Blind Spots
My eyes seemed closed as I looked out the side of the car. I couldn’t even make out the darker silhouettes of the trees against the night sky anymore. As we passed Muskegon, my coworker and I talked about how nasty it was to get the interior farm scenes ready for the shoot in the morning. The urine-soaked rugs took about four hours to tear up, but it was the bedrooms upstairs that were really stomach turning, and made us stay so late. Exhausted but thrilled to be done working, we recalled what we did that day, and would rather forget. Working on movies means long hours, and on this forgettable masterpiece, we were doing twelve hour days, and hurrying up to wait, a lot. So on our way home and during a dumb and drowsy conversation, I casually, and without looking at my side mirror or using my blinker, began to change lanes. Lights suddenly flooded the car, and a horn rang out to say that a silent sedan was next to us, and if I did not veer back immediately we may not go home soon, or at all.
Everyone does it. As humans we have an absolutely astounding ability to disregard the most disturbingly obvious aspects about ourselves, especially when they involve our feelings or psychic life. Like emotional or spiritual spinach in our teeth, we walk around oblivious to what everyone else sees or feels immediately. Usually it’s one of our best friends, enemies or loyal loved ones, that finally have the heart, or courage, to let us in on our own obvious secrets. It isn’t just the traumas that you might expect that we do this with either. A childish and cruel name said on the playground, or the sting from a teasing friend, a biting comment from a teacher, can stay with us for years without us even knowing about it. The world seems full of traumatic childhoods, relationships or memories that we go unknowingly blind to in the name of self-preservation. Sometimes when things get bad we simply play hide and seek with ourselves, and act like it isn’t happening, or never did.
Love is the mirror we can look into when it is dark, and we lose sight of where or who we are, or who we even want to become. It is in Love’s reflection that we can be the best version of ourselves, and not overwhelmed with our sadness or insecurities. However we choose to reach out, Love will be there to lift us up, and help us find ourselves again.
The most critical part of noticing an emotional blind spot is not the ability to see these invisible hurts, but the willingness to. Like looking in the side mirror of our emotional car, we can ask loved ones in a tender way, only when we’re ready, and if they are loving and not vindictive, what areas they may see of concern. If done with love, it is a conversation that is unbelievably powerful, and can do nothing short of save friendships, marriages and families. The act of being lovingly vulnerable is the ultimate unifier and relational glue.The most useful and miraculous mirror, though, is the one we hold with our own hand, and only we can see. If we have the courage to ask and look, Love will not attack, but gently help us reconcile those pesky differences that alone we could not make work. Love is here to help show us those things we not only don’t want to talk about, but don’t even know we don’t yet.