Psycho-Babble

Friday afternoon as I drove home from work I got more and more irritated. The first irritant was that when I left for work that morning at 6, it was 50 degrees, and on the way home at 4 it was 25 degrees and blustery, and I had forgotten my heavy coat.

The biggest irritation however, was on the radio. Normally I listen to satellite radio and have for several years, but when there are reasons, (weather, traffic, or whatever) I’ll flip on a local station. As I waited for a traffic update on a talk station I had to sit through several minutes of a psychologist trying to tell people how to fix their problems.

What I found so irritating was what he was saying about memories. During the section of the program I caught he said basically two things that bothered me. First, tears of joy are not tears of joy at all; they are tears of sadness or regret. When our grandkids hug our neck or we see an old friend or something like that and we laugh and tear up at the same time, it’s our subconscious being both happy and sad. Happy for what we’re going through, but sad because we’re no longer young and the time to experience these things is limited.

The same with memories, when we look back at our childhood or think about old friends, we subconsciously gloss over the aches and pains so that all that is left is the feel good, happy stuff. I’m obviously not a psychologist, and no disrespect to old friends or classmates who may have chosen that profession, but to me that’s a bunch of B.S.

I’ve taken enough psychology to know one thing. Size does not fit all. Where most of us do follow some general traits, you can’t paint it all with one broad brush. We each deviate enough to make us unique. If that were not true, there would be no need for psychologists, they would dispense counseling out of a vending machine like they do soda.

I firmly believe that aging, and events such as 911, have gotten me closer to my memories. I most certainly do remember the aches and pains of being a teenager - all the tears and fears and uncertainty of the world, and war, which lay waiting. What was I going to do, how was I going to fit in, what would become of… me? I remember the frustration and angst of dating and the volatility of some events that sometimes strained friendships.

But I choose not to dwell on those. I believe that if I made it through all that and still consider you all my friends, then that to me is true friendship. Besides, as I’ve said several times, we all went through it together. Who better to understand how I felt, or feel, than you guys? We all may not live the same lives, have the same jobs, enjoy the same pleasures, or move in the same circle of society, but we all most certainly do have a bond. Good or bad, it's there, and in that respect we are brothers and sisters.