When I was little, I used to report on the quality of every public restroom I ever used. Cleanliness, size, and any special features (black soap!) were relayed in what I assume was the piping high voice of an only child, the voice that is sure it is conveying information of greatest interest to those gathered around food that has magically become less appetizing. My lucky family.
Eventually, I was given to understand that these bathroom reports were not as interesting to others as they were to me. Coincidentally around that time I started having a fear, and this is before those annoying Culkin movies, that I would be left in a bathroom someday. That I would walk out of the bathroom to find that everyone had gone on to prettier places and there I'd be, alone.
As I got older, and started increasingly thinking like an anthropologist, featuring the idea that all behavior has a cause, the fear took on new layers. Either everybody was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about them, and there would be a combined unanimous decision to leave that annoying girl behind, quick let's sneak out while she's in there, or there would be a combined inability to think about me at all, and people would just inadvertently wander off, no head count to ascertain that one of us had been left behind, and what do you mean by "one of us": who are you?
As a result, I have probably the fastest bladder in the world, and even though I wash my hands every time, I can be back from the bathroom before anybody has a chance to ask for the check or even start a new topic of conversation, a skill Sam Diamond would envy, but advantages born from fear are always tinged a bit with their ugly origins.
I was well into my thirties before I confessed to this fear. It was one of my more difficult confessions, and to be honest my throat gets a little tight even typing about it, because I do get what it says about me, and I understand that while my brain would greatly entertain a psychoanalyst, it is not always a whole lot of fun to live with.
And to my point: Imagine my delight and surprise last week, walking out of the bathroom of the diner where we had breakfast, to discover that while my purse and cards remained at the table, my entire family had vamoosed. Like a dream coming true! Nifty! Fortunately they hadn't gone farther than the parking lot, so I rejoined them without incident (and my wallet was still in my purse, yay).
I don't know what it means, whether I should take from this that things I dread will happen but not really matter that much, or that there is no way to reasonably to prevent what I know will happen, or what. I do know that I had recently talked to certain wise people about this very fear, and that means I had somebody with whom to share the punchline, and I think maybe that's the important part: not that your fears come true, but that you have somebody to laugh with you after.
Photos of the Diner of Abandonment and the rest of the trip are up on flickr.
As a child, I feared being thrown off a high bridge at a state park.
Posted by: mig | August 22, 2007 at 05:51 AM
Whatever happens, Happens for a reason...
Don't try so hard, the best things come when you
least expect them to.
Posted by: catalin | August 26, 2007 at 11:07 AM