Back To The Mirror

Fortunately for us, when we look in the mirror we can see our reflections. And that helps just a heck of a lot when it comes to considering our wounds.

So what are we looking for when we examine ourselves? What do our wounds look like, anyway?

Well, to me the most obvious look a lot like:

Resentment: And I ain’t talking about just being mad, either. What I'm talking about is that movie we keep playing in our heads featuring past feedings by our vampires and future imagined feedings by our vampires -- and our anger, anger, anger about both.

I'm driving to work, and instead of seeing the road in front of me, I'm seeing an ambitious coworker who's been doing his best to prove to me (and everyone else in the office) that he's a faster, harder, and all-around better worker than I am. I can see all the little insinuating ways in which he's tried to make me look bad in the past, and I'm seeing all the possible ways he's going to try and make me look bad in the future. The one thing I can't see is the thing I need to see most at the moment: the road and the traffic in front of me!!

And that's the exact same movie I was watching yesterday on my way to work, too!

Fear: This is another one -- that dread we feel at the prospect of our next visit with our vampires, and how preoccupied we can become with how we're going to dodge, handle, ditch, or (worst of all ) feed them in a hopeless attempt to quiet their insatiable appetites, even for a short time.

I'm finishing the last of the breakfast dishes, satisfied that the livingroom is somewhat clean and the baby is about to go down for her nap. As I contemplate the heavenly possibility of taking a nap with her, it dawns on me that my vampire may be coming to call without notice. I invited her in once long ago, and now she comes and goes as she pleases. Terror-struck at this maybe-she-will/maybe-she-won't scenario, I cannot rest, and search for a plan to keep her out or keep her visit short. But now I'm too worried to rest at all.

And my vampire never even made an appearance!

The trouble with vampire-hosting is that it can get to be a way of life. I can have these kinds of wounds and think these kinds of thoughts for years and never notice how they're draining the life right out of me.

And I'm not even talking about the wounds that just plain-old hurt.

So, Slayers, should we talk about those, too?

Vampire Or What?

My neighbor? My spouse? My coworker?

God knows it can be ickity-ick-icky trying to figure out whether those are vampires in our lives or not. We tilt our heads and adjust our perspective a thousand times, trying to decide: are they malicious? Are they trying to drive us nuts? Who knows? It could be they're just birdbrained!

Is our neighbor just so dumb that she can't take a hint?
Is our spouse just so distracted that he doesn't know how hurtful his words are?
Is our coworker just such a bonehead that she doesn't know when to shut up and get back to work?

It can be hard to tell sometimes. And tiring! With all our justifications, rationalizations, equivocations and plain old benefits-of-the-doubt in the way, how are we supposed to know who's who and what's what? We don't want to rush to judgement, right?

Right. So what's a Slayer to do?

But you guys know the answer to this one: We check our wounds. We stop looking at our vampires for the answers, and start looking at ourselves. After all, when a dog bites us, we don't look at the dog to try and figure out whether we've been hurt or not, we look at the wound.

The same goes for our vampires. Again and again we find that our best diagnostic tool turns out not to be the one we use on our vampires, but the one we use on ourselves.

Whew and thank goodness, too -- because that other method requires a lot of mind-reading ability for one thing. And that's not even practical... right?

Right.

Next Time:
Diagnosing Our Wounds