a mini manifesto

A week ago at Subway I ran into a high school classmate.

I hate running into high school classmates. I hated high school. I didn't realize how much until a few days ago as my evening walk took me past the building where I spent the majority of the years between 1996 and 2000. As soon as I saw the particular set of double doors through which Hillori, my sister and I walked to go to homeroom, something rolled over me like a wave, leaving me feeling panicked and a little sick. In a flash I remembered with a clarity I suppressed at the time how much I dreaded walking through those doors every day. I almost stopped walking for a moment as a condensed version of all the shame I suffered at the hands of my peers exploded in my memory; and then I shut it off and kept going.

Whenever I run into people who knew me in high school, I see them still viewing me as the shy, awkward, brilliant, sensitive loser skulking through the halls to the refuge of class structure, where I shone because I couldn't help shining, even though it meant more social punishment between classes. It's actually easier to run into the people who used to pick on me, because they always knew I would grow up to be different from my high school persona. We may not exchange BFF bracelets, but whatever I'm doing, they look at me with a certain amount of respect -- at least respect that I've grown up. (Possibly because they have never left Erie. I'd have to test this hypothesis, but I'm not motivated enough for the ten-year reunion next year to try it.) The people I really hate meeting unexpectedly are the ones who existed on the margins of social acceptability like I did -- the ones who weren't in the hodgepodge circle of unapologetically geeky friends I had accumulated by senior year.

Sometimes survivors of a traumatic experience bond over their shared trauma. Sometimes they hate each other for having witnessed each other's humiliation. The classmate I saw last week fell more into the latter category than the former. Because we both elected the Honors track, we shared a lot of classes, and our interactions were civil but never chummy. So when I thanked the girl behind the counter at Subway and glanced into my purse for my wallet, and heard a hesitant, "...Sarah?" and turned to see L. next to me at the register, I was a little surprised by the eagerness on her face.

We started that superficial we-weren't-friends-but-we-knew-each-other-so-let's-pretend-to-catch-up conversation, and again I was surprised by the earnestness in her voice when she asked, "So what are you doing with your life?" I told her I was working at a law firm and had a couple other jobs, making ends meet; I shrugged and said I wasn't going to be in Erie for long but had returned home temporarily and it was nice to be back. After a few more pleasantries, she said, "So-and-so saw you working at Borders." "Oh, yeah," I said, "that's one of my other jobs. So-and-so was there?"

"Well," she said, "the context was like this. I was telling him last week how much I ruined my life, getting married so young and not even having my Bachelor's degree finished yet, and I said, 'I should have done something different with my life. I should have been like Sarah Peters. I'll bet she's doing something amazing right now.' And he said, 'Um, she's working at Borders.'"

Then she laughed. "I thought you'd be a famous writer by now, or...something," she said, smiling.

The delight in her eyes caught me entirely off guard. I don't remember what I said in response, but it certainly wasn't some crushing retort; I'm sure I said it in a dazed way, shocked, only able to see clearly her glee. As we said goodbye and she sat at her table looking glowingly satisfied, I returned to my car feeling shock wearing off into shame. Great, I thought. I've become a byword of comfort to those whose lives look like failures.

The sick feeling festered all day, but I wiped away a few tears that night and put it behind me. I told myself that she only knew one little thing about my life; I told myself that I wouldn't be here forever; I told myself that I was going on to great things; I told myself that it only hurt because I don't like where I am, either; if I loved everything I'm doing with the passion of having found my destiny, it wouldn't matter what other people said. All of that was true, of course; but it wasn't everything.

"Peter Pan Syndrome" refers generally to men who refuse to embrace the responsibilities of adulthood; but I dislike that interpretation, because anyone who has read the book knows that Peter Pan took his responsibilities to others seriously. Rather than an immature little boy, Peter Pan is "the eternal spirit of childhood," as it's put in Finding Neverland. And as such, as James Barrie writes, he is always shocked afresh by betrayal. One scene in the book has always stood out to me clearly where the others fade into fond fuzzy memories: In a battle with Captain Hook in the middle of the story, on a cliff in a cave by the sea (I believe), Hook nearly falls to his death, and Peter, out of honor, reaches out a hand to help him. Hook accepts Peter's aid, and then as soon as he reaches firmer footing, he rakes his hook across the arm that saved him. Some kind of chance saves Peter in that moment, because in his shock at the treachery, he can only stare at his bleeding wound, unable to comprehend the cruelty or lift his sword to defend himself.

L.'s malice hurt. If she had told me how she felt like a failure, I would have encouraged her. I do not comprehend destroying other people's self-integrity to assuage one's own wounded pride (or to compensate for one's own well-earned regret). And while I refused to dwell on it and told myself that it didn't matter, it's been shading my self-regard with shame for the past week.

Until this morning, when an unexpected email arrived from Hillori. I had told her about the incident when we talked a few days ago, and she wrote expressly to tell me that the more she thought about it, the angrier she was with L. (Hill used the term "Schadenfreude," which I was delighted to look up -- I don't get thrown a word I don't know very often.) "I certainly hope L.'s prod didn't make you question your decisions or where you are now!" she wrote. "You've been LIVING."

