It comes together and it falls apart. Life. The self however I don’t think should come together and fall apart so often, that’s supposed to be stable I would imagine.
I’m reading the book Everyday and it’s so staggeringly relatable I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s about a person who wakes up in a different body everyday. The person finds a feeling for a person and begins to break all of their own rules for this feeling. The person (who is genderless, their name is “A”) calls it the enormity, which I interpret to mean something beyond themselves.
A finds understanding of others through their experiencing of someone and describes concepts like depression and also many family dynamics. One day they wake up in the body of Rhiannon the person they love. To me that’s exquisite to imagine. It is unfathomable. And as a person who has always wanted the most full experience possible to get as close as possible that would be a dream.
In fact I think that’s the question I always asked as a child, what is it like to be that person. What’s it like to have a penis as I don’t know that. What’s it like to be adored by parents. What’s it like to be a star athlete. What’s it like to be stunning. What’s it like to be controlled by a wanting that supersedes all else whether that be a chemical substance or a human. What’s it like to be popular.
I don’t have to wonder about things like what’s it like to feel awkward and not belonging. What’s it like to be terrified. What’s it like to feel not only unwanted but also “bad”. What’s it like to be a product of and then bathed in fear.
In the book A ends up in a body that he doesn’t get home in time and so the boy wakes up on the side of the highway in the morning having no idea he got there. A tries to cause the least amount of disruption in the lives of others and has a code of sorts for himself to achieve this. He abandoned this to see his love, and as a result the boy ends up harmed.
Normally A clears his browser history of an email he uses to try and keep some memories of the self inside the bodies. He forgets in haste this time and Nathan writes him that he knows who he is and believes he’s been possessed by the devil. He spreads this all over and believes it so entirely that it consumes him and separates him from others.
To cling to a belief system for the security of whatever is secure about that robs him of so many moments and connecting with others. He’s angry and damaged by something since he can’t make sense of it, he comes up with something.
It’s an interesting part of the plot.
It’s no wonder I always wanted to like books, was attracted to them, even if I could be still enough to hardly ever read one. I’m working on that now and they are portals into human experiences that don’t cause harm. A safe resting place for a weary yet still curious heart. Calm and safe yes still being adventurous.
Why would I want someone else’s adventure. I always wanted to create my own. That was always my story. But I think there needed to be down time in between where I spent time with carving out what I wanted and needed. How does one do that with only a set of survival mechanisms and no stable set of traditions etc. without a system what is a self?
What parts are created and what parts are the enormity, the things beyond us that speak to us and pull us. To answer those calls and why or why not. The big questions that the great philosophers and the lowly authors have always tried to tackle.
A life lived in my own way not on anyone else’s terms has always felt important to me, but the how was a much more difficult aspect. Like a car without fuel. How can one exist in this manner without the fuel that is love, affection, belonging, and that from someone somewhere some form of that is unconditional.
I can’t change or want to change any of my path. But maybe I just need to believe it’s for a reason because that comforts me and there really isn’t any reason at all. That Pink Floyd has it right when he says “all you’ll touch and all you’ll see is all your life will ever be.”
I can’t have all the lives. I’ve almost had them really. But the one I never had is the one that looks the finest in the eyes of society. A long and consistent marriage that is celebrated… and I could go on… but I won’t at this moment, because I always wanted that one person you go through everything with and they are a constant. I made that a dream about love, but it’s fairly obvious that’s supposed to be a parent.
In the absence of certain core things I believe we can spend our life frantically searching or eternally unhappy no matter what, and the only thing that soothes is the story. I’m not willing to manipulate myself to feel better over finding the truth.
But finding my truth was always more important. This excavation process of finding pieces of me, and simultaneously trying to do that through relating because we see ourselves more clearly in relation to others. But that relation also changes us as we go.
The self evolves rapidly I find, or it can if that is the desire. Most people it seems are terrified of evolution, I suppose I’m not separate of that, but my enthusiasm always outweighs my fear. That is a piece of myself that is consistent. Would you look at that.
How do you get excited about being brave when sometimes being brave causes harm. The self versus the system. I’ll always be someone who has to know. Now I’m working at what do I want to know and why and being more responsible with myself first. To and for myself having a loyalty I didn’t have before.
If there’s no loyalty to the self there can be no loyalty to another because there’s no stable ground under the feet. You can circumvent this by religious beliefs and or adopting a set of family values, but what cost to a soul and why?
What I do know is I won’t regret chasing my dream. I know who I am. I know when I’m sorry I mean it and a swift change follows. I know once I know that I’ll enact change. I know my heart.
I didn’t know or trust those things before.
I know pain causes massive transformation if you sit with it and stay….
I am here with me…. Holding me, figuring out what comforts me. When I hear lines in this book about skin on skin and the enormity that exists between two people the tears start to slide immediately: I cannot change this looming winter into a permanent fall and spring, nor can I change the seasons of my existing.
I can only seek meaning from the experiences now that I’m not controlling them with every fiber of my being in one way or another. I’m being in control of myself and accessing my knowing and that’s the still I will stay in and the faith comes in believing I’ll have another season where I can connect this self with another self in a safe, healthy, equitable, and most importantly fulfilling way.
For now friends and love can be found everywhere as I’m willing to look. Rather than trying to change a season with my will surrendering to faith.
💜