What I wanted to say was this: We put up with it until we don’t.
What I wanted to say was this: We had to put up with it in order to survive, but we don’t have to put up with it any more.
What I wanted to say was that we spend the first 20 years of our lives learning habits from the two most significant people in our lives, our parents. And then we take these habits and patterns and we apply them to the next 20 years. We apply them directly, by doing them. Or we apply them indirectly, by reacting against them and doing their opposite. We tell ourselves all sorts of stories about it, but pretty generally if a way of being is bad in one’s family of origin, it will plant bad seeds yielding bad fruit. If we do nothing to prevent it, we will naturally find ourselves in the midst of a wild habit-sowed tangle by middle age, trapped and unable to see anything but a patch of blue sky suggesting that something else is out there.
We can hack and burn our ways out, and turn our backs to the brambles and declare that we’re finished, but it’s not true. If you turn around, there it is. You just want to be finished. But you know you’re not when you resist people or events that point out, “Look here! Brambles!” You shush them. You get angry. You look away. But, still:
“Look here! Brambles!”
So one day you realize that you’ve been putting up with whatever pricks, pokes, and draws blood, when There Is No Need. You have a whole Promised Land, a Kingdom, and it’s pre-Pandora and pre-bramble and thorn. No drop of blood on the thumb or on the heel.
But one must leave that briar patch far behind. Far, far behind. And sally forth, seeking a new home.
Along the way, there are people, people who have thorns. They prick you, and you put up with it until you don’t any more. You know you’re getting closer when you don’t put up with the pricks any more.
You know you’re getting closer when you start to run, and your feet are unencumbered, flying along on joy.
the biggest thorn
The biggest thorn in my life has been shallow, narcissistic, a pretender, a liar. That thorn says: Make yourself useful. When are you going to make something of yourself? You are such a Pollyanna. Handle it yourself: I won’t help you.
The thorn teaches you to unconsciously avoid or attract people who are similar, so that the wound can be inflicted many times until you become a person who consciously deals with the wound. This is how it works.
There are thorny people all around me. Most of the time I can make use of their wounds, but sometimes not. Not too long ago, someone who reads my blog emailed me and challenged, “When are you going to do something with yourself?” or some such. This reader and I have been doing a sort of a choreographed dance in which we take turns being each other’s thorn. One leads, and then the other either follows or retreats. But because we know it’s a dance and we are as much part of each other’s healing as we are potential foils of it, we keep communicating. I love this reader because this reader is honest. This reader is a truth-teller in the most fantastic, beautiful, and fearsome ways. I have come to begin to love this reader and treasure this reader.
Another person in my life is a thorn who is very much like my old thorn: shallow, narcissistic, a pretender, a liar. Words and deeds do not match. An inflatable person. Someone to be avoided on one level and tolerated on another. And loved on yet another. It is like eating supper with Judas. You know who he is. You know what he’s doing. You even urge him to do it, and do it quickly. And you know he will hang himself afterward, because eventually he will see what he’s done. And you love him and let him do all of it, anyway. It is just that clear.
I appreciate getting my comeuppances from people I don’t have to live with, from acquaintances or even readers. I welcome their barbs, intentional or not (and mostly not), because if they did not come through those I don’t know very well, they will come from my family members, co-workers, neighbors. I take them among acquaintances because I know for sure that everywhere I go, there they will be. If I resist the thorn in a reader because I resist the wound in myself, I will find that thorn every old where. If I resist the faithful wound of a friend, I will receive only deceitful kisses of the enemy, and I won’t grow. I will stagnate in the middle of the briar patch and I am no Brer Rabbit, cleverly able to trap others there and escape myself and make a good story of it. This is not entertainment. This contains bloodshed and blood letting, and the life is in the blood.
So on the one level, with the person who is mean (and by mean, I mean little and clenched anus-tight), one has to be Careful. But on another level, one has to just look past the meanness and see the universality of the person, and how the person is still a Person.
But one also has to be honest. A beloved mean liar is still a mean liar. This is where a person chooses to live, and if you see it, you can call it in your head or you can tell them what you see and invite them to be better than that. But in the end, you call a spade a spade. The fact that it’s still in the deck or the tool shed (depending on the type of spade) isn’t my business or your business. It just is. Mean people need love, too.
So I put on my gardening gloves and I say, “Look at you! So thorny. Your thorns are painful. If this is who you are today, is it your intention to remain this way? No? Yes? Show me.” It’s not enough to just put the gloves on. You have to go about gardening with intention. And if the thorny bushes resist, we garden anyway. You don’t just set fire to your rose bushes. You prune them, but you wear gloves.
what I would have said
What I would have said if I had not been a child: The thing is, I have made a lot of things out of myself, but I don’t know what to make of myself. If someone doesn’t like that, well fine. Move along.
What I would have said if I had not been a child: The thing is, I am a Pollyanna. I am full of hope. I have deep, deep hope, optimism, and joy. I have some love and some fear, too. I am working on those. But I am a person who hopes for and expects the best.
What I would have said if I had not been a child: I expect words and deeds to match. Don’t just tell me you’re a loving person and then act like an asshole. What bullshit! What hypocrisy. Either be loving, or don’t. Be Christian or Buddhist or Humanist or whatever your True Religion of Self is, and act like you mean it. But don’t you dare say one thing and do another and expect me to sit here and pretend with you. I won’t do it.
What I would have said if I had not been a child: You say words of love, but your deeds don’t match. “Better is a friend who is near than a brother far away.” Family is as family does. I see what you are doing. I see your lies. If you act kindly toward me and there is no hidden, sharp edge concealed under your cloak, I know you are a friend. “A friend loves at all times.” Not just when it’s expedient or convenient or when you’re in the mood. You’re not my friend. You’re not my family. You’re not my intimate if you are Far Away both physically and relationally. I won’t participate in your fantasy by acting as if you’re not doing your lifelong habit of Orphan and Rootless, Insubstantial and Ungrounded, Unattached and Image-Heavy. I see who you’re showing me.
What I would have said if I had not been a child: I am lovable. I am good. I am beautiful and have a deep well of self and I have a Name. I’m not common or predictable. I’m not you. I would have said I am not an object to be used. I am a person. I do not exist merely as your audience, your foil, or your object to be acted against, your prop. We are both fully human and I am fully alive. I invite you to be fully alive, too. I invite you to consider what you are doing. I invite you to look at this reflection. See? I hold up a mirror. What do you see?
May I look into your mirror, too? I know you have one for me. Can you find it, and show me? Yes? Thank you.
No? I’m so sorry. How very disappointing.
what would you have said?
What would you have said, had you not been a child?
What are you saying today?
