Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Thirty years ago in a column for the New York Times, Joan Didion discussed exactly why she wrote. Today the Gray Lady (the Times, not the esteemed Ms. Didion) reveals that psychologists have finally caught up to Ms. Didion's way of thinking: The field is now exploring the intrinsic utility of personal narrative in shaping who and what we are.

I do not dare imagine what some mental health professional would posit upon reading the narrative I have constructed within the "four corners" of this blog over the past three years. More than likely the prognostications would be uniformly dire. I would dare say they would see someone making methodically slow progress, but I know that the landscape of circular frustration that I have painted over time belies such a rosy and pat explanation.

It is my history. I cannot defend it. On the other hand, I do not think I have to.

Though it is hard to see at first (squint a little and tilt your head to the right, it should help) this blog is actually the rational and reasoned voice of an emotional mute. (Squint a little more, and maybe step a little closer, or perhaps step farther back. I swear you will see it.) In my three dimensional life, every time I have attempted to express true emotion to someone I care about it has played out like Jody Foster's character in the movie Nell - all screams, tears and guttural cries. Granted that, more often than not, copious amounts of alcohol have been involved, but it is hardly a coincidence. In such situations, alcohol is seductive. It can help me relax and therefore wipe away all the cognitive dissonance, to help me uncover and reveal the truth of me. But the seductive slope is, as is its way, slippery, and, as is my way, in my less than balanced life, I quickly fall down, down, down. Tumbling towards the chaos of the unsorted and un-expressable. The attempts to describe my new surrounding in the primordial emotional soup, always disastrous. One time, I broke a toe. Another, I ran down a street practically screaming. On other occasions, I have broken into uncontrollable sobs. Then there was the unfortunate call I made from a cab.

I always thought the emotions were what I was afraid of, but it is the chaos of them which terrifies me more. They are so unpredictable. So selfish. They serve me and do not account for others. They are. And they are without consideration or concern for the consequences. But those emotions, as lacking a social screen as they may be, are me. Learning to live in a fashion that honors and respects my feelings (as tempering them is certainly far different from tamping them down) is key to growing up.

Ironically, I think all of these years of trying to ignore - to silence and disown - my innermost needs and desires, made me far more narcissistic and self involved.

Ultimately, however, I think that any long range differential diagnosis based on my blog ramblings is inconclusive, because what is here is only half the story.

I have been walking through life with only half a story. In my three dimensional life, I can address the pleasant, the mundane, the absurd, the snarky. Those are safe, they are also fun. In my two dimensional incarnation, the tempest brews and simmers and boils over. The dangerous, the subversive, well, if only the unpredictable. And only occasionally the twain shall meet.

It is in the "twain" so to speak, that I think "me" really exists. It is the balance/counterbalance. It is where my own truth lies. (Odd, and yet perfect, in a life so full of contradictions to be looking for where truth lies.)

This is the instinct. The inner voice. The gut. I am trying to have the courage to listen. The choices it has driven to this point have been the right ones, they have also been the more obvious ones. Leaving the BigLaw job - scary, but a no brainer. It is the details that follow, where hearing the gut requires more rapt concentration. It becomes more difficult to understand. Actually, it doesn't. It is clear, but following it is more frightening, because doing so leaves me in much more of a position of vulnerability.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

The steps that follow are ones which are obvious. They require reaching out and connecting and committing to people. It requires honesty and presence. To do this, I can no longer hide away. The hermitage of body and soul must come to an end. But the big reveal, the act of just "being myself" is more of a process than I thought. It is hard to know where the consummate entertainer - the plate spinner extraordinaire - ends and the "real" me begins.

Mostly it is about saying what I want to say, rather than what I think people want to hear. Sounds silly, but it is a heart pounding endeavor.

I made resolutions about three particular matters and they have to do with three particular people to whom I have a visceral reaction. That sounds pejorative - and it can be sometimes - but in this case it just means that whatever reaction I have to such people, it is always seismic one way or the other. My job with each of them is to take a deep breath, to push past the fears and the potential repercussions, to hold out my hand, extended without reservation or expectations, and to love each of them. Regardless. And then I just have to trust - that in a position of naked honesty and unwaivering acceptance, the answers of one sort or another will come.

I am at the beginning of all of this and, cynical worrying lawerly one that I am, the trust often fails me. I am fearful. It is hard to wave away the clouds of anxiety. I hedge and I second-guess. This is hard. I am not sure that I have ever done anything so difficult. But I am taking deep breaths and looking forward.

For once, facing in the direction of the warmth of the sun.