When I was nine years old, following my convictions led to the police being called and my family believing I had been kidnapped. The spirit world often reminds me of my life experiences to help provide perspective and they shared this childhood memory with me after I panic spiraled off of social media last week.
If you want to convince yourself the world is a miserable place, look at the comment sections of Instagram. I can be in my favorite chair tucked under a blanket with a cup of tea and, through reading comments on social media, be triggered to the point of physical illness. Rather than giving in to the part of me that loves the drama of being angry and aggrieved, I decided to honor my convictions by stepping away.
Meta has quite an addictive racquet going, and if the apps are on my phone, my fingers itch to open them. So, I deleted the apps and have been posting and answering messages from my laptop or downloading and deleting them as I need to.
I don’t have any incarnate coworkers, and social media has tethered me to friends and colleagues over the last few years, especially since the start of the pandemic. Last week, I had a full conversation with a female cricket in my office before I escorted her through a window using a plastic cup and file folder. She sat on the ledge, looking at me for a few minutes before hopping away, almost as if knowing I needed assurance that I was, in fact, good company.
Talking to an insect is more validating than screaming into the void of social media, and I highly recommend it.
As a highly sensitive person, I can easily get lost in my own experience. I have to work at not allowing my feelings not to take up all the space in the room or alternatively dismissing them completely. I need temperance.
When I was nine years old, one week before I was supposed to attend my first sleepover, I staged a walkout from my Hebrew school class in protest of what I believed to be unreasonable treatment. I was at my breaking point, having been asked to rewrite my Hebrew letters a few times too many. In my typical misfit fashion, I didn't tell anyone about the walkout, and so, I was the only one to walk out.
In a class of only eight students, getting up, putting on my coat, hat, and mittens, and walking out felt so dramatic. I was shaking as I leaned my entire body against the double doors, pushing out into the freezing air and liberating myself from boredom and the scorn of my teacher.
I began to walk towards my house, full of adrenaline, as I imagined people running after me. I heard imaginary police sirens as I crossed busy streets during rush hour. I mentally prepared a speech I’d give to the administration—the unfair way I was being harassed and criticized.
In reality, my teacher was a lovely woman who may or may not have been having a bad day, and I got to walk almost two miles towards home in the freezing Boston winter. After thirty minutes, my panicked parents picked me up at the end of my street. No one had seen me leave, but when they noticed I was missing, the older students started to canvass the area. They questioned a cashier at a nearby store, who thought she had seen me but with an older brother. I don’t have an older brother, and so for the next thirty minutes, I was thought to have been kidnapped. Everyone I was angry with was looking for me, imagining my kidnapping or worse. They called the police. My nice teacher cried.
As a kid, I imagined my own funeral often, but this was next level. It was too much power, and my nine-year-old ego imploded on itself, wanting to be invisible again. I had gone too far, and I felt deep remorse.
My mom encouraged me to write a letter of apology to the school. It was implied that if they accepted the apology, I might still be able to go to the sleepover I had been invited to. I eagerly accepted the challenge, wanting to unburden myself of the guilt I felt.
We had a meeting where I read the apology letter out loud to my Mom and teacher. I put myself in the position of the teacher, empathizing with what she must have gone through. I told her that in writing the letter, I had already forgiven her for criticizing me, so we didn’t need to talk about that.
As we walked out of the meeting, my Mom said, “I’m proud of you.” I was afraid to ask if she meant for standing up for myself and walking out or for reading the letter. I’m guessing it was a bit of both. I was allowed to go to the sleepover. I think she saw the value in having something normal to do since I wasn’t often invited to things.
While I’m still grateful to be invited to things I might equally enjoy being alone in my office having tea with a cricket. Since doing some cricket research, I’ve learned that female crickets don’t chirp but communicate through subtle sound vibrations. They can bite you but probably won’t, and seeing one is considered good luck.
The real luck is being present enough to notice things. To make the time to rescue an insect. To quiet the static, be with yourself, and learn about your own convictions. Being humble enough to change positions when you need to. Imagining the world from another perspective, especially one you disagree with, will temporarily disconnect you from your ego. A swift and untethering shift occurs when we decide to put aside our hurts and identities and be sincere. I want to have more conversations with my inner child, with the inner child of others, with crickets.
After I apologized to my teacher, her response was to start encouraging me to become a writer, which she did for the next few decades. When she retired several years later, I wrote her a poem. I saw her not long ago at the funeral of a mutual friend, and the first thing she asked me was, “Are you still writing?”
This part of the memory reminds me of all the good things I believed as a child that are still true for me:
That I could stand up for what I believed in.
That my imagination is a portal to empathize with others.
That the smallest of creatures deserve our care.
That, at any time, I can take myself home.
With love,
Sheryl
P.S. I would love to try an experiment. If you’d like to participate, tell me in the comments something you believed as a child that still feels true.
P.P.S. Right now, this newsletter is a labor of love. If you enjoy my writing and find value here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work. As I approach nine months of writing The Electric Curtain, I’ll be experimenting with adding more benefits for paid subscribers. If you’re not ready to be a paid subscriber, your presence here is still extremely valuable to me. I love being able to share my ideas and revelations with you.
I used to have friendships with imaginary friends and now I realize they weren’t imaginary ✨💗
“Are you still a writer” 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