I’ve slacked off quite a bit lately on my entries, but I’m working through the book Calling in the One at an accelerated rate, and it involves a lot of journaling. I’ve already made it through Week Five. It amazes me how many of the early chapters mirror some of the themes I’ve recently explored here: that your beloved may show up looking differently than you expected, that emotional injuries sustained within your family of origin really do create a template for later relationships (or lack of them), that embracing your own ambivalence is half the battle. It’s nice to know I’ve already done a fair chunk of the work.
*
One chapter actually opened up some of that old familiar pain in my chest, but it was a lot duller and more bearable this time. In “Honoring Our Need for Others,” Katherine Woodward Thomas writes
We’ve become so afraid of appearing too needy that many of us have given up a healthy sense of entitlement…we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It’s appropriate for us to go into a relationship with the intention of caring for the needs of another, with the anticipation that our needs for love, connection, and belonging will be cared for in return. It’s part of what it is to be human.
Back when I was in therapy, and my therapist would occasionally bring up the prospect of real mutuality with some unknown future person, I would feel a vague discomfort and resistance, which we never explored. I assured her that it was more important to me to love than be loved. I could take care of myself. Far be it from me to make demands.
…in our efforts not to appear inappropriately needy, many of us have tried to shut down our needs entirely. The appropriate needs get thrown together with the inappropriate ones and we swallow them all. Yet this, in turn, only creates more hunger because it’s simply not normal for us not to have needs in our relationships with others.
No one likes a clingy type, I thought. (Never mind that I was practically a stalker when it came to a guy named Greg Schulz.) I didn’t sense that any of the men I deemed worth having were interested in giving anything back to me.
Often, when my clients complain that they are too needy, I discover that the people whom they are spending time with are unwilling or unable to provide support, consistency, and love to them. I assure them that it may not necessarily be that they are too needy. Rather, they may be choosing people who, for whatever reason, aren’t taking their needs into consideration. Of course, this then leads us to explore how willing they are to take their own needs seriously.
Ever since leaving home, where belonging came with a stiff price, I had championed rugged self-sufficiency, ignoring how lonely and abandoned I felt underneath. While I was studying philosophy in college, the Stoics had appealed to me; theirs was a worldview conceived by slaves who (for good reason) had despaired of any semblance of control over their circumstances and any expectation of having even their basic needs met. It therefore sprung from an extreme of helplessness, a helplessness much like that of the dogs in Seligman’s experiment who ceased trying to escape their cage. Some followers of Buddhism and certain New-Age spiritualities are not entirely dissimilar when they denounce attachment and try to get rid of suffering by eschewing desires and needs altogether and throwing out the bathwater with the baby still in it.
What gets forgotten here is that we are not slaves. We are not dogs in a cage. There’s a significant difference between being attached to the anticipation of a sunny day off or spaghetti for dinner, and being attached to the need to feel visible. In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff…but it isn’t all small stuff. And not all expectations are unreasonable.
*
Going back through my files, I pulled out an old letter from Dave, who had lived with (my object of worship) Max and (my object of lust) Jacob my last year of college. Dave was like a younger brother to me, and I loved him ardently (probably more than just as a younger brother, but he had one girlfriend all four years). I had felt moved to write a poem about their little three-man household, pouring my heart into the characterization of each one of them, and calling it “Brothers.” I gave a copy to Max when it was finished. A few months after graduation I got a letter from Dave, expressing his appreciation and wonderment at how I had nailed it, and thanking me for creating a lasting portrait of their “family.” He closed by saying
Having no song to offer in return, I would at least like to say this: it is a pity that we are only imperfectly able to return give you back the love you hold for us that allowed you to write this poem. I have often felt this for mys anyway, and I very much wish that someone will find you who can give you back the love you so freely distribute to the world, measure for measure.
With love, Dave
When I first read this, I burst into hiccuping, breathless sobs like a smacked toddler and cried for at least two hours straight. Dave’s kind words seemed to me like kisses in a world of blows. I let loose torrents of suppressed pain.
Now I cried again, but with a lot less pain. This time it didn’t have to be Max or Jacob (or even Dave) — or nothing. Yes indeed, my dear Dave, it’s high time for that someone to find me.
