Avoidance

I’ve been noticing lately while reflecting back on parts of my life that the recurring theme that gives my life a sense of continuity would be how much avoidance plays a role.

By the way, I know I do too much reflecting back on my life for someone so young, so you can just save the lectures. And by you I mean the two of you that might be unburdened enough to read my post this morning and that I know would not actually lecture me. I’m a little sensitive from the Pushy Pole trying to reform my life (while also finding it irresistible!)

I learned at a very young age that making friends can be a difficult, self-esteem testing endeavor so I have never developed the confidence or social skills to easily befriend people. So I’ve avoided making too many friends and in fact, unconsciously avoid keeping in touch with friends I no longer live near.
An extension of this avoidance of friends has been an avoidance of people. Much of my childhood was spent hanging out around railroads, deserted rockpits and construction sites all alone or occasionally with a temporary friend. I did kind of befriend a homeless man for awhile, but he, like me, preferred to avoid people.

In high school, forced to have friends as an extension of marching band and for carpool purposes I seemed to have formed a band of pranking, avoiders of society. We try to reconnect over the social medias, but I feel like I can’t look any of them in the eye anymore.

During my stint as a touring musician I learned that my body could not handle the abuse that other musicians put theirs through, so I learned to avoid the post-gig hang: that feeling that one must go out into the land of your gracious host and rape and pillage (in an 80s fashion). I credit this particular avoidance with my learning to play the flute as I spent many hours on hotel balconies all over the Caribbean, quietly running scales and etudes while everyone else slept until 3PM.

Finally, an avoidance of ever forming a band or doing any of those personal musical projects that would bear my name has kept me free of musical reproach or ridicule. That is not all it has kept me from.