To All The Friends I Left Behind

“I have tried to write Paradise
Do not move
Let the wind speak
that is paradise.
Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my website on Facebook. For all intents and purposes, this is my life’s work. I hoped that all my old friends would come streaming like white ants out of the woodwork, share the work I have made with so much love, and celebrate me for it. I hoped for this, but I did not expect it. I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the response, and I was.

It does not surprise me. I have been a poor friend to many people. I know some people who have a gift for friendship, a knack for being close to people, and sharing their lives. I envy those people. Until now, my life has been a lonely one.

It started when I was young. I did not grow up in a particularly close family. I admire both my parents very much, but each, for different reasons, is not particularly close to the people in their lives. I didn’t grow up warmed by the glow of affection; I didn’t share the table with a stream of aunts and uncles and wacky friends. I did my homework, we watched TV. I did well at school. These were our priorities.

In Spanish there is a beautiful word: cariño. It means ‘darling’, and also the quality of darlingness: affection, love that expresses itself as touch, praise, giving, sweetness. We have no direct translation in English; there was no translation of this in my life. My parents loved me certainly, and they cared for me very deeply, but we were upper-middle-class secular Protestant. We did not cuddle or whisper endearments. We didn’t really touch. I grew up proud and self-sufficient. I was raised like that. These can be noble qualities, but in general I have found them to be compensations for the lack of something else. We become self-sufficient when we feel we cannot fully rely on people; pride is a pre-emptive defence against being hurt.

I was shy as a child. I was afraid of giving myself away. I wanted people to admire me. All my life, I believe I have been convinced that if people knew me - truly knew me - they would like me less. I have tried to hide behind images. I floated between social groups at school; I never got close enough to anyone that they could see my vulnerability. People like me are often quite fascinating to others. There’s a kind of vacuum inside us: a dearth of connection that feels like lack and creates longing. People are always falling in with the emotionally unavailable. They call it love, but it’s really just fascination. I suspect part of the fascination is that the emotionally unavailable desperately want to love: they desperately want to hold and be held; but when the moment comes, they get scared, and draw away. What they want most is what they fear most. This pulling-and-pushing seems to create a tension that sucks people in. Just look at the lives of our famous actors.

Ultimately, it’s all just fear. I have been afraid. My early romantic relationships were a mess. I wanted more than anything to be close to someone; at the same time, I was terrified of being seen. That is an equation that does not easily resolve itself on a human level. The only way really to manage it is to sneak up on people’s affections from behind. When I was young, I was an arch-ghoster, a hopper and flitter-about. I was deeply selfish, but that was because I was deeply afraid. I hurt people, and let them down. What should have been the most natural thing in the world for me - to love - became twisted and grotesque by a series of strategies and games.

I’ve gotten better as I’ve grown older. I’ve been fortunate to devote a lot of time to my inner life. And I have a gift for emotional literacy. I have learned to sit through the pain and dread, to open to someone, and let them open to me. My current relationship is one of the things I’m proudest of in my life. And I have a few friendships, slowly growing, in which I give, and let myself be given to. Part of my aloneness is inevitable. In many ways, it is my fate. I am one of those creator/leader types who tends to do their own thing. In Human Design, I am a Manifestor. I’m also an introvert, and the work I love requires that I be alone. But I do not want to be proud. If there are to be people in my life (it seems inevitable now that there will), I want to love them.

A few years ago I went through a phase of wishing to correct old mistakes. I reached out to people, I tried to make up for lost time. I was in a rush to redeem the opportunities I wasted, but I see now that this is not the way. Life is ahead of me, not behind. I have learned to let go of the past. In some areas of life, I know it is my destiny to make the running. But in matters of the heart, I can only obey. Perhaps I will lead the dance, but there will always be Someone Else playing the music. What springs up between me and other people belongs to a chemistry that is out of my hands. I cannot force, and there is no need for things to be perfect. That is a very profound realisation: that life does not need to be perfect. You don’t need to stitch up every wound. All of us go through lives with our hearts torn open. I don’t want to be immune from it all; I just want to be at ease. I want my life to be a grace to others, not a source of angst.

Little by little, I let myself become who I really am. I cringe less, and hold less back. One of the gifts of growing is you realise that privacy is an illusion. We are just defending our own defences. We do not survive the world; there is no need to go about wearing masks. They don’t work anyway. It’s okay to be run through by life. It’s okay to be unuique and imperfect, enjoy one set of joys, love one wife, have one world, make one’s own mistakes. We are not called to be perfect; we are called to be ourselves. Humanity is its own art. I am a miracle, even among my flaws.

Full Moon in Magome
Kawase Hasui
(Poem at header Canto CXX by Ezra Mann)