Does survival mode last a lifetime? Struggling toward what end? Why are we so quick to avoid things that compromise our survival, but so slow to realize our own mortality early enough to deeply invest in the existence we have?
{...the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.} Virginia Woolf
This post comes from a strange place for me. While I understand that we build (to some extent) the pane through which we view the world around us, I seem to consistently view things as being challenging, consuming, terrifying...I create for myself a vantage point that ensures I'm constantly moving from one major struggle to the next without allowing myself to just sit in any of them. If (in anticipation) these opportunities are exciting, and (in retrospect) they always work out...why do I choose to perceive them this way in the moment? Exactly what am I trying to hide from myself?
Last week, in a conversation with a friend, I was describing a social situation I'd been in. In the middle of my postulating about why things did or didn't happen (trying to explain away the situation...) she asked me how I felt about it. I actually surprised myself when I didn't have an answer. Even after a few minutes, I honestly had no idea. I was so busy intellectualizing the situation I hadn't given myself enough time to live in it, and to actually determine whether it even meant anything to me.
Hiding from feeling? Seems silly...
This weekend, I went home to for the premier of a major creative project that I've been dedicated to for over a year. While the work was stressful at times and its pure nature was guaranteed to force me to question my own potential for failure, it was an incredible experience. Somehow, after allowing myself to wallow in self-created anxiety for months, the only emotion I could articulate genuinely feeling in the moment was a bit of nostalgia. And then it passed. What about pride? Happiness? Relief? Excitement?
My friend Amber came to see the show. Given that I haven't seen her in months and she doesn't live in the area, her visit came as a complete surprise. During the course of our conversation, she asked about my love language of preference (that is, the medium by which I choose to express my love for others and the one by which I prefer to have similar messages communicated to me). Amber's is time, which she made evident by dedicating the time to go completely out of her way on a whim as a demonstration of her support and friendship. She's one of the closest friends I've ever had and yet, it always seems difficult to stay in touch...
Though time seemed like the obvious and universal answer, I couldn't comfortably claim it as my own response to her question.
While home, I also confronted the realization that several close friends and relatives have suddenly come face-to-face with serious (unexpected) health issues; most recently, my dad has been forced into the hospital for emergency surgery. At numerous points during the weekend, my dad and I found ourselves in the same room...his anxiety compounded by my own personal frustrations. There was never awkward silence; we talked openly about how we were feeling. I couldn't understand how I left home still feeling completely disconnected from everything and everyone, despite spending a full weekend of concentrated time there. (Note: I've felt this way almost every other time I've been back for the last several years.)
There exists an immense gap between feeling for someone, and feeling with someone. You may feel sympathy for someone, and you may be able to describe your happiness to someone. Can you identify the last time you genuinely felt with someone?
If my dad had said in one of those moments, I have never felt so completely vulnerable and helpless in my entire life..., that would have immediately knocked down my walls. It would have forced me to acknowledge (both to myself and openly to another human being) that I, too, was feeling really insecure about his situation. I likely would have sobbed, but it would have at least gotten rid of the elephant in the room (or rather the back half of the Titanic in the room that dragged the iceberg in with it, resulting in a temperature drop of about 60 Centigrade degrees). If anything, it would have been cathartic and we might have both felt secure knowing that neither one of us was at all stable by any stretch of the imagination. (Notice, I didn't air my grievances either. I was completely successful in talking about how I was feeling with everyone, while doing everything in my power to avoid actually actually feeling it.)
In a way, this explains why I feel disconnected from some of the very people who mean the most to me (Amber is among them). She demonstrated her support by offering time, but I've found it difficult to stay in touch because I haven't been willing to honestly engage in feeling with her. I have sincerely felt for my friends and I've described to them what I feel, but haven't let down my guard far enough to let them feel it with me.
My very best friends are people who I've engaged in feeling with at one time or another; we have either shared a powerful experience, have seen each other completely unguarded, or have developed such a deep level of trust and understanding that the facade no longer does any good. These are the people who continue to stir feeling in me...even if only because I know they'll see right through any disingenuousness I try to dish out.
My family members are people I no longer get to see on a regular basis. When I do get to see them, I don't want to waste a moment acknowledging the kind of raw homesickness you only feel when you finally return to a place or person. Why would I want to engage in a public outing of all my frustrations and regrets about things I didn't handle well when I was younger, or an evening of reminiscing about wonderful moments that only make us sad we can't relive them?
In an effort not to feel these things, we so often block ourselves off from feeling anything. I'm learning that celebration of these relationships should outweigh personal insecurities about experiencing pain or fear; doing them justice requires taking a risk and trusting that people will want to share this experience with you. Likewise, they will want you to share it with them. Invite people to feel with you and invest deeply in those who do.
I'd like this to be my love language. Perhaps time is not the coin?
Speaking of coins, I dropped off my laundry and left to get more quarters for the dryer. I came back to this....
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