Reconsideration

I’ve spent the past few days pondering about my decision to keep my situation from my co-workers. In doing so, I’m wondering if I’m punishing them for sins that aren’t theirs.

I grew up in a loving and safe environment. It wasn’t perfect, but I grew up believing that everyone was good. I had no reason to believe that anyone would deliberately lie to me or hurt me, either physically or emotionally. I was yelled at upon occasion, but the yelling was situational in nature, not mean-spirited or the kind that damages one’s psyche. I loved everyone, and I believed that they all loved me in return.

I grew up with a naturally open and cheerful nature. I loved people and my only goal in life was (and still is) to make someone’s life better. In other words, I want to help, to nurture, to make another’s life easier. My desire was not to be the center of everyone’s attention; I wanted to bring the light of the gospel into the lives of everyone I encountered. I wanted people to look beyond me to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, the source of all that I was, am and hope to be. I also didn’t fully comprehend that what constitutes “help” can be very different from one person to the next.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that everyone was my best friend. I generally avoided dangerous environments or situations where I might encounter predatory people or the kind who might lead me into the darkened corners of life. I was also sufficiently mature to understand that there are many social cliques and that I didn’t need to be part of them all. There are many levels of friendship—from acquaintances to the closest of friends and family. In essence, I believed that everyone’s intentions were/are good.

But the two years prior to my first bout with cancer were the most difficult years of my entire life—even twenty plus years later that is true. In welcoming everyone into my life, I also believed that no one would deliberately do anything wrong. If they made a mistake, it was accidental, unintentional or just plain because they didn’t know any better. This is important because I worked in a department with a high rate of turnover. I had written most of the training materials and had the greatest longevity. While I cannot be sure, I think I may have been a little insensitive and I offended one of my co-workers over what I may have considered training issue. Regardless, she took a great disliking to me.

I don’t know all that happened, but I became to subject of harassment. Other people would go to my boss and tell him that there was a problem, but he couldn’t believe that people would act that way either. I became more and more defensive, convincing myself that I was strong and could not be driven out. Things finally changed one day when an email message from one co-worker to another was mis-addressed and bounced to the mainframe downstairs. The end result was I was told that the people involved had been placed on probation, that the situation threatened not only their employment, but their eternal salvation. It was at that point that I felt like my good name was finally being restored to me. But the hostility was not eliminated; it was just suppressed. When one is the target for so long, one begins to see darts, arrows and ulterior motives everywhere; instead of looking for joy, one looks for the next hurt.

At the same time, I had a new roommate. I thought I knew her fairly well before we moved into a new apartment. She was going through a rough patch in her own life at the time. What we didn’t know was that our personalities were sufficiently different that we should have maintained the visiting teacher-teachee relationship we had. We never jelled as roommates. In fact, our home environment was sufficiently rocky that I felt like I couldn’t go home. When, at the last minute, I had to cancel my vacation, I spent the week sleeping in my car in parking lots and rest stops along the freeway rather than go home.

Between work and home, I had no place that felt like a refuge. I was emotionally spent. On a personal level, having cancer was physically difficult, but it gave me the time and the space to emotionally regroup. I was able to spend that time with people who loved me—family and some very special friends who opened their home to me. In some respects, I am still trying to restore the sunnier parts of my personality, the part that loves and trusts people, from those earlier days.

Superheroes know the importance of forgiving and being forgiven. They are aware of their relationships with others and willing to make the effort to maintain them. Sometimes they have to take the initiative to ask, in non-confrontive ways, “have I done something to offend you?” or to say “It hurts me when …” Having thus opened the discussion, they then work toward a mutually acceptable solution.

I wasn’t brave enough to ask the questions face-to-face. I opted for notes, offering my apologies and asking for help so that I could change. I opened the door—for my own repentance and for reconciliation. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it. I couldn’t control her choices in the reconciliation process; I could only feel as though I had tried to make it better. It wasn’t until many years later that I began to see where I might have offended, but I can never be sure if my suppositions are accurate.

I’ve been asking myself if I am denying my co-workers the blessing of showing their best selves because I am unwilling to share that I have cancer again. If so, have I really forgiven those who have hurt me in the past? Is that why the Savior said that, if we cannot forgive, we carry the greater sin? Because we are denying another the chance to repent and make a course correction that will bring them closer to Him. If we don’t know we’re doing something wrong or that hurts another, how can we possibly fix it?

At the moment, there are still too many questions while they are still looking for the source. Tomorrow I’m having an MRI-guided biopsy to see if a questionable location that showed up in the last MRI is the source. I think I might start letting more people know what’s going on when my surgery is scheduled. (P.S. I met with the surgeon on Monday and really liked her!)