The great wall.

This is something I've always struggled with. If the only person who can truely know your intentions, your beliefs, and the person you are inside, is you. How do you convey those things to other people? Action, right? If you intend to please someone, what do you do? You DO something that shows that person that they are important to you. If you feel that you are a certain person inside, how do you show that to someone? You DO things that back up your claims. If you say you believe something, who do you convince other people that you're commited to those beliefs? you LIVE them.

That part is easy to understand. The hard part is this, what do you do when something stands in the way of your actions? What happens when there is a conflict of interest, between who you want to show to the world, and your beliefs? What happens when circumstances that are out of your control come along, and smash your intentions to bits? If these "hang ups," happen frequently enough, how do you appear to be anything but a sham?

It's going to be hard to explain this without going into specifics and personal examples, but I'm going to try.

Let's suggest that a person grows up a certain way, with certain morale fibers, certain hobbies, certain goals, certain style, certain friends, etc. then a cataclysmic event (not necessarily negative, just something big enough that it is enough to alter that persons perception of reality) alters many of the elements I just listed above. For example, graduating highschool, moving out of the nest, and learning to fend for yourself, moving away, tragedy, getting addicted to drugs, marriage, divorce, children, etc.

Now, the person who existed before the "event" doesn't really die, they just adapt their new environment. We are ever-evolving creatures, and change is really the only constant. Let's suggest, the person genuinely wants to revisit parts of their being they may have left behind, or that simply lay dormant within themselves. The barriers that caused the change in the first place still exist, but you can feel that old "self" still beating on the other side of the wall. The barriers have fortified themselves over the years because people and things have come into your life since, the "event" that never knew you before the "event." They have no recollection or knowledge of that person inside you, beating on the wall. infact, they might not even know there is a wall.

I guess the question I'm posing by all of this is, how do you get back in touch with that person on the otherside of the wall? How do you reconnect with that part of yourself, when the new part of yourself is in a completely different place than where you left the old "self?" How do you get intouch with that person, when the people around you, often the people you lean on for support, don't even believe that old "self" exists?

It's so hard to not use personal examples, so i'll just give one, and try to keep it as much about me as possible.

I grew up a very active kid, played a lot of sports, had a lot of friends, had expensive hobbies that my parents always financed. I got my first job pretty young, still in highschool, and I was one of the first among my friends to have his own car. For years, while I lived at home, or at least still figuratively leeched off my parents, I lived a pretty high pace life. I was always busy, had a tonne of friends, I snowboarded, and golfed, and went to the gym, and I could afford to treat my friends to things, and give them rides all over town, I always had money to do most of the things I loved to do, but never bothered to save a dime. Gradually though, my wants exceeded my finances and I got into the credit trap, bought a new truck, moved to Vancouver, and lived on credit for a couple months while I found a job.

It was in Vancouver that I really began to adopt a "lower key" lifestyle. I was now on my own, and paying my bills, managing my debt, and making sure I have food and a roof over my head, became a much bigger concern. I didn't have mom and dad close at hand to come bail me out of a bind, I couldn't just move back into my parents basement, and I was determined not too. I adopted video games, and movies as cheaper sources of entertainment. I only had one friend in Vancouver when I fist moved there. I left a whole life behind me, and was eager to start a new chapter.

I'd pay back little chunks of mydebt, here and there, and then i'd get layed off work, or have to go to plumbing school and it would just get tacked back on. It was still a pretty small debt back then though. Then, I got my ex pregnant, and all hell broke loose. I was just a second year plumber making like $14/hr and I was going to be a dad! I rushed through school, to try and boost my wage as fast as I could, each time at school tacked another 3-4k onto the debt. I gave up going out for beers with the guys, I gave up snowboarding, and sports, I gave up shopping, I gave up eating fast food all the time. I had to, I was going to be the sole provider for a family of three.

The person that I left behind the wall back then, has been stuck there ever since. I've been here on this side trying to get enough money together to at least pay him a visit now and then. Many of the people in my life now, never knew that person. Some of them don't believe he even exists. I became the guy without any hobbies, the guy who is always broke, the guy who stays home all the time, the guy without functioning friendships, the cheapskate. It's not all negative of course, I also became a man with priorities, dependable, loyal, and I always put my family's happiness and well-being before my own. Admirable traits in their own right, but I lost a peice of myself there. I can hear the echos of that other me, beating away on the wall, I hear it in my dreams. I hear his whispers in my head all day, haunting me, taunting me. No one else hears it. It's just a ghost to them, a figment of my imagination.

To tie it all back together now. How can I reunite myself with that other me on the otherside of the wall, when the wall is still so strong? I summorize the wall as being mostly related to my debt, and my lack of disposable income, but there is more than that. I have a family now, my decisions effect more than just me. I have a strong sence that my actions reflect not only on me, but on my family aswell.The person who I was will never exist again, but the spirit that embodied that person, light hearted, generous, free willed, spontanious, daring, in search of good times and fond memories. That person is still behind the wall, and I want to be reunited with him. I want to feel that wholeness again.

It's just frustrating, feeling like you are split apart from a whole other part of your being, and a lot of people in my life now don't even believe the other side exists. I can't convince them otherwise, until the wall comes down, and by then, it'll be to late for some of them.