Stand Under

I wonder what we would be willing to pay to be understood. How many of us have ever asked the proverbial question, why doesn’t anyone understand me? Why do I feel so alone? Or when someone asks you, “what’s wrong?” and you want to tell them, but you don’t, because you honestly believe they won’t get it.

Today I want to invite you to stand under with me for a little while in a special place. It’s a place we all know of, and yet we avoid it more than the Chikungunya virus. I want you to stand under someone else’s umbrella.

Before you go thinking that I’ve lost my marbles, it’s not a real umbrella, but a metaphorical one we all own. It’s our cover we run to when life hits like the inevitable rain storms that plague the Caribbean. Sometimes the inevitable rain is smooth and welcomed, other times it comes as hard as a hurricane, and no umbrella will protect us.

We all own an umbrella, whether we want to or not. My theory is that we should all take time to stand under someone else’s. Not any umbrella, this would be too easy. I want you to step under the umbrella of the people who matter most to you. Why? Because the people we care about most are the hurricanes that can do the worst damage. These are the people with the maximum power to hurt us. They can tear apart our homes, make us question who we are, and destroy us from the inside out. So when they come to us as a storm, better believe it’s a level five shit-storm that’s coming.

The pain that’s caused as a parent disciplines their child. The look of fear in their child’s eyes as they wonder how the person they loved most has come to cause them pain. Then the self-blame follows. I guess it was something I did. The parent agrees, yes it was. And so begins a life-long journey of blame and punishment. For some of us this is normal. Some children never get over it. The pain was too harsh, and the consequences reverberate throughout time.

For others, this is normal. We can see this as an isolated incident, we can move on. Yet, parents and loved ones make mistakes. We would like to say that as we love, we should also forgive, but do we really? We don’t forgive the husband who cheated on his wife, divorce is the recourse. We don’t forgive the over exasperated charges made to a common joint account, if we did it wouldn’t be the number one cause of separation in this country. So how then is it possible for our youth, the children we raise, to forgive parents, to forgive themselves, when we have not given the example.

As a result of all the damage caused, we create an umbrella of protection that is based totally on perception. As we perceive the storm, this is how we protect ourselves. Some of us will blame ourselves for the rain storm, as if we could control mother nature, or in this case, life. And rain like pain, is unavoidable.

It isn’t until the moment we step under their umbrella that we can begin to even comprehend the actions that those who have hurt us are undergoing. The lies that swallow our soul when we don’t do this are devastating.

Think for a moment about a real hurricane situation. I mean this is easy for me as I’ve survived Hurricane Maria living in the Puerto Rico. Now imagine someone who has no idea that this is going on, and they’re trying to call me, or get a hold of me. What goes through their mind as they try to figure out why I won’t pick up the phone? Why does it go straight to voicemail? Was I blocked? Does he not want to talk to me? I’ll try again. Oh my God, now it doesn’t even ring, I get a busy tone. I wonder if he paid his bill. Maybe he lost his…

You get the idea. We will always imagine what is going on, or wonder what might be happening, and believe there exists no excuse for whatever was done. The reality is, while sometimes there may be no excuse, until you stand under their umbrella you’ll never know that a level five hurricane is keeping me from answering your call.

What makes a parent hurt their children? What makes a child hurt their parents? Was it intentional? Was I to blame? What makes two people who made a pact to love and cherish each other for life end it all in a bitter divorce? What makes kids want to run away from the place where they are supposed to feel the safest?

You’ll never know the answer standing under your own umbrella of protection. You’re going to have to take it a step further, and find a space under the umbrella of the person who hurt you, and they’ll have to stand under yours to realize what they’ve done. We need to stop seeking to be understood, and we should instead stand under.

While you’re there, tell the person you are hurt, maybe even broken. That way it’ll welcome them to stand under yours as well. If we all put our umbrellas together, it makes it really hard for life, I mean the rain, to hit us.