Extraordinary Machine (Hats Off to Me)
I never believed in first impressions. Any time I've ever interacted with someone on a one-on-one basis, my original perceptions were invariably wrong but that is probably due to my own inherent qualities because the adage holds true for others. For me, I have had the pleasant opportunity to re-examine my initial impressions of a couple people lately and I am glad to say my initial impressions of them were way off base and now? We are forming friendships that have represented a lifeline to me under some otherwise incredibly bizarre and challenging circumstances.
But life has a way of rising up to meet me. That's the way it has always been for me. I navigate my life by baby steps and only move forward as I feel my intuition leads me to. I move forward with caution at times, and at other times, I move fast and don't consider the risks. Either way, I seem to land on my feet and definitely give credit to a power that is higher than because I can't always explain how or why I rise above the challenges that surround me, but I do.
When it comes to allowing people in my life, it takes a certain amount of trust and courage, for me. But the rewards are great and it reminds me that I am not an island unto myself, nor do I want to be yet I am cautious about who I allow in to my immediate circle. My interactions with people have been strange and amusing, with that in mind. One person in particular generated a visceral reaction of fear many years ago. I won't state his name but he was generally the biggest badass I knew and I was afraid to make eye-contact with him, let alone have a conversation with him, back in the day. My first impression of him was terrible. But somehow, we seemed to experience a mutual desire to get to know each other, but he admits to me that he sort of hated me at first, too. Everything comes full-circle, though, and in the last year especially, he has become an extremely good friend. He's one of the few people I feel comfortable calling if I need someone to talk to. He usually ends up calling me first though, and we talk for hours, laugh, cry, and have a great time. He's turning into one of my best friends though at one time, he was someone I considered an enemy. People with strong personalities are like this everywhere, no doubt.
There is much value in trying again until you get things right. This person and I tried and tried until we got it right and that took mutual determination, and he ended up being the one who was even more determined than I to forge a friendship between us. I do not take it for granted. It is priceless to me, especially these last few years. Even I have a need for companionship, regardless of how I convince myself otherwise.
The other surprising thing that has happened to me in the last several years is meeting someone from a totally different part of the world (Nigeria, to be precise). I do not know what it is between us, but the moment he and I started to converse, we seemed to find our groove immediately. In time, it felt like we had known each other for years and our conversations would flow so easily. However, he came into my life when I was at a rather rock-bottom state and in that interim, he made some rather harsh judgements about me, stating I "live like a teenager" and at the time, he was not exactly wrong, but it was not exactly by choice.
I was living in a camper in my parent's yard. It was a trite situation, right out of the storyboard of a television mini-series about a middle-aged woman starting her life over again. I once told yet a different friend that I should bleach my hair and start chain-smoking in order to really round out the scenario. In response, he said yeah, maybe you should (I didn't). Ha.
It was this assumption about my living situations at the time that hurt me the most when I comes to my friend from Nigeria. In turn, I got the impression he was a pompous ass (he is not). We had quite a heated exchange over it and if my memory serves me correctly, he attempted to leave my camper while I attempted to kick him out. I was so angry that he assumed the lifestyle I had going on at the time was the way I wanted to live. It was not. It was me, picking up the pieces after a bomb went off in my personal life, directed to the core of my entire existence from the direction of Switzerland, but I am trying to move forward from that so I won't talk about it much anymore. I didn't choose to live like a teenager, I had not CHOICE but to live like a teenager because I had lost my ability to know who I could trust. He was lucky I even let him through the door. But I was hurt by his comment, even if he did have to pee outside in the snow because I wouldn't let him use my bathroom in my camper. It wasn't equipped for use by a six foot tall guy. I had a tiny compost toilet and a system in place that suited me, but was not designed for others. So, it was after he had gone out into the cold for the tenth or eleventh time that he got a little frustrated, hence the comment and the argument that ensued.
I do not like to be misunderstood. What he didn't understand is the fact that I was in the process of rebuilding, on my own, with no help from anyone, anywhere except maybe my mom. I entered a period of deliberate isolation in order to recover from the personal crisis I had endured. But I allowed him to be a part of that isolation and that's why it hurt so much. However, I think God sends us the right people at the right time, when we need them the most because he was there the day my divorce papers arrived, finalizing the end of a 20 year marriage. I was in such shock I could barely breathe and even though tensions were high, he reached out and hugged me and let me cry in the crook of his neck for a little while. As I did, it was not lost on me the miraculous nature of his presence in my life. Who would have even guessed I would have this man's shoulder to cry on the day I got divorced? But there he was. Calm, gentle, and quiet. He just let me cry and held me close, no questions asked. Timing is everything.
