ABOUT CLOSEness, LONELINESS, AND UNPRACTATED TEA BAGS

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Many years ago, in some article, I came across a list of the most useless inventions invented by jokes for the sake of members of a funny society from Japan. So among the completely unnecessary, but technically feasible things featured an inflatable dart board, a solar-powered flashlight, and a waterproof tea bag

I laughed, closed the newspaper and forgot to think about these wonderful inventions. Until one day I realized that I have the most direct relation to this list. The point is (and this is a terrible secret!) That I have been trying all my life to prove that I am a waterproof tea bag. Impenetrable and self-sufficient, strong and independent. I'll do everything myself.

I had, in general, a wonderful life. I really achieved something in my career, I had friends and husbands, but I never stopped feeling very, very lonely. There was just a cloud of tenderness, care, affection in me, I really wanted real closeness, but there was nothing like that, even though you crack.

I am a smart girl and about the anecdote "if the third husband spat in the face and slammed the door, then maybe it's not the door, but the face" is quite aware. I understood that if I somehow find it difficult to make connections, go to dinner in splendid isolation and leave for my birthday in another city, so as not to face the horror of the fact that I have no one to invite, then the point is not at all that everything people are bastards, and life is a chain of suffering. I assumed that I was doing something, that I was left alone.

I must admit that I was terribly surprised when I started asking people how they were with me in general, and getting feedback from the series: “Well, we really wanted to be friends with you, but you were so far away and cold that we spat, cried and forgot . Wow. Am I distant and cold? It can not be! It always seemed to me that I was an example of friendliness and openness, but here is such news …

But the facts spoke for themselves. Over and over again, even my friends told me that I forgot about them and did not know how to maintain friendly relations. I don’t call to inquire about business, I don’t talk about any little things, but I remember only on holidays.

Alas, this really happens quite often. In the life of people - waterproof tea bags, there are always such stories when parents or other significant ones maintained emotional contact with the baby, were included in him and his life only when something happened to him. I got sick, for example. Or got a deuce. And when nothing happened, then everyone lived their own parallel life.

But much more important is the fact that often children, before they became impenetrable, had very nervous and sensitive parents who took everything at their own expense. They reacted very violently to any act of the baby, fell upon him with all the strength of their feelings, and then immediately returned to their business. For example, a child came, brought his drawing with the words: “Look, I painted!”, And in response received: “You don't see, I'm busy!” Either as soon as the child cried or opened his mouth to be capricious, he was immediately gagged: “Don't cry! Stop it!"

Often mothers, grandmothers and kindergarten teachers did not understand that they were so immersed in their inner world that they perceive the child as an inseparable part of themselves. If a child cries, then, of course, because I am a bad mother. If the child made a mistake, it is because I am not a competent teacher. Etc. As a result, they try to deprive the child of spontaneity in every possible way, so that he does not inadvertently make his loved ones feel.

At the same time, the reaction of adults, their feedback did not correspond to reality at all. The kid really could only squeak, and they shouted at him as if he was roaring for an hour. That is, speaking in dry scientific language, the child has formed incorrect ideas about the boundaries. It really seems to him that he occupies the whole room, but in fact he squeezed in a corner and merged with the wall.

His sensitive parents noticed any of his movements, but the people around him do not suffer from such things. They are busy with themselves and their experiences. And this is downright discouraging! What, then, if those around you do not have telepathic abilities?

The fact is that we, waterproof tea bags, in our childhood, one way or another, faced one unpleasant truth of life. And collided too early to be able to digest it. Moreover, this truth of life fell on our innate character and blossomed in a magnificent color. Yes, it has grown so much that we have ceased to perceive reality as it is. Any potential contact, any opportunity to go beyond your loneliness in this kingdom of crooked mirrors seems like a downfall of personality.

Often, the people I told about the theory of the waterproof tea bag admitted that they can exist in two modes. Or to ride the elusive Joe (whom no one catches, because why?), Or tear your dense shell into pieces, pouring all of yourself into boiling water, dissolving in another, losing your own self. And the very closeness is associated not with warmth, but with the burning breath of death.

Waterproof bags can create families, but such marriages, again, have nothing to do with intimacy. They are asylum marriages that give a sense of security. That there is no need to take risks, to open up, to let new people into your inner world. You can use a single spouse and not experience this unbearable anxiety that happens on the border of contact with another person.

The spouses of such waterproof tea bags are true confessors. They often live on dry emotional rations, surrounded, however, by a host of very important things. They are told: “Why don't I say that I love? That's what I said when I proposed. If something changes, then I will definitely inform”. These are their favorite words about “what else do you want, I’m trying so hard for our family, I work all night long”. However, I met with specimens who regularly gave flowers, arranged romantic dinners, wrote in a notebook that the lady's heart loves lattes and does not tolerate gerberas. But in their affairs there was not the most important thing - there was no real sincerity.

It is very difficult, I tell you, to show that some other person, even if close, is dear to you. Very expensive! Pricelessly expensive. That you are addicted to him and are about to crumble if he stops regularly patting you on the head and saying nice things. But if you show it, they will use you, they will laugh at you and eventually trample you.

Alas, we are accustomed to guarding our intrinsic value with such zeal that any Monster would envy us, carefully keeping the Scarlet Flower and not allowing beautiful girls to come without a thousand million trials. To guarantee, damn it. So that confidence and so that it does not hurt so excruciatingly …

But the fact is that there is no confidence in a relationship and cannot be. And real intimacy is possible only where two can afford an indescribable luxury: to be vulnerable, to open up. To be such ordinary tea bags, which does not need to arrange hara-kiri in order to expose your rich inner world. When you manage to be even a little sincere and talk about your feelings, about your dependence, about your need to be close to another, then a special incomparable feeling of some kind of togetherness appears. It nourishes and gives strength. But it makes you worry, worry, face the opportunity to be rejected.

When I learned to remove these waterproof layers from myself, I ran into completely different reactions. Some friends began to consider me almost crazy when I tried to tell them about my own affection, interest in friendship with them, warm attitude. What can we say about me. Well, the spitting image of an elephant in a china shop! True, there were others who rejoiced and said: “How great! You are also an important person for me."

If I say that I have now become sincere and open, I will blatantly lie. Nothing like this! I still jump elusive Joe, but my trajectory is very close to living people, although from time to time I am still drawn to escape into cacti and continue to eat them with a special masochistic frenzy, because again, such a rag, I could not cope, could not, scared.

It is very important to respect your pace and the peculiarities of your psyche. Perhaps, a waterproof tea bag will never become a merry fellow and a joker. Well, okay. It is possible for us to create truly deep relationships and learn to open up in them, taking step by step towards another. Accept yourself as such an elephant who is actually very sensitive and writes poetry at night under the moon. Accept that it takes time to open up, and just draw closer slowly, but do so as confidently as possible. Because others often do not notice our timid hints, they need a little specificity.

You just have to know the truth about yourself and remember that we are so waterproof precisely because other people are very, very important to us, and our steps towards new relationships are painful, like the steps of the Little Mermaid, who parted with her tail and received such desirable, but completely incomprehensible legs. Every sincere word, every pleasant romantic little thing is given with pain and fear of rejection. And if we are not perceived as we would like, then the result hurts us very, very badly, so we have to crawl back into the cacti and lick our wounds. What to do, elephants with incredibly sensitive skin, with bare nerves.

But this is the only way to transform this abyss of feelings into real closeness. This is the only way to get a delicious drink from water and tea leaves. Only if you take a chance.