After my brother died, I became very afraid of losing things unexpectedly.
I was certain more would be taken from me, and that it would be taken when I was not looking. And I was certain that whatever I lost would be dear. I just knew.
So, I did what any reasonable person would do. I panicked. I obviously needed to keep a close eye on things!
Long before his accident, I dutifully woke up multiple times each night to make sure Bandit was breathing.
After his accident, once I nearly had lost Bandit, I only felt more vindicated that my watchfulness had been wise, if insufficient.
I practiced anticipating losing him. I practiced telling myself it would be okay. I wasn't trying to be morbid. I was trying to reassure myself that I could be okay if the unthinkable happened, because unthinkable things clearly happened.
This expanded, I realized the importance of telling myself about all kinds of loss that would be okay. I wouldn't panic. I would steady myself, and prepare for losing everything.
And then I realized You can't take away what I don't have suckers!! It was like standing out in the rain without a coat on, and not caring about getting soaked, and cold, and hypothermic, because I was somehow beating the whole game.
I taunted the universe with my new found cleverness.
No new dresses for work.
The internalized, unexamined list quietly grew.
No new friends.
And grew.
No phone calls to old friends.
First it was to minimize risk of loss. But then it became about proving to myself that I could subsist, even thrive, on nothing. Or something close to nothing. Other people push themselves to run marathons. I pushed myself in this. It was never explicit. There was no list of rules. It just became a way of life. Total self-denial.
That is what the great spiritual teachers did, right? Give up your house. Give up your family and friends. Your career, your illusions. Give it all up. This is the path. Then you'll truly be happy.
For me, it was this slow process of trimming, snipping, removing. I don't need you, I'd say politely to my morning coffee. I don't need you, I'd sneer at a glass of wine at night. I don't need you, I'd say to the unfolded pile of laundry left defiantly on my chair for a week. I don't need you, I said to old friends and new.
And on some level, all of this was true.
I found out I really don't need my laundry folded the moment it's done. And I am often better off without coffee. And certainly some friends are best left in the past.
So I suppose that could be enlightenment.
Because I had developed a pathological form of spiritual anorexia. The energy behind my actions was one of absolute fearfulness and dread and anger. My obsession was with not needing anything. And it was still an obsession, and therefore, it controlled me. Just as the anorexic thinks just a little bit less food might finally make her thin enough, I thought a little less stuff on my life would finally make me happy enough. But it's all a scam, because no matter how much weight the anorexic loses, he doesn't have a healthy body image.
And I didn't have a healthy spiritual path.
I sort of see how it happened. I was asked to make sense of things that could not be made sense of. And with old tropes failing, I couldn't run around bellowing "It all happens for a reason!" anymore.
So, I pulled down the hatches, and settled in to wait out the storm. And as the storm went on, instead of making peace with being shut up in a storm, I thought to myself "well, I've given up sunlight, perhaps I will also give up canned foods and clean water. You know, just in case, during the next storm, I don't have either. Then I will truly be prepared. I will know I can handle that next hypothetical storm."
And so it went.
Who knows how long I let myself keep using the bathroom.
As if the world doesn't make things hard enough!
The more I did it, of course, the more natural it all seemed. And I would feel strange when I had brunch with a friend and really enjoyed myself and I'd think "Ok, not too much of that. Let's not get carried away here. You don't need her. Remember that. You don't." Because of course I had to be prepared, in case I lost her too.
I appointed myself the Navy Seal of personal tragedy. I wanted to glare at whatever was coming, and tell it to come and fucking get me. Because I had no fear. Not anymore.
Of course that was the biggest lie of them all.
In this way, really, my whole life revolved around preparing for untold tragic futures. It wasn't conscious. It happened in small ways. "Why even bother unpacking that box from your office? You can get by without it."
"Why not re-wear those socks? Surely, you don't think you need fresh ones to be happy."
"Why date? You don't need a man. Don't be ridiculous."
On their own, each of those statements is relatively innocuous. What's re-wearing a pair of socks? What woman hasn't reminded herself she doesn't need a partner?
So, I didn't see what I was doing for a long time. I missed the larger pattern.
I don't know if other people have gone through this. I don't know if other people who have lost great things have also tried to foil the universe by offering up whatever they have left and begging for it to be taken on their own terms.
But either way, I was missing the point. Or like ten of them.
I thought I was giving things up and proving my strength, but really I was clinging to so many other things. I was holding on to my fear like a security blanket. And I was just as attached to not having things as other people were to having them. I was trying to create my own insurance policy with the universe. If I just paid in enough of the things I was willing to let go of, then when crisis struck, perhaps I'd get to keep all the rest? Let's make a deal... Do you hear me up there? Are you listening? I'm being very reasonable here. More than reasonable. The least you could do is be a little bit reasonable back.
Those are the pleadings of a woman who has not fully grasped that the real reason she is so disturbed is because she knows she isn't in control.
That was the one thing I couldn't let go of.
I needed to know that next time, I would be in control.
And I can't be.
And no amount of spending Saturdays watching Netflix to prove that I don't need a walk among the trees is going to harden me against all heartache and loss and devastation.
We all get sick and die. We all lose everything.
Perhaps it is wise to remember that.
It is probably also wise to remember that we are alive right now.
My spiritual anorexia allowed no space for such an observation.
I know I am happier when I run and do yoga and see friends and do challenging work and spend time outside. It's not rocket science.
I thrive.
I have more energy.
I smile.
But I had begun to think of all of those things as lulling me into a false sense of complacency.
I see now that perhaps it's not even that I took it too far, it's that I did it in a toxic spirit. Perhaps giving things up can be cleansing. But perhaps not in the way I went about it.
Like someone struggling to eat normal amounts of food again, I find myself cajoling myself into doing the things I enjoy, and actually sinking into them, actually embracing them, without thinking about the need to suffer more later to convince myself I haven't gone soft. There is permission to travel, to sleep in, to drink too much coffee, to see friends, to be outside, to be outside, to be outside so much more.
It is the strangest thing to say, and yet it's true: I still find this hard. I go out and I do these things and part of me relishes them.
But, sometimes I catch that little voice reminding me to not need the trees or the stars or the great conversation I just had.
Don't need them, because they're not forever.
And that is the part that feels like my throat closing up. That reminder.
"I know," I find myself replying. "And I look forward to not needing you either."
Namaste
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment