The other day while working at my yoga studio, I heard a faint buzzing in the big studio, over by the windows. Thinking it was a fly or a bee, I went to investigate.
What I found was a large dragonfly, maybe four inches long and a glittering silvery-blue color, flinging itself against one of the window panes in a vain attempt to get out. I propped open the room’s door to the outside, and with a sheet of paper gently guided the exotic critter to the opening. It took flight immediately and disappeared.
This occurrence was extraordinary enough that it made me go straight to the computer and Google “dragonfly spirit,” as if the dragonfly’s appearance were some kind of augury. On a personal website that depicts certain Medicine Cards, I found this about The Dragonfly:
Look within and feel the sense-of-self energy within yourself. Notice if it is ebbing, and find the point in time when you were deluded into believing that you would be happier if you changed because someone else wanted you to. Misery is a prime clue that you lost your will and personal validity when you bought into someone else’s idea of who or what you should be. The illusion was that you would be happier if you did it their way. In forfeiting what you know is right and true for you personally, you give away your power. It is time for you to take it back.
A few other sites yielded strikingly similar themes.
The thing that hit me like a truckload of bricks today is: I have always been unacceptable to somebody. And it was usually someone pretty darn important, starting with the big guy in the sky himself. The Ultimate Father Figure.
Sure, evangelical Christians will fall all over themselves telling you how God is love, love, love, baby, so much love you won’t even be able to stand it, but if you actually read the Bible and pay attention to the theology you get quite a different picture. That some chick 4000 years ago ate the wrong kind of fruit now means that, on your own, you are totally unreliable, and a worthless turd to boot, unless you prostrate yourself, beg forgiveness, and get neurotic about doing (or not doing) all the stuff this book tells you to. And in this book you get to read about what befell all the people who displeased God by bringing the wrong offering or showing up at the wrong time or even thinking the wrong thing. Shoot, Job didn’t even do anything wrong, and look what happened to him! So you just better watch it.
Yeah, as soon as I could understand concepts, I learned the concept that I was fundamentally flawed, lacking, unacceptable, and that if I was going to please the almighty Creator of the universe, I was going to have to change. My very survival depended upon it.
It’s not unlike the way a young child’s survival depends upon his or her parents. A young child can’t afford to be critical; a young child can’t step back and say, hey, wait a minute, this is whack. Mommy and Daddy are inconsistent, unkind, and possibly downright abusive to me. No, the child has to adapt — to anticipate, to obsess over cues, and to try to be whatever he or she thinks the parent wants.
This was the extent of my so-called “relationship with God.” And it was also, to a lesser degree, my relationship with my parents, who are to this day neck-deep in that faith, and lived out its assumptions in their James-Dobson-style childrearing. So it was actually communicated to me that to the three most important figures in my early life, I was unacceptable at my core.
When high school rolled around I immersed myself enthusiastically in my church’s thriving youth group. But again, there was something lacking in me. I watched both of the guys I had monster crushes on (as well as my beloved brother) go out with my victorious Christian girlfriend. She was breezy and bouncy and good at sports, but when I asked her what her secret was, she pretty much ontologically flattened me by offering up the made-for-Sunday-school answer “My identity is Christ!” Well, then! Not only was I not cutting it as a female, I wasn’t cutting it as a Christian, either. (Personally, I suspected it had more to do with her pouty bottom lip and her elegant jump shot, but whatever.)
Still, that didn’t stop me from mimicking her style of dress, her expressions and manner of speaking, her opinions on the faith, and her makeup preferences. I even went out for junior varsity volleyball, as she was captain of her varsity team. I was like some larger, lamer mini-me.
And it didn’t work. I was still me. I was still unacceptable to those by whom I most wanted to be accepted.
Here’s the simple truth, that I still haven’t seemed to learn after four decades: you can pretend to be someone you’re not, or you can be authentic, but either way there are absolutely no guarantees you will make anyone, no matter how “important,” accept you. So are you going to toe the line and squeeze your butt-cheeks, or are you going to break out and dance like the unabashed dork you are?
Timely dragonfly. There is still that young child very much alive in me, who truly believes that she will literally die, die, if someone important to her disapproves of her, if she says or does the “wrong” thing, if her unscripted actions manage to prove her unworthy of love. The reaction no longer fits the situation; I can cry for hours, like a baby left in her crib to starve. This vulnerability itself seems like a liability; who wants to be around that when you could be around shiny happy people holding hands? Although I suspect a lot of them are on Paxil.
But there it is again, that wish to be different in order to be acceptable. As if five gay guys could come in and make over my soul. In the end, it just ain’t up to me or the Bravo network. I’ll fumble along on my meandering path, and try to tell the truth, and maybe stick my foot in my mouth, sometimes, and if you love me, you’ll love me, and if you don’t, you won’t.
But damn if saying that doesn’t still make me cry.
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