Friday, December 12, 2008

Facing Feces

Lately, I keep remembering things. 

I'm not talking about the proverbial stroll down memory lane filled with cozy and fluffy nostalgia. It's more like I'm minding my own business and out of the blue, from somewhere overhead, I get pooped on by a pigeon (which really happened but I will save that story for another time). It has been happening frequently these past few weeks. The poopy memories dropping in on me, I mean. Not the literal pigeon poop. 

Are you still with me? 

I found a playlist on my ipod. Good songs. Great songs, in fact, but when I listened to them, I was immediately transported to the time in my life when I first came to love those songs. I cringed. Something in me wanted to turn the music off and find a tune that didn't remind me of loss. 

I got the invitation to attend the company Christmas party. This will be the 3rd year in a row. The 1st year included a posh, all expense paid trip to So. Cal for the event and last year, an in-state, top notch dinner party complete with limo service. Both experiences were fantastic. Both experiences were shared with the same person. The experiences and the person are now gone. I felt sick. I wanted to r.s.v.p that I will not be able to make it this year. 

The ways in which we are able to hold conversations, images and feelings in our minds like a living scrap book is a treasure most of the time but there are some things that I don't want to reminded of; similar to how I wish the pictures of my hill-billy fashion sense and mullet-ish hair from 1989 would disappear. 

Strangely, as these things and others have tried to defecate on me, I have found that when I stand there and look them straight in the eye, it's not so bad. 

I listened to every song on the playlist. I listened, and rather than dwell in another time, I found new meanings in the words of those songs.  

I sent back the r.s.v.p and next weekend, I will go to the company Christmas party. I will have a new experience and I will share it with someone different.  

I asked, without flinching, for God to navigate me through these things and to heal me. It would be easy to cut off these kind of memories when they appear. It wouldn't sting so much to simply avoid whatever triggers them but then there would be no deep healing. Something else that I didn't foresee would arise and prompt more hiding and more avoidance within myself. 

Yes, it's stinky and messy but it's just a little poop. It will wash off with soap and water.  

Besides, running and hiding from a pigeon seems ridiculous, don't you think?    

2 comments:

Shannon said...

i soooo know what you mean, especially with music. i hate that songs i used to love will sting in worst way, but it's more incentive to change what the song means to me and make a new meaning that doesn't hurt so much. songs, places and people can be redeemed and for that i am so thankful.

thanks for sharing!

Abigail Fields Rambo said...

T,
okay, so i totally remember you coming home from getting pooped on that day! i still laugh!!
miss you!