The real weight of this story is how perplexing it was and has been ... it became baggage. I have talked about the idea of where my story touches an other's story. Our stories touch as surely as the pieces of a quilt are sewn together. It has bothered me that the guy was so angry and said hateful things. It has bothered me that as people see what's important to you (me) they will use it to inflict pain. It has bothered me because I had no context for it. It hadn't made sense. I didn't have a basket to put it in and so have been carrying it around.
I don't remember what day that was but I do remember it was a bad day for me. The morning of that day I found out that my husband had broken a promise to me. I asked him and he said yes I broke that promise. That day I made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I wouldn't put myself in the position of my happiness riding on some one's ability to keep a promise. I told my heart to stop asking for promises. So I was thinking about that that day.
Where he was coming from is a story I'll never know. My day became even worse in those moments where our stories touched because all of a sudden nothing seemed to make sense. The quilt was ripped right there where our stories touched. A chill blew through the jagged edges left by the tear. It was abrupt and unsettling. It felt sorta like a day 15 years ago when I was riding the cable car at Stone Mountain. When the car changed cables it jumped a bit. I wasn't holding on to anything and my sandaled foot slid. I was suddenly and irrationally afraid. I couldn't get any traction. That same type thing happened at the top of the lighthouse a few weeks ago. I wanted to walk around on the cat walk. I felt safe. The rails were secure and I was congratulating myself on being in pretty good shape (as demonstrated by my breathing after the climb) and enjoying the view ... lining up a shot. I reached up to touch a metal cable that was hanging down and it was just loose ... dangling in the coastal breeze. I expected it to be taunt. I thought it was a supporting cable. Suddenly I felt a jolt of fear. I've never felt that way in the airplane, but I sometimes do on tall structures when I'm outside. In those weird moments with that guy I felt that fear too. Not for my personal safety. I can't quite find the words to express it. I couldn't figure out why he was mean talking ... He was angry, I noted his hands shaking and tension coiling through the entire length of him. He was so angry that he couldn't speak normally. I recognized the indicators with shock. What had I said or done to elicit this reaction? I couldn't get traction on the idea. Something seemed to slip. He vented something to do with his story. And I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I don't think I said anything. Nothing made sense. (I checked out and left as soon as possible - a day or so later he was unavailable to discuss it and remained unavailable - he might have thought I wanted to call him on the carpet - I was just hoping for some closure. What a mess.)
Now it does make sense. What he was saying was: I have no right to judge his actions. He was probably judging himself. I don't know. Maybe. My story was that I couldn't trust my husband. And now ( in those moments ) here is another person who I trust acting out of context ... behaving intentionally hurtful. It never occurred to me that he might be misbehaving with his student. The truth there is while I don't think it would be good for the girl, I can easily see how things like that can happen. Or at least wish to happen. People try to patch the holes in their quilts with the scrapes from other peoples lives all the time.
Now, I have a little closure there. I'm good with that. What ever the story is I can see that it likely had nothing to do with me.
If that is true or isn't true doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is finding a basket to put this experience in. It may not be the right basket, but it can rest there indefinitely.
(I'll write this better later. I'm tapping it out on my phone before I go to sleep. I want to be done with the confusing parts of this.)