She also wrote that my experiences will deepen my writing, and that I may not know what exactly I will do in the future, but whatever it is, it will bear the mark of greatness.

In that moment this morning, with the corners of my eyes aching, I learned in a brand new way the redemptive power of friendship.

It's difficult for me to reach the point where that kind of power is possible. I learned long ago to keep my hurts and disappointments to myself. At first I stopped talking about painful events because other priorities, other people, were more important; later I stopped talking in order to reduce my vulnerability, to shrink the odds that anyone could hurt me with indifference or rejection (or Schadenfreude). I nobilized it over time. I claimed to myself that I didn't speak because I'm independent, because I don't like to burden others when they can't help, because I'm above average and therefore more capable of handling life on my own, because it's more important that I help others, since their suffering is greater or since they are less able to go it alone.

But the truth is more that I don't speak because I'm afraid, because I don't think anyone will value me or care about the effect of the things that hurt me, because I'm proud, and because while I have highly developed skills in loving others, I am uncomfortable with them loving me. I don't like the dependence. I don't like talking through my feelings. I don't like anyone seeing me upset. I am only able to cry in front of my parents, my sister, Hillori, Meg and John, and only able to cry freely in front of Hillori, Meg and John. And that happens so infrequently as to be nearly theoretical. I don't even cry much in private; I don't allow myself to be completely open in my emotions even to myself.

My habit has largely calcified. Mom reads my blog to find out how I'm really doing, because while I carry on pleasant conversations and smile and laugh about unrelated topics, if my day was bad I'll only shrug it off when asked. The power of deflection is one I wield with prodigious alacrity, and most of the time I feel a little trapped within myself, because it's so difficult to share. Don't get me wrong; I talk a good deal, and I talk about myself in such a way that most people think they know me well, when nothing could be further from the truth. I never lie, I'm never anyone who isn't me, I'm honestly Sarah all of the time; but I know the art of intimacy without vulnerability (which isn't actually intimacy, but a simulacrum) to screen my own sanctum sanctorum from detection. It's a system of smoke and mirrors that sometimes infuriates me with its effectiveness: Isn't there anyone who sees through my bullshit? Isn't there anyone who sees me?

There are a few who do, or who come very, very close -- and they number more than the few I mention here. There are a few who ask to whom I will give an open response. But still I minimalize almost everything. I have a horror of sounding whiny, and, strangely, any form of complaint or lament that I could voice, which would elicit, were I to hear it from others, an empathetic response, coming from my own mouth sounds shamefully whiny. So I rely on my own resources and try not to demand anything from anyone.

And it only depletes me. Like a starving body digesting its own muscle tissue to survive, my resources diminish. Maybe not as quickly as it would without my giftedness, my faith and my somewhat mystical relationship with God; but I have always believed strongly that we experience a great deal of God's love practically, through other people. It's not enough to be a two-way radio. Love needs connectivity, and I don't appear to believe that I am worth that.

Whatever has motivated me over the course of the past week to be a little less self-protective, both here on the blog (writing about bad days again -- and even what I write here isn't everything, dear readers; I am more than my blog) and in my conversations with my loved ones, has shown me a little of what I've been missing. If I don't talk, people can't pray for me; if they don't know what's wrong, they can't love me through it. And I miss an enormous facet of the Christian life, and of the healing and protective love of God, and of the experience of the power of prayer. Missing out on mutuality is missing out on real love, and since I believe that love (literally) holds the world together (God is the covalent bond), missing out on love is missing out on life. Loving one way is not a living love; it's a half-love, and a half-life.

Hillori's email restored my integrity to myself. She believes in me, sees me, is angry on my behalf and reminds me who I am. I know that's the case all the time, but experiencing it in the specific, in the stated, made it really, truly true. It erased my inward-eating shame and returned me to confidence and hope. It filled me with immense gratitude that I can call this person my friend.

And, most interestingly, though perhaps not at all surprisingly, the love I have received this week has strengthened my ability to give love. I love best when I'm loved. I'm accustomed to taking no risks when it comes to letting others see behind the screen; but I'm willing to change that. ("If you are willing, you can make me clean..." "I am willing. Be clean!") Kierkegaard's leap applies as much to love as to faith -- and yes, absolutely, there will be times when the ledge I choose to believe is there isn't, and I find myself badly broken by the fall; but I'd rather have the scars than pace the cliff's edge shivering in the dark until I freeze to death. I already know I can survive.

Easier said than done, of course. But entirely possible. It will be scary to be more open, but I'd rather love with risk than suffer it to wilt within me because I wouldn't give it sunlight. God is love; God is the covalent bond; love is the covalent bond; the covalent bond turns highly flammable gases into fire-quenching and life-giving water; we are 72% water; love holds us together; we are to be as God; we are to love each other; we are to rescue and tend to each other; and we are to be rescued and tended by each other.

I can't, and won't, trust everyone; that's stupid. But I can, and must, trust a few. Love without risk, love only in one direction, is a different form of stupidity, and a kind of martyred self-hatred, a terrible fear. But love drives out fear. Love is fear's opposite. And the only thing that matters, from beginning to end, alpha to omega, is love.