Posted by Toph on June 5, 2005, at 14:51:41
In reply to You look maavalous, posted by Toph on May 24, 2005, at 20:19:50
I've become involved in this place where I can congregate with others who like me have had some difficulties with life at times. There, I can get some things off my chest and work out a few things and learn a few things. The people seem nice, most of them anyway. I begin to curtail my involvement for a variety of reasons and then there's this party. Well, I'm not exactly Mr. Lifeoftheparty so I should pass on it, right? No, somehow I have this need to prove that I am real to others and to validate to myself that this all the time spend on this site isn't some narcissitic delusion of mine. So I go.
But it’s a little scary and I almost abort when the plans were too freeform for my liking. I drive to Chicago anyway and just as I'm nearing Navy Pier, the cell phone rings. I fumble to pick it up driving through unfamiliar streets with honking cars and darting pedestrians who ostensibly are attempting to commit suicide. "Where are you?" I hear faintly. "Ohio" I shout back reading the Ohio street sign. "I must have the wrong number," I hear before the call is terminated. Oh, sh*t, that wasn't my wife that was AuntieMel. Good start.
I call Mel back and explain that I thought she was my wife and it dawns on me I'm digging a deeper hole by suggesting that it's OK to yell at my wife. This isn't going well and I'm not even there yet. I can’t find a parking lot so I park at the nearest meter. No quarters. F*ck it. I start running toward the huge ferris wheel. I think manicly that here I have a whole thread about whether I can attend or not and then what happens, I turn into a Babble cliché for missing the boat, literally. I’m panicing. Ohmygod I’m starting to sweat. What if they hug?
I see this gathering of people and a guy wearing a straw hat transporting a camera with large phallic telephoto lens. There are hundreds of people milling about but that has to be Bob. I sheepishly advance after smelling my armpits. Everything is sort of a blur in my memory except the impression that everyone looks so normal and everyone seems so nice and, well, everyone seems so comfortable with everyone else. We board the boat, and it strikes me that no one is either leading or following. We all kind of make these decisions on where to sit or what to eat or where to go so easily. I’m so pleased that Chicago cooperated. This is my city and it appeared stunning to me from the boat.
Speaking of appearances, well, that’s the risk I guess to meeting. Our masks were coming down and we were going to be exposed. For those of you who want to know what we look like, all I can tell you is that the people I met are among the most beautiful people I know. They are who we hope to be - interesting, smart, funny and kind. There are parties you attend where you leave thinking to yourself what a waste of time. My regret this day is that I hade little time to speak individually with each person. And I would have loved to talk with everyone there for a day at a time. Anyway, it was nice to get the appearance thing out of the way. Everyone seemed to be above judging each other on looks. The weather also helped when the sky opened up and turned the event into a wet t-shirt contest. (Poet won, BTW). It’s hard to look cool when you look like a wet rat.
It was important for me to meet Bob. If this experience was about reality testing, well, it was definitely that for the other posters, but only slightly for Bob. I have developed a respect for him because his site is a supportive and safe place for people like me to associate. He was engaging but unwilling to open up much. I got the distinct impression that he had a sort of paternal sense of satisfaction that his virtual family was as wonderful as he had imagined. It is. His appreciative goodbye to us Saturday was really heartfelt.
You know, it’s really important for me, having lost touch with reality on several occasions, to reality-test things that I fear are illusory. Psycho-Babble has been a wonderful place to test out disclosing secret parts of myself with others. Sometimes I have been saddened by a sense that the relationships and the emotions on Psycho-Babble are only an illusion in my mind. It somehow seems all so much more real to me now.
Toph
poster:Toph
thread:5509
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050530/msgs/508005.html