Oh, The People You’ll Meet
The last year has been trying to say the least. If you know me personally, I’m sure you have a general idea of what’s been going on in my life. I’ll bet a few of you even think you know the whole story. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s not a story I’m about to tell – at least not in this blog post.
No, airing my laundry isn’t the point. The point is to discuss the various types of people I’ve had the good fortune to come to know this last year. Life takes all kinds and hard times bring most of them to the forefront.
First, I met and became intimately acquainted with The Judgers. Some of these people knew the full story, knew the lies, knew the truths and knew the pain I lived with. Some knew nothing, knew what he or she wanted to believe, knew only what they heard and chose to make judgements based on whichever version of reality suited for the moment. These individuals felt so much better about their own choices in life because at least they didn’t do x, y or z. It feels good to judge because when we are judging others, we don’t have to look too closely at our own faults.
Next, I met the people I’ve known for years, some of whom I considered family. I met the real them. The ones who were happy to believe without question any story they were told. The ones who never once asked why. The ones who listened to my fears and my heartaches with sympathy and understanding, even agreement. That is, until it was no longer convenient to sympathize and understand. Then, they reintroduced themselves as The Judger.
I met the sheep, those who were happy to relish in the latest gossip, to disseminate any juicy piece of information they came across. Those who were glad the focus wasn’t on them. Most times they weren’t being intentionally hurtful, just human.
Meeting The Punisher was by far the most difficult, though. This is The Judger who takes his or her righteousness so seriously, they also believe it is their job to punish the offender. These were the people who took pride in hurting the fallen, joy in kicking me while I was down – or up – it didn’t matter. If I was down, I deserved to feel even worse. If I was up, I deserved to be taken down. After all, what right did I have to be happy? My choices hurt others, so I must live in perpetual misery as atonement for my sins. It was never enough for me to feel my own pain, it was their mission to make it hurt even more and they weren’t about to be derelict in their duties.
Happily, I also met those who would love me no matter what, those who understood that sometimes life is messy. These are the ones who stood by my side, who dried my tears and loved me when I couldn’t love myself. The people who reminded me daily I was a good person and deserved happiness. The people who may have been my best friends or mere acquaintances but saw my hurt and made the choice to help. The people I would have never survived without.
You may think this post is about justification or perhaps a pity party, but you’d be wrong. This post is about gratefulness, about being humbled. You see, every one of the people I’ve described has been me at some point. I’ve judged. I’ve gossiped. I’ve abandoned people who needed me based solely on what I “heard”. I’ve punished those I thought deserved it. I’ve loved and supported someone when most people would have walked away.
Many times, I’ve heard someone say, “I hope this happens to you someday, then you’ll know how it feels.” A statement often said as a curse on whoever wronged them, a wish for karma to exact her retribution.
I’m saying it now to every person I’ve described above, though not as a curse or a prayer for vengeance. No, it is my genuine desire for at least one person reading this to recognize themselves and to squeeze every drop of opportunity from life’s toughest lessons. It is impossible to learn and grow without hardship, and without growth we are stagnant.
I hope you someday feel judged, hurt, punished and, most of all, loved – because it doesn’t matter what you do or say. Someone, somewhere, is going to judge you, punish you, repeat the gossip they heard, abandon you or love you even harder. When despair and feelings of futility set in, remember the final line from Mother Teresa’s poem, Do It Anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
