Haven’t we all had a time when we’ve just plain messed up one of the biggest moments of our lives? I know I have and my heart goes out to Christina for messing up the national anthem at the Super Bowl last night. It’s been replayed today on every news and talk show and every tv host has offered up their opinion. It was said that Christina issued a short statement about messing up the biggest performance of her life and then went behind closed doors and wanted to be left alone.
I can imagine how badly she wishes she could have a “do over” right now. There is a tremendous feeling of powerlessness in this moment. No matter what she says, she can’t change it or erase it or make anyone understand. It’s a very lonely road. She tried to say she got overwhelmed by her super bowl moment and hopes her love for her country had shone through anyway. But will anyone listen? No. They’ll just keep replaying her horrible moment and it won’t be forgotten for a long time.
Silence is her best defense right now. In fact, much can be learned by listening to the silence. Trying to apologize, explain, make excuses, beg forgiveness – all just creates alot more noise. Retreating and sitting quiet, listening, without using the ears, allows time to first feel and process the mortification and then learn from it. (I doubt she’ll risk that ever happening again.) This would be what I call swallowing and digesting the explosion, a skill I hope to perfect myself in 2011.
Sometimes we learn from the silence that what we thought others were thinking and feeling is quite the contrary. We tend to make up that which we cannot hear with our ears, and then think and react to what was, in fact, made up in our own minds.
Being a “writer”, words are my primary tool for explaining myself, stating my opinion, and getting messages to people. It is very hard for me to communicate with someone in silence. In fact, when someone exiles me to the island of silence, my first reaction is to combat it with a torrence of words trying to explain my part. Very often people relent and we have a heart to heart and resolve our differences. Every once in awhile I’ll be faced with a silence that won’t entertain my words. This causes me to turn inward and banter away inside my head, still not getting anywhere positive inside the silence. Only recently I did hear unsaid words seeping into my mind when I began actually practicing one of my new resolutions – let time work and patience prevail. Christina will have to do the same.
And so, as another day goes by, mortification strikes again, and..I have written.
*~ blog for 2/7 – (forgot to hit publish last night)
Do i really have the sense of mourning the loss of my youth and confusing about my future?
Jordan, I don’t understand your comment.