I Do Not Know Myself

I do not know myself and God forbid that I should--Goethe

 

Just when I think I have plumbed the depths of my frailties, another pops up. I was at a heallth food conscious grocery store tonight, packed with folks getting ready for Thanksgiving. I was feeling neither happy nor sad and certainly not on the edge of a possible moral lapse. I had picked up the turkey, a cooked ham just in case, and was browsing the natural supplement aisle, just in case something struck me. I was at the internal cleansing agent section. A man was a bit beyond me in one of those motorized chairs. As I considered liquid versus pills, if I were going to do either, I heard the beep beep beep, like a truck or car backing up. It was the man in his chair, a stocky blonde man I noticed now, and he seemed to be coming backward to where I was. So courteously I made way. He stopped. I looked at another section of the aisle, really thinking that I ought to buy something healthy to supplement, maybe even counteract my horrible eating habits. And then I heard the beep beep beep again, and he was backing again, and I couldn't figure suddenly why he just did not turn around and go forward. There was nothing obstructing him. And then, it seemed, I say seems, because how do I really know, that he wanted to be where I was again. I was starting to get annoyed at a man in a chair. Maybe he can't walk. I can't be annoyed at him. But I was.

Another woman came into the same aisle. The man continued to back up. He said nothing as he did, to either of us. He just looked back and moved the chair, beep, beep, beep. I had been edged out of the supplement aisle and seemed to be in front of children's cereal, nearly crushed against it. His chair was pretty big.  It took everything for me not to yell at him, still backing up until he had gotten to the milk case. That'd look great, me yelling at this man in a chair, possibly unable to navigate with the ease that I am, that he was a social cretin. The feeling of rage, at him, at myself, at the fact I could do nothing, nearly overwhelmed me. Why did he do it that way? He did not even seem to see me or the other woman. Or worse, he did, and that made me angrier. Were we being tested? I had to get away from there. I was finished. To the checkout. And then the beep beep beep a few registers away, and then I saw him move forward  and around a corner, and I forced him, and my anger out of my mind.

I am no teenager, for whom being "disrespected", if that is what it was, and I will never know, should make a difference. I am grown, and yet, the idea of being invisible to another who would not want to be treated as invisible, nor should be, seemed to increase my rage. So much was speculation on my part.

Sometimes I wonder where is my heart. I do not know my heart. But I disagree with Goethe that God forbid I should. God requires that I do. And change. Easier said than done.