The Game of Life

Have you ever watched a sport about which you know nothing? It is utterly baffling. Take football, for example. There are a bunch of men wearing a lot of bulky clothing, and they throw around an oddly-shaped ball, and they all jump on each other in an apparent attempt to kill each other, and it somehow involves a pool, but there is no water in sight. Yeah. What a great game. Should I happen to find myself sitting in front of a football game (which happens only very rarely, and usually by accident) I stay on the fringes and watch the people watching football because watching the people playing football makes no sense to me.

I feel like that about life in general a fair bit of time, actually. Interacting with people often feels like a sport about which I know nothing. It feels like an elaborate game that I just don't get. There are rules (spoken and unspoken) and players and an objective, but I never quite understand the rules, I'm not sure what the objective is, and mostly I feel like I can't communicate with the other players very well.

I'm odd. I know it. I'm somewhat good at pretending I'm fairly normal for periods of time, but inside, I know it's an illusion. I'm fairly eccentric, with a veneer of normal covering the lot of oddness inside, and the longer someone knows me, the more my eccentricity is going to leak out. I know I'm odd.

I know it, because on the occasions that I try to explain the things that I think about, the people with whom I'm talking look at me like I'm slightly mad. Not barking mad, perhaps, but definitely slightly mad. They have a look on their faces that says, "Who even thinks about stuff like that?" Sometimes they say it out loud, suggesting that I'm joking about what I've told them, that I'm saying it to be funny or outrageous, and that I don't really think about the things that I say I think about. Well, I do. All the time. All. The. Time.

I know it because, when I talk about things I find fascinating, the people with whom I'm talking glaze over, and the conversation dries up quickly. Worse, they suggest that I'm acting like a show-off or a know-it-all, or trying to be clever, or using some useless information to avoid talking about other truly important stuff - whatever that might be. But it wasn't useless information to me. It was information I cared enough about to spend time learning about. It was information that I found fascinating, I was hoping against hope that others might find it interesting, too, and I trusted enough the people with whom I was talking to actually share that bit of information and believe it wouldn't be met with a blank gaze or an eye-roll or misunderstanding.

I know it because, when I listen to many of the things other people talk about, I feel like I have no idea what they're talking about. I feel like I'm listening to a foreign language sometimes. I feel like there's a subtext that I'm just too dumb to grasp. I feel the same way I do when I hear people talking about football. Is that even English? And if it is English, why is it that everyone else seems to understand what is being said, but I don't? I know I'm odd because when I listen to other people's conversations, very often, I feel like a complete fool. I feel like I should sit on the sidelines watching other people play an elaborate game they clearly understand, and the best I can do is watch, because I don't have a clue what's going on. So many times, judging by people's reactions, when I've tried to join in, I've said the wrong thing, acted the wrong way, or generally done something that is perceived as inappropriate or awkward, and I don't know what I did or said that was so odd.

Quite honestly, I feel slightly panicky much of the time I'm with people. Ask me a question, a question that, for most people appears totally innocuous, and the thought process might go something like this:

"So, what did you do this weekend?"
      
(Why are you asking me this? Are you asking because you really want to know, or are you simply making small talk? Because if you're asking to make small talk, I really don't understand why you're asking at all. Why would you ask me something you don't really care to know the answer to? But if you're asking because you really want to know, and I tell you the truth, how will you react? If I tell you what I did this weekend, what if you think I'm mad? What can I tell you about what I did this weekend that will sound relatively normal? What sort of person are you? What sort of things will you think are normal and interesting things to do on a weekend? How well do I know you? How much do I care if you think I'm mad? How well do you know me? Do you already think I'm crazy, so what I tell you won't make much of a difference? What to say, what to say, what to say?) "Nothing much. I spent some time doing stuff around the house." (Stuff like, you know, reading about William Pitt the Younger, an interest which was triggered by something else I read, and which led me on an exploration of familial mental illness, gout, alcoholism, the American War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars between France and Britain, William Wilberforce, and the abolition of slavery. I wonder, was William Pitt the Younger really mentally ill, or was he just a product of his upbringing? But if I tell you all of that, I know you'll think I'm crazy. Hopefully,  you'll think I spent my weekend vacuuming, which, while perhaps boring, is a fairly normal thing to do, unlike spending an afternoon reading about a British prime minister from the 1700's. But what a fascinating man he was . . . .)

No, really, you don't think all of that! Do you? Yes, really, I do. In the seconds between someone asking me a question and me coming up with an answer, I think all of that. And more. And nine times out of ten, the words and ideas and feelings that are in my head crowd so furiously that the mere thought of trying to sort them into comprehensible and socially acceptable words feels overwhelming. I can do it if I am well-rested. I can do it if I feel safe. I can do it if I feel like you're understanding of my eccentricities. I can do it if I have had enough time to sort through my thoughts and feelings, to unravel them and organise them neatly ahead of time (which probably explains my affinity for writing). I'll dare to try it if I think the person might share my interests. I'll dare to try it if I trust the person enough. But catch me when I'm tired, or stressed, or feeling unsafe, or feeling under pressure to meet unspoken expectations (that subtext that I simply cannot comprehend, no matter how many times it is explained to me), and what comes out will be something either utterly noncommittal or utterly uncensored. Not because I'm trying to hedge, nor because I'm actually a rude and nasty person (although perhaps I am), but because the effort of trying to find suitable words, placed in a socially-acceptable delivery pattern, to describe the cacophony inside my head requires far more energy than I possess in the moment.

And the thing of it is that, as much as I hate the feeling that I don't get the game of life, as much as I hate that people sometimes look at me like I've said something bizarre, as deeply as it hurts when the people I love most deeply still seem to misunderstand me despite my best efforts to explain what is going on, deep down, I love the world inside my head. It's a delightful, exciting, wonder-filled, worship-filled space, filled with endless fascinations and intriguing possibilities. And that inside world is critically important and precious to me - far too precious to allow it to be knocked about by those who prefer to think it at best uninteresting and at worst as madness and folly.

So I learn to cope. On good days, I do my best to navigate this game called Life. Sometimes, I manage a couple of good passes. For a step or two, I can sidestep the pack of other players about to bury me. When I drop the ball or get buried under the other players, I can even admit my oddness out loud, make a joke of it, and carry on. I have learned to laugh at myself. With a very small handful of people indeed, I dare to reveal a bit more of the eccentric and wonderful world inside my head. But invariably, what feels like a gross misfit begins to rub too hard. I fumble more than I pass. I get crushed under a pile of odd looks faster than I can sidestep them. Learning to laugh at myself, and being laughed at by others are two quite different things. I simply must step away from the game. I must go back to my books, back to my thoughts, back to the high-definition world of wonder that remains inside the boundaries of my skull.

Back into the arms of the One who created me in all my mad glory, who knows my every thought even before I do, who loves me fully, who delights in my eccentricities.

With him, there is perfect understanding.

With him, I belong.