Living in the Moment, the Gift and the Curse
I didn't understand until recently that I have been doing it my whole life. I just wasn't aware of it. And I wasn't doing it in any way that would qualify as purposeful or meaningful.
For me, the gift is twofold.
First—living free and uninhibited without the weight of consequence, guilt, or fear that most people carry. No internal brakes. No hesitation. Side note: "It's that hesitation that'll kill ya." A kind of freedom most people never experience and would never want if they understood the cost.
Second—and this one took me longer to see—the same mechanism that let me do harmful things also protected me from being destroyed by painful things done to me. People hurt me. Wronged me. Did things I knew weren't right. And I let it wash off. Not because it didn't register. It hurt. But I was so accustomed to the armor that I never let it in. I just kept moving.
I wore a coat of armor my whole life. That word—armor—runs throughout the memoir. I didn't fully understand until recently that it cut both ways. It kept guilt out. It kept pain out. It kept everything out that might have slowed me down or stopped me.
That’s the gift. Emotional insulation in both directions.
My curse is my shadow image. I cannot selectively turn off a mechanism like that. The same armor that keeps pain at a distance keeps genuine connection there too. And it keeps running long after the circumstances that created it are gone.
A few years ago, Helen and I were talking about the fact that I never considered consequences. Some of that connects back to "Show No Fear." Some of it comes from a question I have heard more than once—Didn't you think you would get caught?
My answer was always the same. I'm not stupid. Had I thought I was going to get caught I wouldn't have done those things. The truth is the thought of getting caught was fleeting at best. I never believed I would get caught. Therefore, consequences never entered the calculation. There was no decision to be made and I didn't know how to say no. Impulse was the governing rule.
My thought was "is there a way out." "Is there a getaway?" Those are far different considerations than, "I hope I don't get caught."
I want to qualify that with one specific memory.
The day Tim and I were headed to Flagg Ranch we were both uncomfortable. We could feel something wasn't right. Neither of us wanted to be there. It was the first time Tim and I ever talked openly about what we were doing. But even then—even with that feeling—it wasn't enough to turn us around. We just didn't consider that we were going to get caught.
That is what the mechanism looks like from the inside.
My Story is still working on me. Still teaching me. As I wrote it, I found it giving me understanding. Now months later it’s still surfacing things I couldn't see during the reckoning. The armor I wrote about throughout that story wasn't just protecting the world from Mr. Hyde. It was protecting me from the world.
I'm not sure I fully understood that until right now.
As I read that last sentence I realize I still don't fully understand it.
Benjamin F Sautter