The other day I heard someone say that our experiences are a reflection of what’s going on inside us. We attract or create outside what is going on in our mind and emotions. I don’t know how much stock I put in that. I can see it being true to a point. But if the whole world is angry and you go from your peaceful cave into that world and unexpectedly experience the winds of fury from those around you, I’m not sure I want to accept that I somehow brought it on myself in some way other than the simple act of exposing myself unawares.
I had noticed in my first venture into a grocery store in several weeks people were giving off a vibe of controlled hostility. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I did not notice the one-way arrows on shopping aisles till I was almost finished, or that I had my children in tow (all of us masked), but people seemed quite perturbed in general, not just in the store but on the roads too. I speculated the honeymoon of baking bread and butterflies in the garden had waned and people were now entering that anger and frustration phase of the grieving process – resisting the inevitable acceptance of our collective loss of certainty and normalcy.
I have pulled back from social media even more than before. If political fanaticism wasn’t enough to cause division – now this crisis has been wedded to that deepening divide when we instead need unity against a common enemy. This crisis is revealing all our ugly and broken places and maybe for some, walls of denial about our true condition as a nation may be getting harder to shore up. At any rate it seems everyone is mad at someone for what they think, say, or do.
This week I was called back to my part-time job at a small-town health food store. Saturday we are open only three hours. I had five customers, three of whom were angry and yelling. In the past three years (this is reminding me of a Sesame Street story about the number 3 – my apologies), I can’t even add up that many negative customer encounters in my memory. We are still operating through a drive-thru window but at one point I let a man inside the store so he would believe me that the thing he wanted was truly not there. Even while on the phone with the owner he would not stop shouting at me as to the whereabouts of his desired product, which I knew where to find, after three years. And he wasn’t even the rudest person of the day. I decline to tell the rest.
I came home with a stress-related health flare up and am still sick this morning. I have been having intensely disturbing dreams, and strange sensations while trying to go to sleep. Yes, everything is “fine” but I’m feeling the ever-present undercurrent of stress. Everyone seems to be stomping at the starting gate, rushing out now that they can, to all the places. People in my state and/or rural county seem to have taken it as a cue that all is well and masks no longer needed, although the practice never caught on to more than about 30% participation. I am fairly sure that outlook will be forced to change shortly.
So maybe I am angry too. Maybe I did “attract” this behavior. Or maybe we are just all in this together and we need to realize the person on the other side of the counter, the next lane, or in social media comments, is not the enemy. I would like to think we can move on to acceptance and cooperation. But right now if feels like a tinderbox soaked in kerosene.