Old Soul/New Soul

Barbara: The other day, a friend and I were chatting about how some people seem more naturally comfortable with life’s trials and tribulations than others. She told me that a friend of hers (who I didn’t know) was very easily overwhelmed with everyday challenges. When my friend was talking her through some coping strategies, the other friend finally looked up and asked, “Do you believe in the whole ‘past lives’ thing?” When my friend asked why, she answered that, while she wasn’t sure what she believed, she definitely felt “new at this”.

Now this idea—that she is “new at this"—just utterly charmed me. First off, there is the vulnerable sweetness of the observation. Then there is the observation part of the observation. Not all of us would be able to a) identify this lack of life-skill, and then b) admit that we felt like we were at the fledgling stage of a larger state of life, like being at the starting square of Monopoly with our unspoiled piles of fake money while all the other players started a long time ago and their banks are in disarray but they surely know all the tricks by now and keep getting farther and farther ahead while we have to—somehow—catch up.

So, obviously, the whole question got me to wondering.

Now, we can if we want put out here what we believe as far as past lives goes, or we can gloss over that part of the question and maybe decide, if we were to believe in it, how experienced we felt ourselves to be. I, for one, have often entertained the idea of past lives, without actually sealing it with my Final Decree stamp of certainty. I do remember once lying in a meditative state on a massage table, hovering at near-sleep and having a very vivid daydream in which I was a Roman statesman. I could see myself as this Roman, my white robes, my short hair, I could accept the fact that underneath that unfamiliar visage, and despite the fact that this was a man, “he” was me. This was a different experience than being in a dream-state (or a nightmare), and, to this day, feels so utterly real that I still believe I was seeing a past life. That’s as close as I’ve ever come to knowing a thing that is, for all intents and purposes, totally unknowable. I also often say someone is “an old soul”, or that they have “gone a few rounds at this life thing”, etc. It’s almost a rote observation now, one I make without actually thinking about the spiritual significance of old souls and new souls, or no souls at all.

So I’m going to go back to today’s question: if you were to enter into the discussion today and had to proclaim yourself “an old hand” or “new at this”, which would it be?

Despite my Roman vision, I have always felt a kind of “old soul” kinship in my blood. As much as I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m proclaiming myself a sage or a final authority in the matter of souls, I would have to say I do feel like an “old soul”.

Deb: Great topic, Barb. It’s funny but in the past few years I have grown weary of all the new parents who proclaim their offspring to be “old souls”. I think it’s a given that all new infants tend to appear like old souls and I do believe in the possibility, but I don’t think we can just start tossing it around, as it tends to lose its lustre.  It has become the “I was at Woodstock” of the soul. Having said that, I do feel I was prepared for this life. I do feel I have some sort of old take on things in certain areas. I don’t feel new in that sense. I don’t know what it is and I am not officially claiming to be officially an old soul. But I know I’m not new at the game. I’ve been around the karma block a time or two methinks.  I asked Colin what he thought and he said, I don’t feel old but I also don’t feel new. Really interesting concept. I am going to think on this one for a while.

When Words Are The Sticks And Stones

Barbara: Remember on Tuesday when we asked what we would say to our 12-year-old selves if we could (and, wow, thank you for one of my favourite comments sections ever!)? Well, it got me thinking about something that someone actually did say to me in those vulnerable growing-up years, something which changed my life. And not for the better.

The reason I want to share this with you now is that it was certainly a turning point moment in my life, but also, more importantly, because I am finally and utterly over it.

Okay, so the words…

I got hooked on writing when I was pretty young. I mean, I loved to perform and direct and had huge plans for local theatre shows or fairs that my friends would help me organize for weeks and which then kinda fizzled out (I guess follow-through was not my strongest suit back then). But, more than that, my precious secret was that I was actually a writer. Scribbling first draft work into a notepad and then meticulously transcribing the story through my little portable typewriter. I amused myself by calling the typed version of my work my “copyright” (copy/write… get it??? Unfortunately, when my parents patronized me with delighted laughter about this malapropism—like I didn’t know what I was saying!—man, was I pissed. And embarrassed.) My coup was when I wrote a 60page novel at 13. No matter that it was a blatant rip-off of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was my own beautiful creation.

Barbara at 10

Two years later, I had high hopes for my English class. We were finally attempting creative writing and I was sure I was a shoe-in to ace it. I would finally bring my little secret to the light. I would be recognized. I would be renowned.

But the teacher had other ideas in mind. She took it upon herself to stand in front of the class one day and list all the people she believed to have genuine talent. As she pronounced the names, I nodded in recognition—yes, she was a great storyteller; yes, he had such a way with words—and waited with bated breath for my own name to be called. But she continued with her list, her eyes scanning the classroom, several times holding on me and then passing on, announcing on and on, name after name, until the names began to lose value—what? him??? He doesn’t know a simile from a metaphor!—until she was finished and ready to direct our attention to other English matters.

But wait! It doesn’t end there. As hurt and humiliated as I was (why are we humiliated by omissions that no one else would even notice?), I swallowed past it and carried on. Until a few days later, this same teacher called me into her office and told me—unbidden, mind—in a calm, clear voice that she understood that when she’d made her “talented writers” pronouncement, she’d noticed that I might have hoped that my own name would be called, but that she was sorry she just couldn’t do it. My memory after that is a blur: I think I nodded and kind of wandered out into the hall, trying desperately to hold it together.

I’m pretty sure, in the end, I kicked some creative writing butt in that class, earning high marks on all my pieces. But I let those strangely pointed words become the mantra to which I pursued (or didn’t) all my writing in all the years after that. I let those words sit on my shoulder and become my cross for so many years that it finally had no other choice but to decay and disintegrate. It wasn’t until the cross was gone that I realized that it was gone.

(I will also allow that years and years of writing practice—and now blogging—has helped to erase the onus.)

And I know we will all be outraged at this teacher’s cruelty (or at least that is the most common response when I share this story—which isn’t often), and we will wag our fingers at her casual damage, and we will pat my back (appreciated but truly not necessary) and comfort me. But I wanted to share this with you because I think, in many ways and in ongoing ways, we are always talking to our 12-year-old selves. Or at least we are trying to. And we ARE changing our personal histories by listening to our older, more mature selves and … well, getting over it.

Revenge is a dish best … left in the kitchen.

Deb: Barb, this is so poignant. I agree that we are always talking to our 12-year-old selves and I love this story. I certainly don’t love it for the pain it caused you, but rather for the lesson it taught you. You did it. You kept doing it!!! Do you know how many people would have never put pen to paper again? In this instance, you do not need to go back and talk to your 12-year-old self. Your 12-year-old self got it, I think. It just took some years of maturing to set it in stone. Well done. You should lay your head on the pillow and say Mrs. (insert teachers name), today I am a writer.