Figuring out the circle game

...sort of.

Highs and lows. They’re not only inevitable, they’re also our greatest teachers. Highs can serve as adequate professors, but they aren’t as adept as the lows are at imparting threads of golden wisdom. For some reason, I pay more attention to the lows: the whys of them, the how-did-I get-heres, followed by the heaving sighs of ‘when will I get OUT of this dark tunnel?’

Highs, while exhilarating, can involve being misled by the ego, whose chief function is to judge, nitpick, and diminish – ourselves and others. The ego also has a penchant for validation-seeking that can reach Kardashianesque levels if unchecked.  I love validation as much as any of America’s most famous gaggle of sisters, but it’s best not to over invest. Case in point: I’ve appeared on magazine covers (because of a weight-loss success story) and have conversely been ostracized at the office because male co-workers didn’t want to be seen chit-chatting with a woman of size.

Highs and lows…I’m grateful to say there have been times in my life when caring, supportive friends have lifted me up in times of need. And then there was high school, when eating lunch in a bathroom stall won the coin toss with eating alone in the cafeteria. Highs and lows…Which do I identify with? The answer is…both.  There was a time when I deeply despised the socially unacceptable, weak, and vulnerable parts of myself. We’re culturally conditioned to be repulsed by aspects of ourselves that are just as human as any other part.  I’ve decided to disavow this custom, because all of it is who I am. Plus, I’m either worn out from self-flagellation, or, I unknowingly crossed a threshold of wisdom in my sleep one night.

I never enjoyed the lows – who does? I despised every moment of them. But when you operate from a ‘please-please like me’ posture, you tend to attract less than desirable situations such as:

·      Ruthless bosses taking financial advantage of me because they could.

·      Predatory friends whose misdeeds ranged from siphoning my energy for a merry-go-round of free therapy sessions to deliberate mean-spiritedness that stopped just short of setting me on fire (ah, adolescence - how I don’t miss it).  

·      It’s a miracle that, with all the time and effort expended on apologizing for myself and people-pleasing I somehow fit gaining copious amounts of weight into my schedule, but I did. And that brought upon me a whole symphony of lows.

·      But the lowest of the lows came one night 10 years ago - almost to the day - when my ex-boyfriend died suddenly in front of my eyes. We remained friends after our break-up, even spending holidays together – we’d always had more of a brother-sister vibe anyway. While my life took an upswing after our breakup, his did the opposite, and eventually, his health went into decline. After an extremely damaging heart attack, Bill and I decided he shouldn’t be living alone, so he moved in. The plan was for him to build his physical and emotional strength back and begin a new chapter in the spring. One November evening before dinner we heard a crash from the next room. I ran to him while Bill called 911. Kneeling beside him, all I could do was offer a few comforting words, but in my gut, knew nothing could be done to help him as his eyes closed and he let out an agonizingly sorrowful final sound.  

Minutes later, I stood motionless and catatonic listening (because I couldn’t watch) paramedics lean onto his overburdened heart with paddles to administer claps of electric shocks over and over.  Their racket had a sinister rhythm, like a labored locomotive engine about to explode. An hour later in the morgue, he lay before me on an examining table, looking anything but peaceful, his brow still set in a furrow from the struggle. I felt nothing - only a paralyzing numbness that kept me staring at the stillness of his stomach and the mutilation of his right ear - enlarged and bloodied – ravaged presumably from  the electrical surges intended to keep his heart beating.

Processing the shock of what I witnessed was only part of the equation: for years to come, I was beset with guilt and remorse over leaving him in the first place and took on the mantle of feeling responsible for his unhappy last few years. In essence, his death tore open a wound so many females are bestowed with by the patriarchy: we’re charged with the business of putting others’ needs ahead of our own – the more self-sacrifice the better. Maybe nature creates us this way, but the non-verbal mandates don’t help. The insidious and seemingly harmless expectations begin as soon as we’re walking - masquerading as toys like diaper-soiling dolls, the kitchenette sets, and on and on. Let the boys strap on superhero capes and seek adventure – for us, goodness and approval must be earned in servitude.

Once a ‘not-quite-good-enough’ belief embeds, it colors everything, from accepting inadequate wages year after year to the unthinkability of saying something as simple as, ‘No, can’t talk right now, it’s not a good time.” It’s all connected.  Looking back, I’m not surprised I wouldn’t relinquish the whip. But I worked at it, seeking relief with close friends and in counseling. Everyone was perplexed at my unwillingness to drop the bone of blame and move on. The toll it took showed up in health issues, weight gain, and depression. Finally, after almost a decade, the fog began to lift, and so did the realization I’ve been participating in a punitive charade.

There’s no magic formula for healing something so deep. It took adherence to common sense tactics like not sweeping the dirt under the rug and staying present - no matter how painful a tidal wave of emotion was.  Over time, there was an imperceptibly slow loosening of the belief that self-blame and condemnation were interwoven into my DNA. They’d been air-dropped uninvited, and therefore I had the power to boot them out.

The worst may be over, but the fallout from the six + years of poor health, coupled with good old-fashioned aging mean one thing:  I don’t resemble the healthy, vibrant woman I was a decade ago. And since I’ve never been one for surgery, drugs, or crash dieting, the only logical course is to accept what is. Life isn’t about repetitively reliving past episodes -whether it’s those heady highs of accomplishment or the demoralizing valleys of the ‘what ifs.’

The lows can be a brutal passage, but they put me to work and gave me something to survive. A decade later, I may never fully transcend the weight of the guilt, but it was a trial that taught me much. Who was it that said an easy life is not a victorious one?

If there’s anything I’ve learned in all this, it’s to not take assessment from an outside source very seriously. The insults and the compliments are all to be filtered through my lens of discernment. And the more discerning I become, the less attached I am. From experience, I know that waterfalls of compliments received from looking a certain way dry up the minute I’m on the other side of the coin. Compliments are often agenda-driven, anyway, and when they’re based on ephemera, they’re meaningless. Ever notice that things like a person’s bone structure, six-pack abs, or their clothing size is never even on the radar during their funeral eulogy? There’s a reason for that.

Life really is, as the ever-wise Joni Mitchell says, a circle game where we go round and round: same cycle, different day. It’s an illusion to think I could possibly control the power of those tides. Personal choices play a role to be sure, but there’s also Karma, the random behavior of others, and divine timing that all add up to each day unfolding in its own mysterious and unrepeatable way. All we can do is hang on tightly when the waves get rough and savor the episodes of smooth sailing.

But here’s a high that never goes away: Being OK with who I am. All of it. The solid and peace-giving knowing that both sides of the coin have value.