Have you ever wished for something, no, not a thing exactly, but a characteristic, an ability perhaps, while at the same time telling yourself "no, I can't do that"? I did. And I was wrong. I knew all along, in my head anyway, that I could probably be whatever I chose to be to some extent. I'm not talking about being a pilot, or a cop, or a physicist. We all have talents and mine do not lie in that direction. Introverted, extroverted, shy, warm, social, caring, bitter, mean, loving: these things are probably not completely set in stone, unless of course we allow them to harden around us like a rock, allow them to define us.
Oh, we are probably born with certain tendencies, but I suspect we are also born with the ability to embody all the human characteristics or temperaments, and how we develop depends partly on ourselves, but also partly on the world around us, not only the way that world acts on us, not only the ways the people around us treat us, but also the way we internalize and characterize that world and our place in it. It is that last bit that is the important bit, because we can change the way we characterize our view of ourselves in the world. It is not necessarily an easy path. It is possible that we have used memory to build a wall around ourselves, and we all build walls. We all build walls, no matter how happy, or how sad our childhoods. It is a part of growing up, of surviving into adulthood, just as part of surviving adulthood and moving into another stage, if there is another stage, which I shall call "elder", a stage of greater freedom and acceptance, and yes, even perhaps wisdom, requires seeing our walls and letting them fall.
My father was a social and outgoing person, a person who prided himself on being able to "talk to anyone". So is my mother although she would not call herself such. She would say that social situations were more difficult for her, but like many of the things we humans tend to think of ourselves, this is both true and not true. My mom is great at casual interractions, at striking up a conversation with the person next to her in line at the store or the post-office, with store clerks, with passing strangers. She has a way that can make those casual interactions meaningful. When I was younger I wished I had that ability. But when I tried to talk to people I didn't know, I would grow tongue-tied and awkward. I would think too much.
Thinking too much has always been a problem for me. But it was more than that. I was hampered by my own memories and the way I had let them define something about how I saw myself. Both of my parents would tell me that they were sorry I was such a shy diffident child. Both of my parents would tell me that they wished I could be more outgoing. I know they were trying to encourage me to be different, to be more social and easy-going, but what I heard was "you are shy and awkward". In the same way I know that when my father would tell me that it was a good thing that I was smart because I could support myself because I wasn't pretty enough or witty enough to find a husband to support me, he wasn't trying to say "you are ugly and boring", which may or may not be true, but is what I heard. He was telling me I wasn't so beautiful that I could coast on that (true), nor was I so charming that my sparkling personality would overcome any other deficits (also true). But I heard that being smart was all I had. And for various reasons I never felt like I was smart enough, but that is another story.
I know I've written about the ways in which George's death, in fact the ways in which the entire process of living with his dementia, forced me to look at memory and how memory shaped the person I became in a different way. Part of that process involved coming to terms with the person I told myself I was as opposed to the person I actually am, or can be if I choose. Part of that process involved multiple levels of forgiveness. Part of that process required a release from memory. Notice I did not say forgetting. Our memories, both good and bad, play a role in who we are. But we can release them from their hold on us. Part of that process requires forgiveness. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. Forgiveness means we have to look beyond the broken mirror of our own memories and forgive the perpetrator; it means we have to see the perpetrator as human, just as human as we are ourselves, as our father, our mother, our friend, our neighbor, as the person we might have been, as a mere person with hidden issues and fears, with their own memories of things that have happened to them, things that have shaped them, that have a hold on them they perhaps cannot escape. And then we have to let it go. We have to say yes it happened. Yes I was harmed. But no, I will not let that harm define me. Hardest of all, we have to forgive ourselves for holding our pain and fear up like a wall, cutting ourselves off from the person we could be.
But where am I going with all of this? What prompted all these words?
On Saturday I realized I am that girl, the one who can just start up a conversation with the next person in line, the woman who chats with the store clerks and makes jokes. I've had that ability all along but I didn't always let it flower. Saturday I walked around the farmer's market, chatting with vendors and farmers, something I do almost every week and never think about. I wandered into a few stores and struck up conversations with other customers about books, or with the store clerks about this or that, and it was a wonderful day.
I know that I am "an introvert" but I am tired of labels. I am me, just as you are you, and neither of us is as simple as any label could convey. I do need time alone. I need to think. I need to write. But I am also social. There are also many times when I need people around, when I need, crave, and even thrive on social interaction. I (we) can be both social and private, introverted and extroverted, at least some of the time. We are complex, we humans, at least when we allow ourselves to let our complexities and our inconsistencies flower. Some days we pull in, some days we flow out, but I suspect that each one of us is more than we think we can be.