To myself ~ a confession

I was accused today, of being conceited in how I use my lack of roots to keep my distance from everyone. I was accused of keeping everyone at arms length, and, in some fashion, martyring myself because I cannot settle. It stung. But it was liberating also. I wish I had been told these words months ago. I wish I had been told what I was doing, that I couldn’t see myself. I wish it didn’t take hurting a companion to see myself clearly.

When I came back to Maine from Belgrade I was happy to do so. I wanted the stability of Maine, of my friends, of being with someone very special. I got here and things didn’t work as smoothly as I wanted, and I began to feel a bit lost again. Everything was a challenge, and the European grass was getting greener and greener. I began to focus almost exclusively on a personal relationship, making it the definition of my happiness. This was totally unfair, and I became resentful when the relationship remained complicated, and didn’t solve all my problems.

I didn’t find any work that was fulfilling or that provided me with some stability in making future plans. But the reality was, I had returned to Maine because I wanted to be there, and I had claimed repeatedly that things such as material gains were secondary, that just being in Maine, in love, and with friends was enough. But alas, it wasn’t. Rather than looking at myself for what was wrong, I looked at all that was around me: bad economy, complicated relationship, lack of home, etc, and I blamed these things for my discontent. But really, I was just personally unhappy. I had lost sight of why I was inspired to come back to Maine. If I am objective, and recall some conversations about how I could justify going back to Maine, I was looking for small projects, a life less hectic than I would have at large, bureaucratic institutions. And, holy shit! That is exactly what I have. I have (had) love, friends and a job allowing me to focus on small local projects.

But somehow this wasn’t good enough. The reality is, I couldn’t hack the transition out of the OSCE. I was lost and no-one was offering me a job. I created a fantasy of returning to the farm; I returned to the farm; I still felt bad. Always it was someone else's fault though, never my own. The worst seems to be the effect it has had on the relationship I was in. Certainly it takes two to Tango, and certainly this is just my side, but I was so blinded by my own dissatisfaction (with myself) that I pushed her down and then got mad when she didn’t support me.

I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity rather than get up and get on with it: Yeah, I didn’t get the jobs I wanted, yeah, I only get $800 a month, yeah, I have to share an apartment; deal with it! But look at what I did get: Friends, a great place to live, love. I am sorry to all that the awakening has come late, but there it is. I am perhaps not quite the exile in Said’s terminology, but certainly I am in Freud’s. I am experiencing the forced separation from my symbolic mother, and I cannot return to the womb. It is simply impossible, and I cannot come to terms with the fact that I am standing on my own two feet. If I could come to terms with this, then I would see the world from a different perspective all together. I might see opportunity rather than insecurity, experience rather than disappointment, Love rather than problems.  Ironically, this experience has nothing to do with geography, though that has always been my excuse. I won’t ever find a replacement home by continually moving; because this isn’t about Geography, its about me. It is about realizing that I can do what ever I want, and that pressures such as job and money are only as powerful as we let them be. We are all exiles, or as she said today, we are all visitors in this land, and this is about me reconciling myself with a life that is not easy, but is or can easily be fulfilling and rich in experience, no matter where it is lived.

The Daoist would say I don’t need to leave my front door to know the world. There is infinite truth in that. The world is in me and you, and finding the world means finding me. I found work I am good at, I found an academic subject I love, I have amazing friends on three continents and I have a loving family. I hate to admit it, but there is no reason to be unhappy with that lot. I am so, so sorry.