While reading through Facebook posts earlier this summer, I came across a post from a guy from my old neighborhood. It was a beautifully written copy and paste post that described what it was like growing up in the 80s. He creatively changed a few words to make it fit his specific block and some of his personal experiences. I absolutely loved it. It took me back to a time when we were able to freely enjoy our neighborhoods and hang outside with little fear. A few of us read it, hit the like button and made nostalgic comments of our own. We were reminiscing and living in the moment. That small joy was interrupted when another guy chimed in, dismantling the pretty picture at which we were all gazing. He quickly shattered any memory we had of the good times with a darkness none of us quite remembered. I was instantly bothered. How dare he? It was like sitting and looking out a big, beautiful bay window at a bed of bright, red roses only to have a brick thrown through it shattering glass in your face just moments later. Tragic! After all, what was his goal? 

 Is it “fair” to attempt to alter someone else’s memory? Even further, can we dictate, speak on or distort someone else’s reality? My initial thought and question to myself was, “Who was he trying to impress?” I felt as though he was trying very hard to paint the picture that he came from and survived growing up in a war zone. At some point in his life, he’d used the darkness he described to narrate a horror story. One that portrayed him as a fierce conqueror who made it out the war of the worlds. I didn’t appreciate it. While I did remember there being a few rough times and questionable events, I didn’t remember the battle he described. Neither had anyone else on the thread. I couldn’t let go of the fact that he single-handedly destroyed a beautiful post that, for some of us, was like rewriting or reimagining our pasts-our reality as we remembered it.

Pause. Check Yourself, Girl! Everyone is entitled to have, live and speak their own reality or interpretation of it. You can’t decide how someone perceives a thing, especially their life. You can be in the same room with someone and see, feel and experience a totally different reality. I see a red balloon and think of my favorite carnival ride. Someone else sees that same balloon floating through the sky and is reminded of Steven King’s “It.” Whose reality is true? We have to know that the way people see and interpret life has a lot to do with their personal experiences. We can’t dismiss or discount this fact.

I continue to think about that post and the two very different interpretations of growing up with people in the same neighborhood during the same time. I still want to be upset because of my own insistence on the fact that Negative Nathan had something to prove. Seriously though, in my heart of hearts, I know that for him there is truth in the picture he painted. And there is nothing I can do about that. No matter how much I want it to be, his reality is not mine. Although it angered me that he changed the dynamic of the post and how we were feeling that day, I have to admire him for standing up and interjecting with something he obviously needed to be heard. Now, more than ever, speaking our truths is essential to our very being. Doing so is freeing in a way that only a caged bird or “hushed for fear of going against the grain” person can understand.