“Woo-woo”. “Twee”. “Arty-farty”. I had a litany of dismissive syllables for Anne Lamott. Deep down, I knew she had some emotional truth. From my earliest memories as a frantically joking five year old, I did not want emotional truth. I wanted manuals on how to conquer the world.
Fifty years later, my latest endeavor, after decades of abandoned endeavors, was to become a self-publisher. Working a full-time job and writing every day, I now told myself “time to learn about Amazon marketing!” And my body said “Nope!” The next morning I woke up to my first panic attack since high school. And every morning after that.
Now I’m beyond dealing with the tumult of crappy jobs and mortality. Now I had to face that I was a collection of traits that kept people away and defeated my goals. I knew that I wanted to “do” and did not care about wanting to “be”. I knew perfection was my enemy, sure, but somehow it kept defeating me. After two decades of councilors who helped me with immediate turmoil, I had nothing left but to confront The Grand Unification Theory of My Crappy Traits.
They seem insurmountable. I’d hit the 3/4 point of my lifespan and I believed in being realistic: I was never really going to be successful at comedy or writing, or have a relationship, or even like myself much. If I could understand WHY I had these traits, I could at least die content.
Thanks to a new counsellor, I have been discovering how to be “happier” which turns out to be an emotional synonym for “being”. My definition for happiness had been very terse. The only time I ever felt truly self-accepting was during the thirty seconds I watched myself on national TV. “NOW life makes sense. This is RIGHT. Everything is IN PLACE.” I knew this was sick, but I did not care.
I rediscovered that I liked the feel of fleece. I liked being warm. I used to like drawing, but I still couldn’t hold a pencil even to doodle. I took days off to drive around, anywhere, just to be and find whatever. One day at a farmers market I found McCutcheons Apple Pie Preserves. I discovered I like them for sandwiches, cooking glaze, and as a spice. I order it by the box.
I allowed myself to take days off, then weeks off, because I was sick, had been sick, and I needed to get well. I learned to talk with my emotions, not ignore them and use their starved revenants to power the treadmill.
Then at the end of a session, my counsellor handed me a sheet with the Personality Traits of Adult Children of Alcoholics. I stood, about to leave, and scanned it. Every muscle locked. Irritability. Impatience. Risk Avoidance. Problems with Emotional Intimacy. Lots more. Every thing about myself that I regretted, every mistake I made, every thing I did to make my life harder, all of it filtered through this list. Here was my Grand Unification Theory. I had a new problem now.
What is the difference between my personality and my pathology? I was irritable, I was impatient, I was hard on myself. I was funny when drunk and overly polite and ingratiating. Now I knew: no, that wasn’t me. The acquired traits made me this way. Moving around the country with only two troubled people as consistent, reliable support made me this way.
It wasn’t “who can I be?” It was “what am I?” Successful people did what I yearned to do, and they did it not out of spite, but because they love it regardless of results, just like the people who were less successful.
Some people never learn these things. Over the years, I almost died a few times not knowing.
My response was, and still is, “Damn the world. Damn me for not knowing. Damn my parents for not getting their own counseling. Damn their generations before for screwing them up.”
So there was this book, this Anne Lamott woo-woo book, which my counsellor recommended.
I’m only half way through and I’ve found it affirming and comforting.
The book goes beyond saying “ignore your first draft” and “its okay to make mistakes”. For me, it reminded me of what is the most fun about writing: sharing with the community of smart, nice people I have met through writing.
Mistakes are made. Sometimes goals are misguided. I’m learning forgiveness and I’m hoping to make kindness a priority.
