I've Been Bamboozled

I admit it: I have officially been bamboozled.  In case you weren’t exactly aware, being bamboozled is a state of mind and an emotional concoction of awe, shock, frustration, and sadness.  You might recognize the feeling of bamboozlement when your favorite TV show leaves you on a cliffhanger and makes you wait a whole year or when something similar happens when you read a book, only to find that it is a series, and you must wait for the next installment.  Bamboozled.

 

I was bamboozled on Sunday; I was finishing Book 6 of the Outlander series (A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon) and then it happened: two secondary characters that I love dearly betrayed the star Outlander couple of Jamie and Claire and therefore betrayed me as well.  I closed the book and sat there, utterly bamboozled.  Still not over this treachery, I complain to my mom the next morning still feeling the bamboozlement and she told me “Well, that’s the sign of a good book and a good author, right?  The fact that she can make you feel this way and so deeply, over fictional characters, is really impressive”.  She’s right (as per usual via the Mother Handbook), and this got me thinking about this feeling of bamboozlement and what it meant.

 

Being the Type A and super introspective person that I am, when something doesn’t go the way I want it, or I get thrown for a loop, I think about it and chew on it until I can handle whatever chaos was just thrown at me.  I process my thoughts and feelings so much that it could almost be a hindrance in some cases.  Yet, when I am bamboozled by a book, I just let myself stay in that state, and somehow, I manage to put it past me.  It is almost as if I accept the feeling, embrace the feeling, and then simply move past it.  So, what would happen if I embraced the bamboozlement of life?  What if instead of vigorously trying to handle/manage/control everything that life throws at me, I embrace feeling bamboozled?  As “embrace” is my word for the New Year, maybe I should give it a try and not be afraid of getting bamboozled; what would happen if I just felt it?  I have always been of the mind to face things and fix them; but what if I faced them and felt them first?  Face it, feel it, fix it.  Stay tuned for more on bamboozlement!

 

Have you ever felt bamboozled by a TV show, book, or life?  How do you feel it?