From The Stoop-nov2014
It is dreamily quiet on the stoop today. The only sound I hear is a distant drone filling the air. It is not that often that I am totally removed from everything around me but it does happen. Everyone is still where they are supposed to be, the stores are bustling and cars rumble through the street. I just feel detached sometimes and when it is not a welcome feeling it becomes all that more surreal.
Alone in a crowd.
It apparently is not that uncommon a condition to feel “alone in a crowd” I have learned. Feelings of not fitting, not belonging, as if I live and work behind enemy lines. It is a difficulty to trust even though you have a constant need to open and trust. When the time comes that someone accepts your trust you tend to place that person in a sort of a reserve pool. Someone who becomes a safety net of sorts.
Our interests, motivation, health and happiness are inextricably tied to the feeling that we belong to a greater community that may share common interests and aspirations. When you feel you don’t have that community belonging it does or can affect any of those. Experience is like a storage room of shoe boxes, each closed box contains a beginning, an experience and an end. What if all the experiences in your mind that define your perceived self-worth never have an obvious beginning nor an end that allow you to close that box and file it. They just sit there. I believe you set an imaginary limit as to how far you take any task. A fear of too many open boxes prevents exploring too far.
We strive for inner peace yet the body is influenced by so many external factors that the spirit becomes restless and then it constantly seeks inner peace. The body and spirit therefore tear us apart and leaves us thinking and wondering who we really are. You must find inner peace often for your spirit in order to reduce the identity crisis even when the external body is constantly influenced by external factors.
One normally associates the feeling of not belonging as part of a teen’s growing up process. It is not reserved for the young and many never really grow out of it. They just develop mechanisms to work around it. Society is very good at allowing people to be alone. One can become absorbed in a book or a TV show or a gadget and it is acceptable. To explore on your own as a child is deemed ok.
It is when other’s perception of you as a person comes into play that is when the problem comes to the surface and is difficult to manage. It is normal to regard someone as an introvert when they are off by themselves. It is also accepted to think that someone doesn’t care or doesn’t want to be part of a team when they turn down invitations to attend something that will put them into a place full of people or to be put in the limelight. If you admitted you were afraid I wonder how that would be taken.
Everyone, I think, can identify a defining moment whether negative or positive that shaped the “public facing” identity that people see.
This video by Coach Jimmy sets the stage that so many can associate with. An event does not have to be complicated or cosmic in order to change who you become but the point he makes is that it does indeed shape you.
If I had to offer a piece of advice it would be that we need to recognize that not everyone can stand in front of the class. To do so needs to be tempered by our own device and not always will it be something we can carry out. Offer alternatives, stand next to or even hand hold and you may make an otherwise terrifying experience somewhat enjoyable. Most of all understand.
The street is returning to normal and the din returns. I can do what I do best. Sit on my stoop and watch.