How many chances can we give a person before giving up? How many ways do we make them show us they don’t care?
How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll® center of a Tootsie Pop®?
One, two-oo, three … Th-ree!!
How long will it take me to forget?
I’ve said so often how I wish I understood; how I wish he understood. I’ve said how I wish things could be different; how they should be different. I thought misunderstandings could always be cleared; All it takes is talking and listening. Simple enough. So, if I can talk and I can listen, and he is capable of talking and listening, we may not agree on everything, but we can reach an understanding. Right?
But the heart is a silly thing, and the ego even sillier. What if listening makes us hear what we don’t wish to know … what we refuse to believe? What is the solution then?
What if your listener only hears the inner repetition of his own self-justification and denial?
What do you do when you don’t feel heard? … when you don’t even feel regarded as a real human being with valid and tender emotions? What happens to us when we feel all identity has been stripped away?
There was a puppy once … one of thousands like her. A family thought she was cute and cuddly, so they took her home. They played with her and watched as she clumsily bounced around the way puppies do. She soon became too big for a box, so they took her outside and chained her to a tree. They paid her some attention at first, but not as much as before. She wasn’t the little fuzzball she used to be. They brought her food and water, but didn’t have the time or energy to give her any attention. There was too much else to do … to many other priorities. Meanwhile, she grew. The family took a little vacation, and while they were gone, someone reported their dog to the S.P.C.A. The chain with which they’d secured her had become embedded in her neck. Brought before the court for animal cruelty, the family acted shocked and dismayed. They had been out of town, they told the judge. She was fine when they left. A neighbor was supposed to look after her while they were gone. The judge wouldn’t hear it. An injury of that sort didn’t occur in a week. It takes weeks for a chain to cut into a dog’s neck, create a gaping wound, and then become embedded. In all that time they had never noticed. They cried and denied they’d done anything wrong. They couldn’t … wouldn’t see what was apparent to anyone. They had abused the animal through neglect.
Do you think they ever saw it that way? Do you think they went home that day believing they were wronged by the courts? Do you think they spent years telling the story of how they were wronged?
I don’t have any answers, only my own suspicions. What does your knowledge of human nature tell you?
But I did a little research on what may become of the chained dog.
“An otherwise friendly and docile dog, when kept continuously chained, becomes neurotic, unhappy, anxious, and often aggressive"¹And so I did.
Chains don’t need to be made of metal; We don’t need tethers to feel constrained. All it takes is the feeling that we simply don’t matter to the people we love. All it takes is being treated as though we are insignificant.
I believe I have given up. After a year of fighting to think well of him. After a year of defiantly believing that the person I once knew wasn’t a complete lie … that he wasn’t completely gone. After reminiscing and wondering if there was something to recover. After holding onto a bond I believed was stronger than our differences. We had hurt each other. I knew I overreacted a few times. Time and space allowed me a better perception of the effects of my reactions. I didn’t want it to end so badly. There was no need for it to end so badly.
In his memory, will I ever be the same girl I was a year ago?
Will he ever regret?
But I’ve learned that I can’t do anything to make it better. I can’t be gentle enough. I can’t be understanding enough. I can’t be giving enough. I cannot sacrifice enough … even if I sacrificed all. I’m no longer a person to him. I’m no longer real.
I don’t know how that happened. How does one become nothing to someone with whom they shared everything so shortly before? You would think I’d asked him to turn his world upside-down. All I wanted was to make amends. I even volunteered to make the most compromises. But turning yourself inside-out doesn’t make you a real person. It only makes you hideous.
So, I no longer feel sorry for his ignorance. I no longer feel bitter or angry at having been “thrown away.” I’m no longer afraid of completely losing someone I cared for. I don’t feel much of anything. I simply think of him as a man who made a choice … the choice to deny the value of his friends. The repercussions of such foolishness are his and his alone.
And this feeling of numbness … I think they call it “calm.” I had forgotten what it was like.
¹Bless the Bullys: Pit Bull and Amstaff Haven, “Break the Chains!” FAQ page. Information courtesy of the Humane Society of the United States. <http://bless-the-bullys.tripod.com/id37.html>