It was moments like these that highlighted the value of our friendship. As for him, he was met with a severe tragedy not long after he landed on Canadian shores and he told me I was the best thing that happened to him since that tragedy, and after we met, he was able to find the strength to carry on somehow. So, I guess my presence in his life was miraculous too. Even so, we drifted apart for a while and I kept moving forward with my life, knowing I had a lot of work left to do to get back to the level of normalcy that I used to know. I am not sure what my family thinks of the way things were in our home, but aside from all the drinking and fighting, I did my best to make things beautiful. I like nice things, I enjoy elegancy mingled with a little shabby chic. I had no desire to be "living like a teenager". And eventually, things got better.
One thing lead to another and I found an apartment that turns out to be ideal for me. I love it here. I have all the space I need, but it is located on a country road that is full of natural beauty, all around. It's not totally perfect, but nothing ever is. It's learning how to make life as close to perfect as you can, that makes a happy home. My home, incidentally, is very happy even though it's just me and my cat. I've managed to achieve the goal I had set out for myself, which was to stabilize my income, and my health, in order to be able to take better care of myself and procure better living conditions than my camper was able to provide me, though I had a lot of fun in that camper. But my Nigerian friend's comments still lingered in the back of my mind. I was pretty fed up with trying to appease the expectations of the others and I wrote about that HERE. My friend moved away. We lost touch for a while and I gave up hope we would ever find our groove again. He went his way and I went mine.
But, something happened along the way and we reconnected. Instead of wasting away, agonizing about our conflict, he had no choice but to just get on with his life, and that was the case for me as well. When we reconnected over the phone, I gained a new respect for him for handling his personal challenges with maturity and grace. I admire those qualities in a person, but they are particularly admirable in a man. As for me, I do not like the mental clutter that drama creates. I can't stand confusion and I detest conflict. Those who bring these sorts of things into my life don't get a very good reaction from me, but my Nigerian friend never did that. He just walked away and so did I. Somehow, we reconnected and as we started talking, our friendship merged right back into that comfort zone I enjoyed so much and my heart started to open towards him, just a little. I mustered the courage to invite him to my new apartment for a visit. I was afraid of his reaction, knowing that if he found fault with me now, I would be done with this friendship for sure. I didn't want to lose the friendship but after someone works as hard as I have to make something of myself, the last thing I intend to tolerate is anyone making me feel inferior. It was a make or break moment from him and me.
He came over. He looked around. He smiled. We spent the evening talking and catching up. We had a lovely time. He left the next morning and we spoke several times since then, but last night, he called me and said some sort of phrase to me in his Nigerian dialect. I asked him to translate it for me because I didn't understand it. In his cheerful, sunshine filled voice, he said he was saying hats off to you, I bow to you in all due respect. I think my heart grew a few sizes at that moment, sort of like what happened to the Grinch after he heard he carollers singing. It's been a very long time since my heart felt anything at all. But it was that word RESPECT that soothed me so quickly, like a cold glass of water on a very hot and dry day. Finally, someone was showing me respect. I needed that and wanted it too, but it has been a rare commodity in my life since 2020.
I smiled. My heart nearly exploded with pride for a moment or two and I realized he finally saw me for who I am. I always strived to make my home beautiful. I have achieved that in my new life here and I am grateful beyond measure and though I do not require the approval of others, it feels pretty damned good to win the approval of someone like him, who knows the value of hard work and determination in his own right. Therefore, our mutually disappointing first (or second or third) impressions were totally wrong and definitely worth challenging, which both of these friends have done for me and I have done for them.
You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. Friendships are priceless and human connection is vital and even I admit that, though I spend copious amounts of time alone. I don't want to be alone all the time and in order to facilitate an alternative, it requires effort and work and understanding. My Nigerian friend did not hold some record of wrongs and remind me of all of them, over and over. He understood I was going through a bad time and does not judge me for it, but accepts it and moves forward and even though he cut me pretty deeply when he criticized me way back then, I challenged the place from which those criticism came and I understand his side of things, too. But what really made me happy was when he said what he said; hats off to you. It is a sign of respect.
Respect is what I want and what I need and what I deserve. My other friend also said something of a similar nature last night as well, but I forget the direct quote. I went to bed feeling very happy, very grounded, and very glad. If I was as bad as the folks from Switzerland are making me out to be, these two specific people would be the first to let me know. But they don't criticize me or try to humiliate me, or make me feel inferior. They treat me the way I deserve to be treated. They do not treat me like a piece of meat to be devoured, they treat me like a human being. This is the value of interacting with someone in real life versus the impressions you get online, which are definitely always riddled with problems and doubly so for me because the persona I projected out into the world in the last few years is just that, a persona. A persona, incidentally, that the men from Swizterland deemed to be worthless, from what I can tell. But maybe I am wrong about them too. Since we've never met in real life, I have no way to know for sure. Oh well.
Regardless of those who judge me from their point of ignorance, I am extremely grateful for my real-life friends, though they are few and far between. It is quality over quantity for me and these two guys are quality people, as well as many others who I call my friend (and you know who you are) in my view, because they take the time to encourage me and support me and acknowledge my value in their lives. I love that. They don't expect me to jump through hoops for them or contort myself to meet their expectations, they just accept me as I am. I love that, too.
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