I don't need you to like me, and other thoughts

When I'm not working with people here, I periodically find myself alone in the house. I do my laundry or my cleaning or, these days, study like mad for the GRE which I'm taking on September 29th. But mostly, laundry and cleaning are excuses for me to think like crazy. I sometimes feel like even when I don't want to be thinking any more, my brain goes around in circles until some sort of activity (like working with kids or directing a choir rehearsal or visiting the sick) intervenes to take my mind off... things.


(Disclaimer: these questions usually come up on Mondays or Wednesdays, when I have less to do and more free time, but nobody else has free time to hang out with me. So I sometimes get a little bored, and if I'm tired, bored turns into moody, and voila, we get the following... )


The most frequent question of my alone moments is, What do I want? Sometimes I just feel this sort of longing, for something undefined, for a lot of things, and in frustration I ask, What do I want?? Or put another way--Why do I feel unfulfilled right now and what would fulfill me? Am I complete, as a person, right now, with my life the way it is? If you want to know what it's like to be me right now, think about that for a minute. Are you complete? Or do you feel like there's something lacking in your world, in your life, a hole that needs filling in order for you to be whole?


There is certainly a lot of love in my life here. Tons of dear friends, the sisters who are like my family, the kids at the school, even those annoying old ladies in the parish... But none of them are "mine." They all have their families and I don't; they put their kids to sleep at night, or someday will, and I go to bed alone. Is that okay? Some days I think it is, and some days I know it isn't. Could I be happy as a sister, with a life like this, doing work that I love and delighting in the company of everyone, but never depending on the presence of certain people, a family, for my happiness?

My brain says, Seems doubtful. If happiness doesn't come from the love of your family, I mean nuclear husband-and-kids family--where does it come from? Supposedly, the answer there would be God. And that... is complicated. Some days I think that relationship is not enough to make me happy for the rest of my life. And some days I know it is. Those are the days that scare me most.


But I've realized lately, through talking to a friend who grew up very, very poor in this neighborhood, that people can put anything in that question above where I put "family" (well actually, I'm way far from thinking about families; the word right now would be "boyfriend.") Example, "If happiness doesn't come from having enough money to live comfortably, where does it come from?" My friend had a very dificult childhood and although he now has a decent job and enough to eat in his house, I can tell he's still trapped in the idea that other people look down on him for being poor. He doubts his ability to follow his dreams of being a musician because, according to the way he thinks people will judge him, "that's for people with money." Silly, right? Now that he's getting along okay, why keep feeling ashamed of who he was, or how he was perceived, in the past? ...Heh. Easier said than done. Money for my friend is a sort of beautiful, unattainable dream, money and the respect that comes with it. He never had any, and he had to take some hard treatment from the world because of it, and so he learned to feel unworthy of people's esteem, and when you learn something like that it's very hard to unlearn later. A wound that needs a lot of healing.


"If happiness doesn't come from... (that thing I never had and felt scorned and humiliated for not having), where does it come from??" I realized that I'm exactly the same way about guys. Never had any, learned not to expect them, decided I'd better get used to living without them, and placed the idea of having a relationship up on a sort of pedestal, thinking, That must be it, if I had that I'd be happy. But the truth is, there are people with tons of money who aren't happy. There are people who've had a hundred boyfriends or girlfriends and aren't happy. There are even people in steady, committed, loving, long-term relationships, who aren't happy (although those last probably have a better chance at happiness than some.) So, logically, that can't be it.


Enter Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit from India whose book I read a few weeks ago. The guy's practically a Buddhist, and his perspective, which he sums up in the title Awareness, is literally life-changing, if you take it seriously. He basically says, as humans, we need two things to fully flourish: to be free, and to love. To be free and to love--NOT "to be loved!" Wow. Either he's crazy or he's found the secret to life. He says that as children we are trained not just to want but to need, even to crave the approval of others--our family, our peers, our teachers--but that that approval, that "love," that pat on the back or admiring glance or certificate of achievement, is actually not necessary for our happiness. Think about a two-year-old child: if that child knows that Mom and Dad love her in a sort of existential way, that is, she trusts that they're going to keep her world turning and doesn't live in fear of abandonment--then she won't hang around Mom if she can help it. Instead, she'll go off exploring, delighted to discover more about this marvelous thing called existence. But as soon as fear of abandonment enters in, the child starts clinging, terrified to move out into the world. She becomes more preoccupied with keeping Mom's love than with growing into a fuller, more alive version of herself.

Basically, as I understand him, DeMello says that a lot of what we think is love, is actually just us trying to get our latest fix of the drug called other people's approval. My, how smart you are, Kathleen! How responsible you are! How good and generous you are to others! You look beautiful today! Good thing you got those As in school... good thing you never went to those wild frat parties in college... Good thing you wear those nice flattering tight clothes now, you're turning heads down there in Peru!... Behind every Good thing...! is an Otherwise: a vague, implied Otherwise looming just on the other side of whatever Line the other person doesn't want us to cross. Otherwise, you'd be off the dean's list and you'd end up waiting tables for the rest of your life. Otherwise, people would think you were irresponsible. Otherwise you'd be arrogant and irritating, and people would get offended and feel bad and talk about you behind your back. Otherwise you'd keep living your pathetic, restricted little boy-less life and live in fear of your friends saying, Let's play Never Have I Ever! (a truth-telling game where young people discover who's done what, what kind of experiences everyone has or hasn't had.) Otherwise you might end up as a nun someday, that is to say, end up going around with CELIBATE stamped on your forehead for everyone to stare at.

...Inasmuch as we NEED that drug of other people's approval, we are not free to go off and try something new, to gather up all our love and good intentions, and go out and make stupid mistakes, and then try to do better the next time--to grow little by little into who we authentically are. To breathe free air, beholden to nothing and no one except that which you choose to dedicate yourself to. To be fully alive.

So the lesson I take from Anthony DeMello is, I don't need you to like me. Yes, I'm talking to YOU. I may like you very much, I may even love you, but I don't need you! I would never, as DeMello says, choose your love over my own true happiness and fulfillment. So, I can choose never to go back to school and wait tables for the rest of my life if I want--and I could be happy, as long as I were truly "aware" (that's his Buddhist thing) of reality. Because the marvel of existence, he says, the wonder of entering into relationship with reality (or with God) is enough to keep a human being dancing through her days for a lifetime. I could be a nun, and derisive laughter of American culture be damned--and I could be happy! I could have a family, I could move to Paris and find myself a romantic Bohemian artist lover, I could run a bookshop, I could do whatever the (insert strong language here) I want! and I could be happy.

...I guess that means, going back to my earlier question... that I am "complete." It's just a question of recognizing it.
When I get really good at that, you'll know, because I'll be doing something I like, and I'll be happy for no particular reason.