This morning, I recieved a text from a woman I know from the beach. I've known her for years - she's the partner of an old kiteboarding mate of my Dads, that we in turn lived with, and I was taught to paddleboard by, and so on. There's connections.
I also surf with her and have for years. I used to think she hated me - was it jealousy over my friendship with her partner? Something I'd done to offend her? It got to the point it was awkward even paddling out with her. My greetings rejected, I asked others if I'd done anything that made her hate me so. I was told she was lovely, as if it must be my fault, or that's how it felt to me. A friend reminded me that it's hard to know what's going on in someone's head, and it was hard to control what people thought of you, and that being kind, always, was the path forward.
It was good advice, especially for someone who had childhood trauma around being bullied and rejection. It was a mantra I had to repeat to myself over the years, something along the lines of: 'you can't control this, it's not you' and the like.
It's also hard to ignore someone who's there all the time. In the carpark, getting into her wetsuit a car over from you. In the line up. Paddling out.
I knew about the difficulty she'd been having in her relationship with my friend, because he had totally offloaded to me a number of times. I knew all the drama. Perhaps that's why she didn't talk to me - perhaps she thought that I thought ill of her. But she had rejected me way before they had their first break up. I also knew of the stresses she was having at work, facing a lawsuit with a disgruntled employer trying to get what they could out of her franchise. But she spoke to other people - this was hard to ignore. Again, it was that feeling I'd experienced in the school yard, when the girls seemed to have a secret that I could never be party to.
And so the years went by. Sometimes it was harder to deal with than others - when I was feeling down, or stressed, or sad.
Then, one day, shortly after my Dad died (did she feel sorry for me? Realise I was human?) she started talking to me. Gradually, I felt we become friends of sorts, the way surf friendships go - laughs in the carpark, chats between sets.
The other morning, watching the surf, I was suprised to hear her say 'come for a walk?' when she was taking her dogs up the beach. Of course I did. One does not match percieved rejection with some kind of misguided revenge, dismissing invites because of past slights.
We chatted about pilates, which she loves. Being the second time someone had suggested local pilates classes to me, I felt enthused, although a bit nervous about doing it because I didn't know anyone and had never done it before.
This morning came the text that suprised me. It suprised me so much that I had to write about it not two hours later, here, at work.
'Do you want me to come to the beginner's pilates with you this morning'.
I am not sure what the lesson is here, not really. Perhaps it's just being persistant in your dealings with people: be kind, be polite, and one day they'll come around. Perhaps it's just that things change, people change. Perhaps it's to always remember that it's not always you. Perhaps it's that everyone's going through their own shit and you can't second guess why people behave the way they do. Perhaps it's just not to focus so much on what people think of you.
Still, I was chuffed to bits to receive the text, though I had to reject it as I was working today.
Perhaps the message is just this: sometimes, people can suprise you.
