An old lady steps out of a car and slowly waddles over to the driver's side. Her husband opens the door with great difficulty, lifting one leg at a time. When he is finally upright, she hands him his glasses, then his pen and then the shopping list. He carefully places each individual item in his inside blazer pocket, patting it down reassuringly.
He turns to get a trolley, she follows but he instructs her to stay. She reluctantly agrees. He returns, extends his arm, which her withered hands firmly take hold of and they begin to walk forward. He takes his steps quickly and surely - striding on - as if an inward desire of youth has leapt out to thwart the vision of age that he has become. He momentarily forgets that his wife, her back arched forward from carrying life's weighty and unexpected burdens, cannot mirror his projection of strength.
She can't keep up; out of breath, she slows down, her hand slips from his arm. He turns back and suddenly, his eyes soften. He has turned back to meet his reflection. The surprise in his eyes is painstakingly apparent: they are old. 'How did this happen?' his eyes ask, searching for the woman he fell in love with, in the face of a relic he cannot recognise. He lowers his head slightly, then clasps her hand in his before slowing his steps. As she catches up to stand beside him, they stand still for a moment before continuing their journey.
I am affected. By everything. There was a time in my life when I thought this a gift, necessary even. I was 'insightful', 'empathetic' - I was understanding and a 'considerate' human being, who took time to comprehend peoples' very complicated and obscure emotions and trains of thought. Actually, I have come to realise that I perhaps am not any of those things. In truth, I find this constant state of being 'affected', rather like a disease.
There is a story my mother loves to tell. "It was your second birthday. All the family was gathered around the dining table to see you cut the cake. Your cousin, who was five at the time, began to cry inconsolably. You watched him intently, with a curious yet concerned expression. When his sobbing finally subsided, we asked him what was wrong. 'I want to cut the cake!' he declared. Without any hesitation, you pushed the cake towards him. To this day, I wonder what went through your head but it is a behaviour that is unheard of from a two year old. You were so affected by his tears and his desire to cut the cake, you simply handed it over to him."
Every time someone recounts this story, a cousin of mine declares, "You've always been caring. It's just in your nature. You always put other people before you."
I am perhaps the only one who reads this episode entirely differently. First, it is important to note that I have little to no memory of said incident. What I do recall, however, is a feeling of dread overpowering me. I know this from years of experiencing that very same feeling. It is the feeling I had watching the old couple stepping out of their car. It is one that I find increasingly difficult to explain but it exists. And when it settles within me, it spreads like wildfire.
It begins with a tinge of sadness; that very early sinking sensation that one encounters when something is painful to watch or experience firsthand. It moves from a sinking sensation to a sting; a sharp, deliberately slow piercing of steel through flesh. It makes my ears ring and my pulse slow to a calculated, deep thumping that I can feel move through my being. I become the pain I see before me. I can feel it; pulsating through my very core.
I observed the old couple from afar. They had no knowledge of me watching them, writing their story in my head, imagining their pains and struggles; magnifying them in my head to colossal bounds, feeling each one as if it were a personal grief. "One of them will die," I told myself. "How will the other cope? If it is her, who will hand him his glasses and the shopping list and his pen? If it is him, whose arm will she hold to cross the street? Who will slow down for her?" My mind ran clear beyond the asphalt beneath it, the painful thudding in my chest keeping rhythm to the thoughts that sprinted well beyond the confines of my brain.
I convinced myself that the old couple was alone in this world. They had nobody but each other. I envisioned before me the old lady waking up one morning to find no life in the man she had loved for years. Her arched back not allowing her to move, she would lie there for hours beside him; feeling his cold, rough cheek with her trembling hand. She would sob quietly to herself and whisper to him over and over again how much she had loved him and how alone she was now.
The old couple, their truth and the story I had written for them on my lunch break, stayed with me the entire day. I returned to work in a different state of mind. Thoughts of the old couple tormented my mind the entire day, my body weighed down from grief and a deep, gripping sadness. But what was I sad about? The old lady had not lost her husband. For all I knew, they could have had great, great grandchildren and were surrounded by people every day. So, why did I convince myself of a tragic tale? Better yet, why did someone else's potential grief govern my being to such a degree?
This process continues in all respects of my life; work, friends, family. Peoples' burdens become my own; I make them my own. I physically feel the weight of the responsibility; the tormenting frustrations of not having overcome the obstacles, the emotional draining - all of which belongs to someone else and is attached to someone else's grief. And yet, somehow, I make it my own.
This is not empathy, or consideration. I am yet to find a name for it. But to me, whatever it is, it spells chaos. Existing in a constant state of mind which belongs to another is catastrophic for the soul. We are erratic beings by nature; troubled by the friction of opposite emotions and scarred by the consistent battle of ego and submission. So, how can your own being find the strength to absorb and indulge the conflicts of another, when it can barely withstand your own?
It is only a matter of time, then, before you lose yourself completely and rise one day to find that the person you once recognised and identified as you, has transformed before your very eyes into someone else.
