Note: for my theologian friends, this post has nothing to do with the Christian concept of rebirth
The other night I watched an ABC special on a line of very life like dolls called Reborns and their bizarre following. The people featured in the special were painted as weird at best – creepy, disturbed, peculiar and diagnosable at worst. But I was most taken by the artist herself who links her arts to a series of miscarriages she suffered some time ago. There was one doll in particular she refused to sell because she felt like it looked what her baby would have looked like had it lived. The doll slept with her, had a crib and she and her husband often took it out passing it off as a real baby. I couldn’t help but think of the character in Charles Dickens’ Great Expecations Miss Havisham who after being jilted at the altar wears her wedding dress for the entirety of her life.
Having never suffered a miscarriage or struggled with fertility issues, I don’t pretend to understand what a painful experience it is. But as a fellow human who has endured loss and studied grief, I know pain is both universal and individual and quite simply something everyone copes differently. That being said, I suppose this woman, the Reborn artist, has found a coping strategy that is both profitable and more importantly healing.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=6517455&page=2
But suppose she is in the same boat as Miss Havisham – wearing her pain like a badge to her dysfunction? Is she, to evoke the imagery of the U2 song with the same title, “Stuck in a Moment?” Worse yet, have I created my own dysfunctional device for celebrating my unemployment through this blog? Is the time I am spending on creating these clever blog entries a diversion from the bona fide process of finding a job? Am I averting the possible rejection I might experience if I whole heartedly pursued employment, i.e. actively submitted résumés, went on interviews and so forth?
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