Dear John...(to be continued...)

I suppose that I should start by giving you a pseudonym. Let’s call you...John.

John. I have so much that I want to say to you and about you, I find myself struggling with where to begin. We really only knew each other for about six months, face to face. That was three years ago, and of all the things that I know about you, me and you and me, I know that whenever I hear your name now, whether it’s in reference to you or not, I get a flash of nausea. No, not quite nausea. Yet still a sick type of feeling. I’ve had it before when I’ve been caught in a lie or know that I have forgotten something really important.

It’s an odd sensation, a rush of heavy quicksilver in my stomach and a feeling that all the blood in my body suddenly increased in temperature by 10 degrees. Not boiling, that would be too much, but a definitely unpleasant heat. It doesn’t last as long as it did. (But frankly, since it happens at all, it lasts too long.) It makes for a touch of awkwardness in classes now if I have a student with your name. It isn’t his fault that the two of you share a name, yet I still find myself grading every student with your name a half a letter grade up to make sure that I’m not being unduly and unfairly prejudiced. (I’ll give them your name and number, so they can thank you for the boost.)

So I have this feeling, this sort of 2 second hot flash, whenever I hear or see your name. I am 26 years old. I should not be having hot flashes. And as much as I hate it, I’ve been trained, or at least my body has been trained to react to you. It’s a fight or flight, though there is no actual event to fight or flee when I hear your name. So I’m left without any sort of resolution, feeling hyperaware of my body and my self, and all because I’ve heard your name.

How does that happen? How does one word, John, make me flush with a mixture of anger and terror all topped with an acute self-consciousness. Eleanor Roosevelt said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Apparently I sent in a form, signed and notarized, practically begging you to make me feel inferior, there’s really no other explanation for it. A wise woman and a wise statement, but I wonder, does the perpetrator have to know they are making the other one feel inferior? Is that a part of the equation? It gives a bit of absolution to the victim if the aggressor knew they were acting in a way as to make others feel inferior.

Or does that make it all the more sinister; you’ve no way of knowing how your name makes me feel, so how could any fault be attributed to you? It comes back on me. mea culpa. It is my own fault. I am the one making myself feel bad. I am the problem. I have given the consent, so it is my fault. Wasn’t that the rule in Nazi Germany and more recently at Guantanamo Bay? It is the ones in control, the ones who gave the command that are to blame. The soldiers on the ground are simply obeying orders.

To be continued...(upon request)