*
Ms. Thomas uses the word “pattern” in her book a lot. For a couple of years, the word “pattern” used in a psychological context aroused an overwhelming and irrational rage in me. I asked Doc specifically not to use it. I hated the word; hated its damning connotations.
What I finally figured out, however, thanks to Lisa Brown’s input, was that this rage had to do with blame and helplessness. The root of my wound, as she helped me understand, had to do with blaming myself for being rejected by my family and peers, while being unable to do anything about it; so the blame implicit in the idea of having entrenched and undesirable psychological “patterns” I should (supposedly) be able to change was only aggravating already overwhelming feelings of helplessness. Put simply, you could say I was reacting violently to feeling blamed for the profound feelings of blameworthiness that have caused me no end of trouble for forever. Coping with and defending against those feelings are what helped set those goddamned “patterns” in motion!
I’ve come to certain conclusions, backed up by Ms. Brown and Ms. Thomas, about what we are and are not responsible for. Yes, it may be conceptually interesting when talking abstractly from a “spiritual” perspective of nonduality (i.e. nothing is ultimately either good or bad) to entertain the notion that a soul chooses its circumstances — that we choose everything that happens to us from birth. This is a popular metaphysical view right now among the yoga set, and one Doc advocated. But this would also mean that (to borrow an example from the book) four-year-old Elizabeth, who gets molested by her father, is somehow ultimately responsible for it. From a psychologist’s perspective, this is just sick. The child already lives in shame and feels responsible; the woman spends her life feeling dirty and unworthy. This variety of New Age fancy may feel superficially empowering for about ten minutes, but it heals nothing. Thomas tells the rest of the story:
I invited Elizabeth, as she is now, an adult woman of forty-one, to imagine that she was looking at herself as a four-year-old girl. I asked her to picture a grown man, her father — a man who, we would hope, would protect and love her — instead trying to have sex with her. “What do you think of this little girl?” I asked. “Would you look at her and say to yourself, ‘What a dirty, dirty little girl. No wonder that man is sexually abusing her.’?”
Elizabeth burst into tears as, for the first time, she actually understood her blamelessness.
What the shame-filled, self-blaming child needs is what Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting needed: that breakthrough moment when his therapist held him tight and said “It’s not your fault” over and over again. I waited years for someone to say that to me.
*
My total break with Doc, still open-ended and without closure, has been troubling me, but I can’t bring myself to call or write him. I expect that I won’t be able to make him understand what happened from my perspective. He has his own interpretation of everything, that some “self” of mine was unjustly making him the bad guy the way some “self” in Sam was making me the bad guy. (Jesus, I hate Voice Dialogue anymore, almost as much as I hate fundamentalism!) I needed Lisa’s paradigm in order to accurately describe what happened. Lisa’s model of the human psyche has critical elements that were missing or underplayed in Doc’s model.
My rage and complete break with Doc really wasn’t all that unlike Sam’s rage and complete break with me and his life here…but not for the reasons Doc gave. I feel it’s safe to say now, thanks to Lisa, that Sam and I both have highly permeable boundaries. We both find it hard to say no, and can be easily manipulated or overcome by more forceful personalities. He probably feels as angry and helpless about the way he rolls over for other people as I do. For people like us, it’s easier to keep people out in the first place than to kick them out once they’ve taken up residence inside our “circle.” When they do get in, sometimes the only remedy seems to be total withdrawal. I had huge problems drawing lines with my family, so now I live 2000 miles away. And the only solution to the inappropriate shaming I was receiving at the studio from my dominating boss seemed to be to cut and run.
Sam badly needed to regain the integrity of his boundaries, and the only way he could do that, he must have concluded, was by cutting everybody off. My own “circle” was pretty compromised by my overdependence on Doc and by the way I often let him dominate with his more forceful personality and views. I knew I was deeply indebted to him for seeing me pro bono, and for giving me CDs and other items, so there was always that baseline imbalance, that feeling that I owed him. On some level, I suppose I was just tired and resentful of accepting his interpretations of my reality, and his last glib comment about Sam’s departure was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After one angry outburst, I stopped calling him, emailing him, or contacting him at all…much the same way Sam did with me.
