When I was twenty I owned a pair of pink pants made of some sort of plastic or vinyl or poly-something or other. Bright pink. And I wore them. This is the story of that boy. And how I have come to embrace him.
It is difficult now as I spend most of my days in a uniform of Varvatos Converse sneakers, loose black or blue jeans and three or four layers of shirt, sweatshirt, sweater arrangement in grays, blacks, or blues, to recall the person I was who once wore those pants.
It is difficult now as I have a reputation for one who eschews most social situations, who prefers being wrapped in a quilt, reading a book or watching some BBC America series I’ve missed or trashy competition/reality television to recall the person I was who once went out quite a lot, to bars, to parties, with people, tripping the light fantastic and cultivating liaisons beneath mirror balls.
I was 20.
Of late I have been thinking not a little about this, prompted by some exchanges on Facebook and in my personal life with people who were around for the pink plastic pants era.
And some who were not.
A few weeks ago I was having a drink with a dear friend who knew me well during the pink plastic pant decade. We were discussing a less than charming, less than well-bred adventure in which I’d then been involved, which led to my confession that I had not, at the time, been particularly nice. Said dear friend could not disagree, in fact, said dear friend expanded upon the remark to make clear just how very not nice I had been.
In times past, prior to being 50, I might have taken offense or gone on the defensive. But, Universe be praised, I’ve come to a sort of peace. Without thinking about it I answered, “It’s true. I was pretty shitty. But I was always filled with this same Light I have now. It’s just that I was so afraid and so unsure of it and I had caught so much shit during my life, the Fear was what I worked from instead of Love.”
It was a great realization for me. I have begun to forgive myself.
It was not long after that when I posted on Facebook one of my affirming sort of theories of being. I meditate a lot. I think about reality a lot. I try to stay in the Light. A lot. And when a thought comes to me, when I read a theory or a saying which touches me and feels as if it has some truth to it, I will often post it.
Soon, it was commented on in a not particularly affirming way by someone who knew me during the pink plastic pant era. For which, apparently, they have not forgiven me.
I don’t – not even for one moment – consider myself wonderfully adept at managing to live in the Light every moment. But I’m trying. I am increasingly amused by those who cannot allow for such evolution. I am also shocked and saddened by the energy some people devote to maintaining their vision of others as still wearing their version of “pink plastic pants.”
It’s not the first (nor was it the last) time that someone I know well enough to “friend” on Facebook (and/or life) has chosen to see me as such. It’s a great lesson for me. I too have posted snarky, accusatory, tabloid reporter, semi-attacks on Facebook or in conversations in my life. As I said, my effort to live in Light is just that – an effort. I miss the mark with alarming regularity.
What gives me great joy is how much easier it has become to allow the people who need to see me in pink plastic pants to do so without defending myself. What gives me great joy is that being 50 seems to have released me from those pink plastic pants at the same time it has given me the freedom to embrace that boy I was.
He wasn’t so bad. He was afraid. And now, at 50, I can see the Light that was in him, no matter the ways in which it was obscured, and hug who he was, and encourage him to let go of the fear and operate from the love. And in forgiving myself that way, in seeing myself that way, I am able to see others who I have too long, too stubbornly seen in their own pink plastic pants as Light-filled people who are probably just as afraid as I once was that to reveal the Light, to work from the Love, might still be met with the rejection and loneliness that living in fear brought me.
It’s a blessing. And with that, I have had the opportunity to start spending great swaths of time with my Mother, who recently turned 84. When I lost my dear aunt, Frances, who we all called Sissie, it was a slow process. She started fading from the present long before she died and by the time I had courage enough to have some conversations, it was too late. With my Mother, each day we are together, we are talking about things I never even considered we might. Any question or topic that comes into my head, I bring up, and she shares with me the insights and wisdom she’s gained during all her decades.
It is a beautiful thing. Even more beautiful is that now, at 50 and 84, I have begun to realize how much we are alike in ways I never suspected. She had to change tables at the senior center where she has an apartment because of her defense of President Obama. She believes marijuana should be legalized and taxed to help with the deficit and stop wasting money on prosecuting and jailing its users. Many more things too private to share.
I wonder, should I make it to 80, what parts of this 50 year old me I will look back on and only be able to embrace THEN. But having Mommy to talk to is, I hope, helping me to explore this 50 year old me to search out the fear and the dark and bring it to Love and Light in the right now. Because, if at 20, I had trusted a little more (well, a lot more) in the Light inside me, I might not have ended up at 50 with those people who feel it incumbent upon them to point out to me on Facebook and in person, “You were mean.” Or post or converse in tones that are meant to say, “You and Light, whatever.” As if I were trying to run some scam.
Like I said, I know I’m not and never have been (and likely won’t ever be) Buddha. But what I also know is that I have never been – with a few pink plastic pant era exceptions which were motivated by fear, terror even – purposely cruel to people. I try now, every day, to remind myself to live in and work from and share and see the Light.
So, 20, 50, 80. Very different. All connected. All choices. We can’t change the choices we’ve made. We can’t change the choices others make. But we can do what my Aunt did and my Mother does, which is accept what is, and see the Light in others. That doesn’t mean that if someone comes into your space and throws darkness, attitude, hurt around that you keep inviting it in, but it does mean that no matter the spaces between you, even if the answer for now is to be distant from those people, you still – in your heart – see them in their Light.
I wish that for myself, from them, those at a distance – those who see me in pink plastic pants – those who dislike me, those who need me to be the bad guy in their stories – I wish someday they see the Light in me, and at 50, it has become increasingly clear, the only way to that wish is to practice it myself.
I do. Even though some days I am squeezing myself into those pink pants (metaphorically – the reality would be too repugnant for words) and – happily – now, on those days, I have them on less and less time before the discomfort of the fit becomes clear to me and I quickly, with a prayer of thanks, put back on my baggy jeans.
