Saturday, 20 July 2024
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Hello. All is well. God is love.

Somebody ruffled my feathers yesterday. Interestingly, I felt it was meant to happen. Something in me said trouble was approaching, telling me to prepare to handle it.

After giving up my work, I have a lot of freedom. With this freedom, I like to explore stuff. Let's try golf, my mind says. I contacted a golf coach. We initially got along well and found a date to meet.

Somehow, we ended up in confusion and shortly in conflict. I still don't fully know how this happened. I'm still puzzled. He never really explained his side to ease my doubt, ultimately making me lose trust in him. I think what happened is that he thought I knew something I didn't, and he assumed I was acting in bad faith instead of questioning whether I was just clueless, but I can only speculate.

When I tried to find him, I felt he needed to be more communicative. I felt he was making no effort, nor did he ever reassure me this wasn't the case when I said this to him. It's funny because I said he should explicitly tell me any obvious information as if I had somehow foreshadowed this would happen. If I were in his position, I'd find this situation unacceptable and go out of my way to solve it, but it isn't my job to tell him that.

He only gave me the name of the golf course. I arrived half an hour early, waiting in the car park in front of the entrance. 15 minutes past the scheduled time, I messaged him I was at the car park. A little later, he responded that he was in the shop. There was no mention of direction, so I asked for directions. I looked around for 15 minutes, unable to find the shop, and had yet to receive a reply. You might have thought he'd simply reply that he'd go outside to meet me in the car park or tell me to hold on if he was in the middle of something 30 minutes past our scheduled time.

I think you can tell why I feel I can't trust him, even if I know he is a good man, when he doesn't want to make an effort to reassure me of what I might have misunderstood. It makes me assume he doesn't have the love or bother to tell me what caused this bizarre event. You know, I don't mind anything. I could accept any fault. I just wanted to feel genuine love from him.

Anyway, after waiting for over an hour and spending an hour getting there, I had enough. My patience is of human nature. I left and messaged him that I was sorry, but I could not take this seriously and that I had not appreciated this situation.

I've been pondering if this was right of me to say, but this is how I felt at the moment. I was hurt. I thought I had not been given appropriate respect or effort. As I've been trying not to dissociate and ignore my feelings, I messaged him that but wrote how I felt, not blaming as if he objectively did something wrong or something that couldn't be forgiven, keeping the door open for seeing it as a misunderstanding, but being true to how I felt. This is, of course, a skill I'll improve with time to avoid misunderstanding, but how they handle whatever you express can tell you something about them.

In hindsight, I appreciate I did this, because it gave me insight into his character. He turned defensive (in my eyes, remember you're reading from my subjective perspective). He said he had been in the shop waiting for me, looking over the car park and never saw me. But why didn't he just come out when I said I was in the car park? Why was I left to find the shop with no directions? He then proceeded to blame me for taking up other clients' time, but in the end of the message, he still offered to reschedule for Sunday morning. Heh. Reading this reply, I felt even more hurt, but I did as I usually do, try to be above it, and simply told him that I think he knew what really happened and to take care.

I can't know for certain, of course, but something tells me this wasn't a genuine reply from him. It was illogical, in my opinion. I think he was hurt. Also, perhaps because of my younger age, he misjudged my need for a mutual level of respect. I've experienced this a lot in the past, but I can only speculate. On that note, it's interesting how much success you can have on the internet when people don't know who you are. But we must remember, we are dealing with what it is. We can't let this make us cynical. Lets try and spread love instead! Yay. But I have full understanding for why one may feel crushed by this reality.

Anyway, I was bothered by his reply as I felt he had a good heart, yet I felt wronged by him. I couldn't fall asleep, and I eventually decided to send him an email to set things straight, telling my side of the story and how I felt, asking him to explain how I might have misunderstood and how he might have misunderstood after hearing my side.

He replied a little later. He was more relaxed now, acknowledging that maybe both of us had some responsibility for what happened, but that it didn't make sense to start blaming each other. He is a kind man but, in my opinion, fails to deal with this maturely. I had never blamed him, only what I felt, not any fact of objective truth. I told him this, and I think he realized this, but he still didn't give any explanation or reassurance to help me understand. I was okay with having at least expressed my feelings. I didn't need more, and we ended on good terms. I'd only be able to trust him if it came from his initiative to try and explain what might have happened, so I didn't wish to reschedule or push for an explanation, there was no point in that.

I could better fall asleep after this. I had fulfilled my need to express my feelings. But in a productive manner. I could have handled this better, of course. I may be a bit too direct and confrontational, and people may misinterpret it as not coming from love. So be it. It's the only path forward for me. I don't feel a loss if things weren't meant to be. I must respect my feelings to deal with them competently. If I didn't, I would be doing both a disservice in the long run.

However, I also know I can expect too much of people and judge them too quickly, but I think I'm improving on that front. I also have to remember I'm sensitive and can easily get overwhelmed, but I'm still a person who needs to express my feelings directly to people out of love. If people aren't comfortable with that, then I think that's okay, and it's okay for things not to be.

We also must remember how our affective state can be misplaced. I knew I was dehydrated, which made me see it more hurtful for some moments. I initially wanted to write angrily, thinking he was cruel to me. But the reason I felt hurt in the first place is that I felt he was a kind person in the first place. He may have only felt hurt himself and may have expressed that poorly to protect himself out of habit. Of course, I could be wrong. I'm still learning. But if I express myself genuinely, I give them the best opportunity to correct misunderstandings and acknowledge concerns.

I'm a human, a being of feelings. My surroundings and I are better off if I take my feelings into account knowingly rather than unknowingly. I'm willing to give up more and more in return for genuineness. Without it, I can't express love. I think I may choose death over living in fear, having felt how freeing it is to act from love.

I don't think there's anything in this world that is more fulfilling than love, but it'd be foolish to think one can be free from fear. If we tell ourselves we're immune to fear, we may merely become ignorant of its sway on our minds. Something like that, or maybe chicken nuggets.