Coming Up for Air

Andy’s articulation of my inner experiences opened the floodgates.  Conscious recognition of what had been happening to me all my life provided a sudden clarity, a sudden ability to look back and examine past events and relationships with new understanding.

It was intriguing.

Illuminating.

The more I remembered the more I saw how deeply embedded  my abilities were…absorbing others’ feelings, knowing them so deeply…”abilities” wasn’t the right word…

It wasn’t something I did.

It was who I was.

A trait.

Like left-handedness.

I remember learning about traits in various classes, from earlobe attachment (mine are not, by the way) and eye color (green, from my mother) to subtle genetic inheritances, such as tendencies toward schizophrenia and high cholesterol.  These are all elements of ourselves that are naturally beyond our control,  save medical intervention.  They dominate our lives, whether we realize it or not.  My wonderful friend, Brian spent years exercising and eating all organic vegan foods. Never smoked. No drugs.   A virtual yogi.  Yet little did he know that despite his efforts of avoiding the fates of his father, and his, who both died before the age of 50 of heart attacks, that his arteries were filling up with a genetic overgrowth of cholesterol, and at age 37 suffered cardiac arrest.  He made it through, his precautionary habits helped him survive, but they did not eliminate the hereditary risks.

I wonder if there is an empathic gene.  Looking back at my life I know now that this trait is the strongest within me, because it rules all the other traits…it has defined my relationship with the world around me, with my family, my friends, my Crazies.  Before even realizing it was a trait I possessed, that it was something uncommon in the general population, I used it, depended on it all these years to help me recognize the role I play in the lives of others,  to know where I stand with them.  It has been an alarm, a beacon, a blessing and a curse.

Over the past eleven years since that excruciating night in April’s car, I have reflected on my life and experiences, gained insight into the perceptions others had of me, and what I had thought that meant about me. Evaluation of my relationships, of my choices, has brought an understanding, a certain peace, which I’d never before enjoyed.

Not every moment of these eleven years has been full of a calm wisdom.  I am human.  And there have been, are, moments of thoughtlessness and forgetting.  Life takes over, and we get caught in its nets.  In my journey to discover and understand, I have taken wrong turns, gone astray, gotten lost.  Learning to hone any new-found skill is a process, complete with pitfalls and mistakes.  In attempting to channel and control and utilize my trait I have, at times, hurt myself, and others.

But we keep traveling, we keep striving to hone and perfect.  And each day we get a little better at it.  At life.

I have to remind myself that this trait, this gift, isn’t just meant to always be used for helping others.

It’s for me too.

To remind me of who I am relative to everyone else, to give me insight into the condition of others’ humanity, and afford me wisdom from their experiences that I might not otherwise gain myself.