Reply to Marie

Dear Marie,

Thank you for writing. I was thrilled to see your handwriting on the envelope in my mailbox, and your letter itself was entirely fair -- even generous in the last paragraph. I am grateful to be allowed to write you.

You said I could write if there are things it would ease my mind to say. Can I start by saying that I am sorry? Time and again, over the years we knew each other, you offered me your heart in honest, vulnerable trust. Time and again I stood still -- stupidly, silently, cruelly -- and then ran away in the other direction. (Or fainted, which is just as bad.) I talked endlessly about the bureaucracy of the Byzantine Empire or the weather in Utah, but I never said a word to acknowledge that you even existed, let alone that you were alive and suffering and right in front of me. I'm ashamed of my behavior, and I'm deeply sorry for the pain I inflicted. I wish I could ask your forgiveness, but honestly I have done nothing to earn it; so in that respect, at least, I had better hold my tongue.

You also said that I could ask questions, so here is the first one: What am I still overlooking? I want to understand what it looks like from your perspective; but I'm all too aware that my track record there is not good. What is visible to me is the unrelenting rejection you got at my hands. But likely the view from your side holds things I still haven't seen at all. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there are plenty of ways I have trodden on you, all oblivious. You may even have told me about them before, and I didn't hear. If you care to tell me again, I'm listening now.

__________

Is it any help to hear what this looked like from my side? Maybe not. It's probably not true that to understand all is to forgive all; there are crimes we understand and still condemn. So you can skip this next bit if you like.

Also, some parts of this are too long, but other parts might be too short. If anything I say is unclear, please feel free to ask questions. I will answer them.

How is it possible for a man to be so out of touch with his own feelings that he doesn't realize until in his late forties that he is shy? It sounds fatuous and unbelievable but that was me. All my life I have felt strong, sometimes crippling, social anxiety -- strong enough (as you know) to immobilize me with a kind of aphasia. But my father was a latter-day Falstaff, who saw nothing in other people except what he could use as a foil for his own ongoing performance. So I got no validation that shyness was even a thing, let alone that I might suffer from it or might need to recognize it in myself before I could relate to others. The only coping techniques that I learned were a loud voice and a knack for dominating conversations with entertaining trivia. I didn't even enjoy it. I could tell that I was isolating myself from others, walling myself off. But I literally did not know what else to do.

OK, so I was shy. And I didn't know I was shy. I had no words to name my own feelings (to say nothing of anybody else's) and no way to understand them. Worse than that, I didn't even know what my own feelings were. That, too, sounds impossible. I can tell that as I write it. But all I learned from my father the actor was how to perform. And I didn't have to know my own feelings in order to perform -- all I had to know was what people wanted to hear next.

My coping techniques "worked" well enough with most people, if by "worked" you mean that I got through the day. But you weren't "most people". Far better than I deserved, you cared enough to get closer than that. And I froze. When you asked what I felt, I couldn't make my mouth move ... and even if I could have, I didn't know the answer. I didn't know what I felt. But that's crazy -- how can you not know what you feel? I had to know. Only I didn't. I had to say something. Only I couldn't. So I got more anxious ... and froze harder ... and the seconds ticked away. Into minutes. Into hours, weeks, years.

I knew I was hurting you. I remember after the big party at the end of your freshman year, when you took the risk to speak openly to me and I fainted. Inside, I was thrilled that you cared enough to help me out of the prison I had built for myself. I wanted to run back to you, to hold and be held, to open all of my walls. I also knew that after you had made yourself so vulnerable, every hour I waited was a dagger in your heart. So not only did I want to run back to you, but I knew that I had to. I knew it was cruel not to.

And. I. Could. Not. Make. Myself. Go.

It sounds insane. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it. I could curse myself as a coward; I could hate myself for cruelty. I did both those things. But I could not make myself go see you and speak openly about my feelings ... feelings that mostly I didn't know and couldn't name. The only one I could name was fear.

It's not like this got miraculously better when I married Wife. Even as I (very slowly) began to learn an emotional vocabulary, I encountered a new problem -- that to know and name my true feelings would require me to say honestly that my marriage was sometimes (too often) an abusive nightmare. But I felt it was my duty not to say that. I felt that no gentleman could say such things about his wife, even if they were true. So my road towards emotional honesty has been a long one. And strictly speaking I suppose it would be presumptuous to say I've arrived. How can I know what blind spots I still have? But I'm better at it than I used to be.

__________

Enough with the self-serving excuses. You said I could ask questions, and there are a few on my mind. Some of these are pretty superficial, just because it has been a long time. Others are maybe less so. I understand you haven't promised to answer, but I'd be grateful to hear back about any of them that you feel like taking up.

• Are you happy?
• Are you still working with Landmark?
• If yes, what is it like after all these years? (i.e., how is it different from when you were first with them?)
• If no, how did it come to an end?
• Schmidt says you have a job that really suits you. Can you tell me about it?
• Schmidt says (if I understood him right) that you have been writing Harry Potter fan fiction. Can you tell me about it? Is any of it published online, or somewhere else that I can find it?
• Schmidt says your mother died. How long ago? My father died in September. Let me know if this is something you feel like talking about.
• Are you with somebody romantically these days?
• If yes, I'd love to hear all about it.
• If no, how does that show up for you?
• Have you ever written a "six-word memoir" for yourself? (If you aren't familiar with these, check Wikipedia or Google.) If yes, can I read it?

__________

 

In Ray Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, the father, Charles Halloway, defines "love" as "shared experience". (This is in chapter 39; my edition puts it on page 145.) Of course, "shared experience" isn't always roses. Sometimes it can be very painful. But pain isn't always the last word. Buddhists talk about "transforming suffering"; in more secular language we talk about learning from our mistakes. Whatever the words, I have found over the years that some of my most painful experiences have helped me learn to be better than I was. And this gives me hope.

Your mileage may vary, of course. There's nothing I can tell you about your own pain and it's none of my stinking business to try. But my wish for you is that pain not be the last word. And so I hope.

Honoring our "shared experience" and wishing you a joyful New Year,

Hosea