Reality ruins a perfect plan
I spent the next few days in a foul mood – feeling sorry for myself and not venturing past the front steps of my parents’ house. I was so tired of the same old feeling of defeat - just really, really tired. Nothing ever seemed to work out as planned. Reality just always seemed to put a damper on things.
What was wrong? Well, the main thing was that I wasn’t getting the responses I had hoped for. I imagined greeting strangers with a friendly hello and receiving the same in kind. I imagined starting conversations, making eye contact, smiling and being smiled at, and possibly getting to know a few people a little better. I mean, I wasn’t out looking for life-long friends or anything like that, but at the same time, I wasn’t expecting the cold, standoffish responses I received from just about everyone I tried to make contact with.
Simply put: I didn’t have the energy to try anymore. I was so tired of being shunned by society and existing in the background as a nothing. I simply could not connect with people, no matter how hard I tried.
Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough? Did I have to just “hang in there” and wait for things to happen? Maybe, but there was more to this than what appeared on the surface – it all seemed a little too familiar.
The familiar part was that this was the reaction I had been getting from people all my life. Now, I should have been used to this by now, but my expectations for the incubation stage were different. Everything was calculated and thought out long before the actual exposures took place. This was not supposed to happen.
If I couldn’t make it at this simple level, then I had no chance of making it in the higher and more realistic levels. However, it seemed that all was not lost. The answer appeared before me in a very unexpected way.
It all began while walking through a mall in a neighboring city. My brother had taken me out for lunch – just to get me out of the house…
Leave a Reply