I’m actually angrier with Doc for the ways he “got in my circle” than I am with Sam for taking such drastic measures to restore his own. But I also know I have to work on strengthening that boundary, and not just suppress the anger that naturally arises when it’s breached. Harriet Goldhor Lerner’s book The Dance of Anger is currently on the table beside Calling in The One. Can’t expect to get better at relationships without getting better at this.
*
Some people do make it easier for you. I take it as an excellent sign that I’ve managed to attract at least one (more) guy who breaks the old…dare I say it…pattern of finding myself with someone with whom it’s a struggle to hold my own.
Recently I was taken out to dinner at my favorite vegetarian restaurant by David, the decidedly nerdy noise musician I reconnected with on Facebook, who, as it turns out, was raised by a military family of Bible-thumping Republicans. At one point during the meal I asked out of curiosity, “So, what do you believe now? Do you subscribe to any particular philosophy or belief system?”
Now a great many of the men I have spent time with for much of my life would have eagerly taken this opening to to hold forth (perhaps with a whiff of condescension) upon the vast stores of their superior knowledge and wisdom as their food grew cold on the plate. I, in turn, would suddenly feel compelled to have a position, and to back it up with a somewhat anxious display of intellect. We might then play dueling egos, and I would probably lose. This could easily have been a first-date Pandora’s box, exposing vast and irreconcilable differences (which I’ve been known to ignore for a pretty face) — something I have grown almost to expect.
A look resembling panic briefly crossed David’s friendly face before he confessed with a shrug, “You know…I like to think that I’m still learning.” The last three words were spoken slowly and emphatically. “I read a lot…I’ve read a lot of philosophy…but I guess I feel like I don’t have it all figured out yet.”
I beamed at him. “Good answer!”
He smiled happily, as if I’d given him a prize. But really, he’d given me one. I was both delighted and floored. Even in the absence of any detectable sexual chemistry, even though he comes across as the oddest of oddballs, I thought: I want you in my life, David LeGrand! Here was a guy with a quality entirely lacking in my overbearing dad and nearly all the men I’d pursued in my life: humility. I could have practically wept with relief. At once I knew I wasn’t going to have to be on the defensive with him, or pretend I had it all figured out myself. David might not turn out to be the love of my life, but I knew at the very least he was someone I wanted to have on my team.
David saw me home, and hugged me goodnight. I giggled when he engulfed me with his six-foot-four frame. I felt small and almost childlike. But he gives a good hug.
*
Another acquaintance from work asked me out immediately after the acrimonious end of his long-term relationship, but I told him I didn’t want to catch anyone on the hard rebound. I’m sure I might have made exceptions (e.g. for Sonny) in the past, but I don’t want to do that now. I don’t want a “transitional relationship” — especially not with someone who lost his shit for a minute after I turned him down. It wasn’t an easy minute, but I felt stronger for guarding my boundaries and vindicated in being cautious.
*
If you recall, last spring at this time I was totally saturating myself with Damien Rice music. Since watching Moon, my celebrity fixation du jour has been the actor Sam Rockwell. I’ve watched every movie of his I could get my hands on, including the obscure indie comedy caper Welcome to Collinwood — a film I heartily recommend. (The more famous Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I watched with another guy you may recall named Sam.) Roger Ebert compared Rockwell to Christopher Walken, christening him the new “go-to guy for weirdness,” but he’s not heebie-jeebies creepy like Walken. When Rockwell plays characters on the slightly skeezy side (Welcome to Collinwood, Heist, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke, Matchstick Men), he oozes more sex than menace; you kind of want him to get you dirty. I felt like a pervert years ago when I found his sociopathic rapist/murderer in The Green Mile strangely magnetic, but he stole every scene he was in. Rockwell is capable of being funny and tragic and irresistible and repellent and vulnerable and diffident all at the same time. Just watch him as Chuck Barris, or as Victor Mancini in Choke. He lent complexity to the otherwise simple-minded bandit whose brother accomplishes The Assassination of Jesse James. Conflictedness is his forte. I could watch Rockwell all day. I very nearly have been.
