort too…
I remember well how I was taught to respect them as the repositories of all human thought and emotion.
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