Day 5. Not Alone?

today I received my books in the mail. the first one i got is called, “who am i without you? 52 ways to rebuild self-esteem after a break up.” by Christina G. Hibbert, PsyD.  I was drawn to the self-esteem part, because i have really been slapped in the face by my lack of it lately. interestingly, the first chapter is “you are not alone.” i scoffed at first because that’s ridiculous, but one thing she said struck me:

you’re right: no one can understand exactly how you feel. we each have our unique experience of loss after a breakup. however it’s also true that you may be feeling many of the same things women have been feeling for years…

I would have said “people” instead of “women”, but there is something comforting about the thought. that my betrayal and agony is just the same human emotions that pretty much every single human being, and maybe animals?, has felt since forever. yes…misery really does love company. my specific situation is super complicated and bazaar, but ultimately it’s the same vicious pain. so, it’s the opposite of being alone, really.

The second book I got is Anne Lamott’s “Hallelujah Anyway.” I have this on overdrive too and listened to it today while i walked the dogs, and i actually LOL’d which i very rarely do in response to media. this book also spoke directly to some of the things I’ve been feeling since he left (and before) about the idea of “the real me”. feeling like i’ve never known a real self. if i were to “just be myself”, that would be

• being overly nice

• ridiculously forgiving

• hypertolerant

• eager to make things easy for people, smooth things over

• sacrificing myself for others without a thought

• feeling fulfilled by caregiving

• desperate to make people happy

• desperate to be loved 

it actually makes me queasy to write all that out. there are some serious red flags there. how can that be a real self? but that is the default after trying on different personas. these other personas can get really real. ive philosophized the shit out of them, and some have lasted me years. the main one is a cold-hearted, apathetic, mediocre person (champ?). this is where i lived ever since i got booted from home until i had my kids at age 25, except for a brief foray into deep emotionality while dating an artist who i think was my only love-relationship. anyway. the “champ” was super awesome in that i could do anything, go anywhere and nothing hurt me. no one could affect me. i was homeless for several of those years and an addict. i felt completely liberated and at peace. but it was fake right, since i was actually just in a deeply repressed state? idk there’s a part of me that thinks maybe i had things figured out then. but the separation between mind and body at that time was almost complete. and that can’t be good. it wasn’t good.

but look what I read in Lamott’s book today:

mercy is radical kindness. mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. mercy is not deserved. it involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable…the idea of accepting life as it  presents itself and doing goodness anyway, the belief that love and caring are marbled even into the worst life has to offer…when we manage a flash of mercy for someone we don’t like, especially a truly awful person, including ourselves, we experience a great spiritual moment, a new point of view that can make us gasp. it gives us the chance to rediscover something both old and original, the sweet child in us who, all evidence to the contrary, was not killed off, but just put in the drawer…kindness toward others and radical kindness to ourselves buys us a shot at a warm and generous heart, which is the greatest prize of all.

all of that seems a little undeniable, and also a little like my puppy dog default self. this can’t be right. isn’t this the christian/slave mentality I have fought to escape?

finally, I read this quote by Nietzsche, translated by Daniel Pellerin:

Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: “Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.

Every young soul hears this call by day and by night and shudders with excitement at the premonition of that degree of happiness which eternities have prepared for those who will give thought to their true liberation. There is no way to help any soul attain this happiness, however, so long as it remains shackled with the chains of opinion and fear. 

no opinion, no fear…so, basically, “don’t know, don’t care”? uh huh. yes. i can get into this. this is like my cold-hearted af self. 

but the next part gives a real test of self, that tangible thing ive been wanting:

How can man know himself? It is a dark, mysterious business: if a hare has seven skins, a man may skin himself seventy times seven times without being able to say, “Now that is truly you; that is no longer your outside.” It is also an agonizing, hazardous undertaking thus to dig into oneself, to climb down toughly and directly into the tunnels of one’s being. How easy it is thereby to give oneself such injuries as no doctor can heal. Moreover, why should it even be necessary given that everything bears witness to our being — our friendships and animosities, our glances and handshakes, our memories and all that we forget, our books as well as our pens. For the most important inquiry, however, there is a method. Let the young soul survey its own life with a view of the following question: “What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?” Assemble these revered objects in a row before you and perhaps they will reveal a law by their nature and their order: the fundamental law of your very self. Compare these objects, see how they complement, enlarge, outdo, transfigure one another; how they form a ladder on whose steps you have been climbing up to yourself so far; for your true self does not lie buried deep within you, but rather rises immeasurably high above you, or at least above what you commonly take to be your I.

ok. so. 

• what have I truly loved thus far?

• what has ever uplifted my soul?

• what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?

an aside: i have to admit, the word dominated is forever sexualized for me now, which sux. and this Nietzsche quote is seeming hella masochistic, but um.

the point is…I have these three questions now! and i have very convincing supporters of both my angel and my devil sides. (disclaimer, i don’t believe in good and evil.) so that is what I’ll be mulling over tonight.

better get my nightgaurd

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