David McElroy

At some point — about 12 years ago — Amanda and I had exchanged phone numbers. That’s what she told me tonight, but I don’t remember it.

She worked at a restaurant in a part of town where I used to live. I had just bought the house where I live now, so I was about to move. We apparently exchanged numbers — the way people sometimes do when they say they’ll stay in touch — but I never called her.

Until she called me out of the blue Friday evening, I hadn’t thought about her for a very long time. If someone had asked me about her, I would have assumed she had forgotten all about me, too.

But Amanda has been troubled lately. And she said her thoughts kept coming back to a man who used to talk with her about her unhappiness and her dysfunctional family, especially her narcissistic father. I understood a lot about her because I was still coming to grips with my own narcissistic father and my own dysfunctional childhood.

We talked on the phone for a little while and then agreed to meet at a restaurant near my house about 9:30 p.m.

I thought I was meeting her just to be an amateur therapist and caring listener. For almost three hours, that’s what happened. But as we were in the parking lot saying our goodbyes, she said something that made me very uncomfortable.

Amanda said something about me that contradicted everything I believe about myself.

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I’ve discovered that I can’t be free until I stop telling other people why they’re wrong.

By the standards of my culture, that sounds like nonsense. I’ve lived my entire life doing just the opposite of this. I’ve invested a tremendous amount of time and energy and effort in “correcting” other people.

I’ve invested a lot of time in explaining why political coercion is wrong. I’ve invested a tremendous amount of energy explaining why certain people and groups and ideas are evil. I still believe all those things. I haven’t changed my mind about my morals or ethics or philosophical reasoning.

But I’ve slowly realized something that terrified me. The time I spend fighting the things I hate — and the time I spend explaining why certain people or groups are wrong — is the time I keep myself trapped in a prison cell of my own making.

This is a paradox, but it’s changed my life.

The truth is that there is an unending supply of things to complain about in the world — things that deserve criticism and attacks. All sorts of people are wrong about all sorts of things.

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As I pulled up to the terminal at the Birmingham airport early Thursday morning, my eyes scanned for Concourse C. But something in my heart was unexpectedly scanning for something else.

I felt the tug of something from the past. From other trips to this place. From a love that was once powerful and overwhelming, but which has been dead for years.

I had come to the airport Thursday to drop a friend off for a flight to Houston for medical treatment. I used to fly through this building pretty regularly, but I hardly ever have reason to come to the airport anymore. But something about just coming to the terminal awakened memories of coming here to meet a woman who used to come see me.

Which concourse did her flights use?

I couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter, but that bothered me. My heart remembers joyfully embracing her as she arrived and feeling her slip away when she left each time. The memories were vivid this morning, but I stupidly debated whether it was Concourse A or Concourse B where these scenes took place.

It was easier to let my rational mind debate irrelevant details than it was to feel what my heart insisted on feeling.

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