Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Joy turned into disappointment. A memory with several bottoms.


Joy turned into disappointment. A memory with several bottoms.

I went shopping yesterday and had many reasons to feel good; my fastening going well, an old relationship developing very well and enjoying reading “The Hare With Amber Eyes” etc.. The female clerk at the bread department of my food store offered willingly to bake the bread (missing in the shelves) that my daughter asked me to buy. I felt overwhelmed by the service and friendliness; however, I was not able to show my appreciation but answered in (what I felt) a somewhat harsh manner. For a short moment immediately afterwards I felt an almost manic joy which within a minute turned into a hallucinatory feeling that I was not allowed to feel that joy, and I was confused. I then had a flashback of a memory, when I was 8 years old.

It was a Sunday just before lunch during the summer of 1949, and I walked through the park where I grew up. I was about to meet my aunt and uncle who would come to visit. Since my uncle was my favorite and a man who always spread joy around him, I was in a good mood. When I went halfway across the park, I see a couple coming towards me, and I start jubilant running towards them to great them. When I am a few yards from them I discover that it is not my uncle and aunt, but a completely foreign couple. I am extremely / painfully disappointed and sad, which I apparently show in the most striking way to the stranger who noticed my sudden change of heart, takes out his purse and gives me some money. This experience of disappointment has been repressed a whole life and has caused that I have never dared to show spontaneous joy, but has always been on my guard against any disappointments... Which goes all the way back to my traumatic birth when I was not allowed to get out in a proper manner.

Jan Johnsson

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