I have heard co-workers talking about it when it has happened to them. Someone they haven't seen in a while, someone significant, comes into our popular little grocery store to shop.
"My ex walked in and I just said, 'Hey, how are you doing?' and kept walking," says co-worker.
A crew member responds, "Yikes, you OK?"
or
"That's my mother. I haven't talked to her in three years. I am going to the back."
I've run into people I used to work with which is much less significant than an ex or a parent. In those moments of seeing acquaintances from my past profession, I've experienced one nano second of shame, then with chin up, smiled and said, "Hello, it's so great to see you!"
My joy in seeing them typically catches them off guard, we share a brief exchange and they move along.
I have also seen a few of my neighbors shopping. It's been awkward. In those moments, I try to move along without them noticing me. (I have often wondered why I do not acknowledge my neighbors when I see them around our living community or out in the world? Answer another time.)
Yesterday at work, it was pretty slow. I wanted to touch base with my daughter but without feeling the presence of co-workers peering over my shoulder and looking at my screen so I took my phone from my locker, put it in my back pocket and proceeded to go to the restroom where I could use the facility and text my daughter without interruption. As soon as I pulled down my pants to pee, I heard it, felt a tiny splash and knew what it was. My phone had fallen from my pocket into the toilet.
Kerplunk.
Funny thing is and was, is that, that has never happened to me. My phone is old. I didn't really react too terribly to it. After retrieving it from the bowl, I patted it dry with a paper towel, sat it on the paper dispenser then finished business. After leaving the restroom and retrieved my bank card from my locker, went to the shelf-stable isle, selected the cheapest rice, purchased it, went back to the break room, got a bowl, filled it with rice, buried by phone in the bowl, overheard my co-worker say, "You should add garlic and onion and microwave it. I hear that helps."
Ha. Ha.
I returned my bank card to my locker, got another pair of gloves onto my hands, walked out of the break room, back onto the floor and I walk into Pawpaw.
The old man who molested my children.
And on my perpetrator-of-child-sexual-abuse-mother's birthday.
I said, "Hi. How are you?"
He said, "Fine. And you?"
I said, "I am fantastic," and turned the other way walking to the back,
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Since I last wrote in this space, I have been working. The little grocery store gig has allowed me space to actively work on healing, especially my nervous system. I have been working on anxiety
, in real time. And "In Real Time" unfortunately is the only way this work can be done. In the moment. Like, when I see someone heading towards my register with a cart full of merchandise to be rung up, I feel that anxiety and face it head on.
I get nauseated.
I have negative self-talk.
My body is signaling me to stop, take a breath, examine what is really happening.
I am safe.
There is no bear.
And the aforementioned is just a small sampling of the work I have been doing. There's more work--relationships with my self and others, rewiring my nervous system. R
Reflecting upon my progress while typing out this sentence is causing my heart to flutter. Excitement? Anxiety? I will stop, breath and figure it out.
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Had I seen Pawpaw last month, it may have derailed me for a few days. Today, I am up and writing. so f you child molesters.
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Then I think of my girls. How are they healing? How do I bring it up?
I will.
I am working on strengthening my wherewithal to do it. And I can do it.
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Episode 73: Feeling Your Nervous System/Self-Healers Soundboard
