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You are right, it is my fault
[ 4 minute read ]
Opinion
Isn't it strange how people cross the floor, or how we change our minds and find new support networks?
A long time ago, my friend was visiting me and my wife (I think we ought write it 'wife and I' but he was visiting me as the primary person). My wife and I were having a conversation on how I present myself.
'It is not what you say,' she stated, 'It is the way you say it.'
I thought, 'Well, if you know that then what is the problem? You know I am weird, so what?' Intransigent as I am, when it comes to protecting myself.
My friend stepped sideways and stood with his shoulder almost touching my wife's. 'She right, Martin.' Something clicked in my head. The sum of what had just taken place overwhelmed me. It was not the words; it was being the outsider to my marriage. The close proximity of my wife and my friend as a united force in verbal agreement finished my marriage, right there and then. Yes, I know. It couldn't have been much of a marriage, and how weak you are, Martin! Nonetheless, that is what happened. My fragility could not stand being an outsider to my new marriage. I suppose adultery outside of a mature marriage might have a similar effect, except there is at least something tangible, if discovery or confession, as a notion or realisation, can ever be weighed in our hands and is considered to supersede the need for a continuance of a long-standing reliance on another person.
I suppose it is realisation of one of our faults, that, by way of a back door takes us by surprise and causes us to react strongly.
'The game's up, Martin.' This came from the door behind me while I faced my accuser by the window.
'You will never take me alive!' I shouted, desperately seeking an escape route. The window! Oh well, there will just have to be collateral damage. Not that I thought that; when you get ambushed from behind by your own self, you don't think about saving others.
My brother's partner was not known for being particularly good at academic stuff; she could read and write, but she wasn't going to write a novel. Benign, mundane and banal, I rudely and dismissively thought. One day, she stated that she was surprised to find sweetcorn in a tin.
'Why is sweetcorn in a tin? It isn't a vegetable.'
'...course it is' I replied.
'No, it's a grain.'
The bottom fell out of my world. Of course sweetcorn is a grain. I hadn't really bothered to notice it before. I had always eaten it as a vegetable, fresh from our garden, boiled and smothered with butter. It always used to burn my fingers when I held the ends. I had eaten sweetcorn from a tin. No amount of butter cheers it up. The trip for me was that two suppositions collided and I was left foolish. I had come to regard my brother's partner as a bit dim and not particularly interesting, and I had always assumed that sweetcorn is a vegetable; my father used to grow it in our garden, and wheat used to grow in a field opposite our home, and I knew that my 'Ready Brek' was oats. Being told by someone, whom I regarded as unworthy to teach me or show me anything of consequence, that my belief was wrong, just flipped the world, while of course, I stood firmly still. No, I changed after that wake-up call. I realised just how wrong I can be and that if I saw myself walking down the street I would cross the road to avoid meeting myself. That was the third, and so far the last revelation to me, that I can put my finger on.
The first time I was given to make a significant change in the way I thought was when I received a letter from a girl in Germany, whom I had been a bit more than friendly with when I was seventeen and working in Germany. Back home in England, I had written to her a few times and had not received a reply. I wrote protesting that I had been generous and spent money on her and treated her and asked why she had never replied to any of my letters. I was eighteen and stupid to hold that as a good reason for favour. She spoke really good English and I was surprised to one day open a letter that was written in German; the only one she ever sent to me. She wrote that she had written countless letters and then torn them up, and then in frustration decided to write in German because she could better explain. The essential part was a response to my claim that I was due a letter because I had showered her with gifts and money. Her sentence, paraphrased, said, 'Never add up what you have done for someone, in case that person can show that they have done more for you'. In fact, that is near perfectly what she wrote. Reading that was a moment I shall never forget, and it seems that Petra changed the way I went on to think. I honestly don't recall ever keeping score or claiming points in anything other than a board-game or a sports game, and even then never remembered it. I haven't kept score or added up, not in any argument or at Christmas when it came to giving presents. 'I did more,' simply never arises.
My opening sentence was a question. 'Isn't it strange how people cross the floor, or how we change our minds and find new support networks?' It is not so funny if we can find something in ourselves to be able to judge ourselves and find ourselves guilty and still move on with that. It is foolish to cling to a sinking life-raft just because that is where we placed our trust or belief.