I also pinpointed deeper reasons for my sudden obsession. Not too long ago I read a “fluff” article online about how women tend to choose men who look like their fathers. This happens to be a huge turn-off in my case, but I don’t recall ever being in love with my emotionally blank, odd-looking father the way little girls often are. I was, however, greatly besotted with my charismatic, handsome, much more demonstrative older brother John. In his case, it’s been true: the guys who attract me most powerfully resemble how I remember John at his most beautiful (in his adolescence and early twenties). Rockwell, my contemporary at 41, is no exception. It’s something about his hairline, the shape of his head, those knitted Tommy Lee Jones eyebrows, his deep-set brown eyes, and his prominent nose, not to mention his slim, athletic physique. That signature mole by his mouth makes me ache for every bit of loveliness I can’t quite reach. Even his behind-the-scenes clowning around is not unlike something my hammy big brother would do. Jonah and Sonny both remind me a little of John; the actor who played Nate Fisher reminds me a little of John; the guys who tend to catch my eye at the coffeehouse remind me a little of John. What can I say? He was the ultimate unavailable male: hotter, more successful, and cooler than me, the “winner” in our little brood, and completely out of the question. I started crying at his wedding reception and couldn’t stop until I got on the plane the next day. Jesus may have been my first unrequited love, but John was the second.
A couple of the tacit “agreements” Ms. Thomas’ book helped me identify that I’d been unconsciously keeping with him were: one, that I would never impinge on his spotlight — he would always be the “star” in our family; and two, that I would never love another man more than I loved him. We can all see how these unspoken vows would be self-defeating, but I never spoke them. I’ve just lived by them since we were kids. Prompted by the book, I wrote a fake letter to John releasing myself from this unfair contract. Sometimes a symbolic act is necessary.
Thomas also points out in her chapter on body acceptance (as I may have noted elsewhere) that pursuing men who are like my brother — men who are all the fabulous things I want to be and feel I’m not — is one way of trying to compensate for my own perceived inadequacies. Of course I never quite made it into their “league,” where I would at last (or so I unconsciously believed) be validated as good/successful/hot enough. Yet I don’t have the career of a critically acclaimed writer, or the slender, “perfect” body of a model or actress. Desire gets confounded with identification. I don’t just lust for Rockwell’s offbeat beauty or his juicy behind (which he bares often, thank you Mr. Rockwell!), I lust for his craft and his commitment. He goes out there and does his art, and excels in a wholly unique way; he’s the real deal. He makes weak projects stronger and good projects better. He reminds me that I’m not following my own bliss. I’m his contemporary, and I’ve done diddly-squat.
Some part of me is clamoring for me to do diddly instead of squat.
*
In other news, Padraic has been coming over to my place lately to put a laser device on my chronically injured shoulder. His sister bought it for him — a $3000 piece of European healing technology that supposedly helps cells heal themselves. So far, the results have been nebulous, but it’s given us an excuse to hang out. Being with Padraic, I have got to say, feels like being in an early Woody Allen movie. He has the fast-talking nebbishy monologues down pat, which can be funny…at times. He has a rather unfortunate love of puns. Sometimes it’s hard to get a word in edgewise. Based on what he’s said about past girlfriends, I’m picking up on some ambivalence from him about relationships in general.
That said, he’s been kind to come over and treat me for free. The other day we were talking — I was lying face down with the device on my shoulder, and he was sitting nearby in a chair — when I looked at him, and noticed the way he knitted his eyebrows. I noticed his deep-set brown eyes. Uh oh. I had a sudden heated impulse to launch myself at him and kiss him greedily, and probably much more than that…but I simply let the hormonal rush pass through me. When he hugged me goodbye, I told him that I liked him (was it the hormones talking?) and that maybe we should spend some time together socially…if he was up for it.
“What, are you kidding me?” he said, gesturing at me up and down. “I mean, look at you.”
I giggled, told him he was sweet, and bade him goodbye. It’s probably a bad idea to rush into anything based on a momentary impulse with someone you’re not sure about. But I was humming “I Feel Pretty” all day.
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