Curse of knowledge
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 10:00PM 
I know things other people don’t. I have lived things other people can’t imagine. I have gone through a transformation some people will never have the courage to. It is my curse, as well as my salvation. I can’t continue living the way I did before. Nothing is the same, and nothing will be. The worst part, speaking up doesn’t help – when people don’t seek knowledge, don’t ask for it, they read it wrong. I only make things worse. It is torture for me to carry it around. Maybe this is why I write. It needs to burst out, it needs to reach people. I need to have it known.
When I see a parent scold a toddler for running out into the street, I wail in my heart. I can’t walk up to them and tell them that the toddler will read the scolding wrong, he will think he has done something wrong, this will be the first step to his self-doubt. I can’t explain that to the parents, neither am I free of this sin. I’ve done this too. My daughter ran out into the street when she was little, I grabbed her and yelled at her, scared to death. I am sorry I did that. I am sorry I did many things. I wish I knew then what I know now.
I can’t watch romantic movies anymore – I don’t shed a tear. I used to. The whole institution of marriage and its value is under question for me. It doesn’t mean I will leave my husband, it means it lost the value that I put on it in the past. The marriage itself was a byproduct of men owning women, and I hate the guts of this idea. Will I ever enjoy a heart-wrenching book about a love story? I don’t know.
I can’t find happiness in things anymore – I can’t go shopping with a girlfriend. Things don’t mean squat to me. They’re just things. I used to love it. I used to love selecting something perfect to death. Now I have a list of things I need, and when I have the money, I go buy it online. My latest dress I bought online, without trying it on. It fit like a glove. I’m shopping alone now, in front of my computer.
I’ve lost myself, my past self, but my new self is not fully born yet. I struggle. I shed habits, people, hobbies, things. I have not grown into the new ones. I can’t talk to people at parties – I have to explain to them what I do. I try to make a happy face and say I am a product manager at a technology start-up. But then it slips out – I am a writer. What do you write? A book. And a blog. Wow, that’s so great! What is your book about? My son stands around, and I can’t tell the book’s name, I wait until he leaves, I watch people watching me with surprised faces. It’s an awkward moment. (Once I told a person – brash – you don’t want to know. He probably took it as an offense. I thought so. This time, I decided to tell the truth again.) I am an incest survivor, I say. They look at me with no comprehension. Maybe I said it not loud enough. I repeat. I am an incest survivor. My book is about incest. It will be a practical guide for victims and their friends to help them heal their bodies. They don’t know how to react. It’s hard for me. I find I can only tell one group about this at any given party. Then I shut down, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to mention it, I don’t want to go through the explanation again. I’m exhausted as if I ran a marathon. All emotions leave me, there is only tiredness.
I’m tired of being different. I want to find a place where I would feel at home. Where my ideas about things are understood at the breath of my first word. I’m cursed with my knowledge, yet who am I to think that what I know is the truth? Who am I to understand what other people know, and why should my knowledge be any better than theirs? How do I know that I am right, and they are wrong? What if it is vice versa? We all are social animals, we want to belong. We tend to gather in groups defined by sameness. We love it when someone else has the same thoughts, the same experiences, the same life. We feel then, we want to be together. Why it is we fear loneliness so much, I have not uncovered for myself yet. I do know that I am looking desperately for that understanding, that sameness. And I am on the path of finding it.
There are others, and they are with me, I know it, and they told me so. I only wish I found you faster, I connected with more of you. I know there are more. I only wish we weren’t sometimes separated in space by distance, connecting on social networks. I wish I could hold your hand. I wish we could cry together. I wish we could smile after, and continue living, supporting each other all the way. My new friends, I wish you were here.
Photo by Erin Purcell.
Reader Comments (2)
<3<3<3 HUGS <3<3<3 Me too...
Thanks :) maybe one day we will gather together to see each other