Jungle
There’s a jungle. In that jungle are tigers and bears and spiders and asps. Walking around that jungle is terrifying. There’s no knowing what will happen. Is this step going to be your last? How about the next? One bite when you’re not looking and you’re dead.
You’re standing on a little paved circle in that jungle. You don’t feel entirely safe while standing on that circle, but the anxiety and terror at least are at tolerable levels. As the years go by, you take small trips outside of the paved circle. Stepping outside the circle for the first time fills you with dread, but as you survive and make it back to the safety of the circle, the following trips get easier and easier. You eventually pave paths you walk a lot, and the baseline fear and terror doesn’t move much as you walk them. Other paths are somewhat beaten down, but still bring up fear.
And the rest of the jungle continues to exist beyond the edges of known safety.
This is, of course, obviously a metaphor. When I say “you” I of course mean myself. The jungle is the world full of people. And the terror is... well... terror.
I remember the first time I took a taxi. I hopped in the car, told the driver where I needed to go, and I got there. It was Seattle. I remember it vividly, because it was a terrifying experience. The whole time my brain was looking at how reasonable everything was. Here’s a guy who takes money and moves people around. He’s friendly. I can ask him to help me, I can give him money, he will take me to where I need to go. And I was in terror the whole time.
I even have faint memories of being terrified talking to cashiers the first few times. The memories are fainter because they’re older, but I still distinctly remember being wooden and full of anxiety and doing my best to act normal, to not spook the cashiers.
I’ve paved many of the paths I need to walk in my life. My job is a paved path. Chatting with neighbors is a paved path. Buying groceries is a paved path.
But many of the paths remain unpaved trails through the undergrowth. Friendship is one of those. I have people who I do my best to be friends with, but while I am proud of my ability to relax and be “normal” around them, there’s still this fear of spooking them, of freaking them out so that they run away or hurt me. That’s not a logical fear, of course. I don’t allow people who would actually hurt me into my life. But my body doesn’t know that and I don’t know how to make it listen.
And just about anything new feels like it’s deep in the jungle. I’m working with M, and last night we needed to get dinner. She smiled at me conspiratorially, saying, “I need room to have my notebook out, so I’m going to reserve for three to get a bigger table.” I was terrified. That’s not following the rules, that’s stepping out of bounds. That’s inviting trouble.
That’s an invitation to get hurt.
Even writing this, I feel terror in my body. A real terror of being physically hurt, being put into a place of pain, being in the place of wanting to die.
There’s no logical reason for any of this. And that doesn’t matter at all.
A few days ago I had a conversation with M.
“Why do you have no trouble talking to some people but not others?”
“I have a reason to talk to the cashier. I have a reason to talk to the waiter.”
“Isn’t that you find someone hot reason enough to talk to them?”
“No. I feel ashamed. It feels shallow.”
And we went and talked about shallowness.
But the jungle is what’s going on here. Years ago I was in a situation where I was forced to talk to a cashier, so I pushed myself to do so. Now that’s a paved path, and there’s little anxiety. Years ago I pushed myself to talk to waiters, and now that’s a paved path. The anxiety is under control, and sometimes I can even relax and bring out the charm and the flirtiness.
But if we go beyond that, the anxiety starts building again. Yes, having a reason to talk to someone is helpful, but all that does is give me some ability to push into the terror. The further out into the jungle I go, the scarier it is. Reasons stop being strong enough to work, and no matter how desperately I want to explore and find kinship and really start living, the terror shuts me down and I retreat to the paved path.
So hi from the paved path.
I hope to see you soon in the jungle.
