Today 2 people told me I looked good & “very well”. One was a friend & she said it as she was leaving, almost as an afterthought & she doesn’t flatter me so I thought that was nice of her.
The 2nd person was a man - older than me & someone I have been acquainted with for several years. He doesn’t usually make personal remarks so I was very surprised. When he saw my surprise he repeated himself & said - “you’re looking good; you’re looking very well.” I said “I don’t feel it but I’ll take looking it!” He said, “Whatever you’re doing, its working!” and left.
What neither of them knew was that today I was feeling very sad & it wouldn’t have taken very much at all for me to cry. Inside there is a vast ocean of grief & pain that, increasingly regularly, sends waves (small, big, tidal, tsunami sized) crashing onto the beach of my concsiousness.
How is it possible that the outside doesn’t reflect the inside. How can it be that such pain is invisible to the casual onlooker? ”What you see is what you get”… but very often what you see & get has little to do with what is unseen & hidden below, sometimes only just below, the public surface.
But this is not emotional dishonesty - it is survival. Our society doesn’t permit us to be anything but everlastingly positive in public. When someone says “how are you?” they don’t expect or want or have time for an honest answer. Its so much easier to just play the game & say “fine thanks, how are you?”
But what does this do to our souls?
