Hello from the hotel,
I am continually amazed by the way our lives seem to be in an ending tension of sorts, the sort of push and pull between things that seem diametrically opposed. We are, on occasion, profoundly short-sighted while simultaneously planning things long-term. We are ostensibly pleased with our daily existence while worrying about where we are as well as where we are going or what might happen. We claim resilience all the time being much more fragile than we realize or care to admit. All of these tenuous elements of life have seemed to be my daily companions of late. I am a planner, and I regularly tell people that I am capable of flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, but it is never my preference. I believed I had thought about retirement carefully and that I had managed all the elements of that drastic change in my life adequately. At this point, I am certainly not feeling that way. The past year has taught me there was a lot more to this than I anticipated, and now I am feeling scattered, under-prepared, and less squared away than I imagined. Insecurity is a powerful thing, and it takes any sense of control and throws it to the winds. Being in control of my life is something that I have worked hard to manage, particularly after coming to Bloomsburg, but currently, I find myself rethinking almost everything.
The importance of safety is something that has found its way into my blog posts from time to time, questioning what it means to feel safe, and certainly to realize when that has occurred in my life. There are more than enough things happening daily in our world that feeling safe might be a more and more fleeting possibility. From food insecurity to wondering if you can fly, from receiving a paycheck to wondering what might happen on our streets, in our churches, or on the oceans, the reasons to have concern are certainly rampant. This past summer when I was in Europe, friends, quasi-family, and former students all asked me what was happening in America. While to some extent, it matters not what I said, it is important that they felt the need to ask. What they imply by their very questions is that what they are seeing, reading, hearing, and pondering is an America that is not what they grew up understanding. Likewise, what is noted in that question is a global safety question.
What provides one with a sense of safety? What are the basic items, qualities, or ideas that are necessary for someone to feel safe? It is a fair question. What made me feel safe as a small child at my grandparents’ home? What I imagine was some sense of predictability. Even though I was less than two when my sister and I came to live with them, what we were told was the difference that happened in our daily lives from the time we had with our biological parents. What else I imagine, knowing what I know now was the incredible love my sister and I received from our grandparents. Predictability has a byproduct of safety of continuity, allowing someone to merely move from thing to thing, from day to day. What I had was a predictability and the belief that I was safe from harm. Safety has two components for us as we age. It is what we are experiencing in the moment, but it is always connected to what we have experienced in the past. The Cuban-born, American philosopher, Ernest Sosa, considered what is called the safety principle an anti-luck principle attempting to address the epistemological idea of JTB (justification, truth, belief- and perhaps an apropos consideration as the anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth is next week), which is also known as the Gettier Problem. I must admit that I was not aware of this struggle until I did some searching, but it still pushes me to consider what is safety and how it relates to knowledge.
As I ponder my own struggles with feeling safe or maintaining that feeling, I cannot get beyond how past experience affects my response in situations where I am feeling uncomfortable (e.g. unsafe). Those feelings in a particularly circumstance or because of what has occurred in the past, and how my feelings about those experiences can quickly bubble to the surface when something that is even tangentially related occurs. The scars of our childhood, of our past relationships, or of events that were difficult to manage can heal, and even seem invisible, but when something that harkens back to that experience and those emotions, it is like the scar has been re-wounded; the pain, the fear, and inability to manage can re-establish itself in a moment, and when it is unexpected, the intensity is exponentially higher. When I think of the scars, the events that have most affected who I am or how I respond, there are a couple of things that rise to the top quickly. Again, I do not believe anyone who has been reading my work for a while will be surprised. First, it is feeling as if I do not belong and as if I have no value. That can come from what another does, which is actually more manageable, and then it comes from inside of me. Connected to belonging or having value relates to our internal sense of worth. That thing that often gives us a sense of purpose. The continual voice I struggle to overcome, regardless how well I have done, is that voice that I heard regularly, telling me I did not deserve to be in someone’s house, that I would not amount to anything. As I am struggling to find my place at the moment, and as I feel more vulnerable on multiple levels than I have for some time, I am feeling the scar and pain of those words as I feel I have ended up there at this point so many years later. It is disconcerting; it was unexpected; and it is frightening. That is the honest truth to my vulnerability at this moment. Second, and sometimes, I wonder if this is karma for earlier transgressions, when I am accused or blamed for something that I either did not do, nor I had no power over, it destroys me. That is a strong statement, but it does. It tears into my soul in a way that I cannot describe. And again, maybe that is because I have not dealt adequately with some of those failures in my earlier life.
Trusting in another person, believing I would not be rejected or discarded has always been a profound struggle for me, and something with extreme consequence. I believe it is a central reason that my marriages failed. It caused me to believe I was not good enough, believing that any sense of disapproval or disagreement would lead to abandonment. The fear of abandonment, of rejection caused the little boy in me to bubble to the surface, and my responses both physically and emotionally were problematic. I cannot blame my former spouses on some levels for their struggle with me. My inability to manage my fear undermined my relationships in more than one way that is for sure. That is both painful and long overdue. That is not to say there were no actions or behaviors on the other side of the equation, but I need to take accountability for my part of their failures. Additionally believing that I might go back and change any of that is abject foolishness. While I am not a psychologist, and not well-versed in childhood trauma, a quick search does demonstrate that childhood maltreatment has long time, often life-changing consequences. What makes it more difficult is the scars are generally not something that has a physical manifestation. That makes it more difficult because on the surface someone can appear unharmed, a person with no deep-seated fears or pains. The feeling victimized by the past is not something I have ever wished to do, and yet studies show that it is both only normal, but there is a propensity for revictimization. That is a very troubling thing. It makes me feel like I am in the Sisyphus-tic circle. If we succumb to this, we believe we have no power. I am unwilling to do that. The only power, the only agency, we hold is what we decide to do. While I am feeling more vulnerable than I have for a very long time, conversations today (totally unrelated to this blog) have reminded me of the other things that matter. Certainly, the past year has been disorienting in multiple ways (and not only in a sense of vertigo, which has also been an issue), but the scars that do not always appear visible has been scratched or bumped, causing pain and struggle once again. While there are things that need to be managed as always, I have no power other than my own choices. And yet the reminder they are there is not a bad thing. Perhaps in admitting them once again, I have more control over them.
Thanks as always for reading.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 