Saturday, March 9, 2019

(Un)Lovable


Back when I was learning French, there was this common giggle that would sometimes run through the classroom: the mixing-up of "je suis" and "j'ai." For the non-Francos in the reading audience, "je suis" means "I am," while "j'ai" means "I have." Every year, some remedial case would mistaken say "je suis chaud!" and one of the classroom pedants would snarkily reply, "Oh, you're the human embodiment of heat?" (NB: that pedant was sometimes—but not always!—me.)

It might make no sense to read it "j'ai chaud" as though it meant "I have heat," like you were a dog or a menopausal woman, but in reality, that's exactly how you use it. You are not, in fact, the human embodiment of heat; you are someone who feels the effects of heat on your body, possessing the qualities of warmth for a time, and then being released from them as your dad inevitably turns the thermostat down, again, he's not made of money you guys. It's a key difference between English and French; it sometimes pops into my head to remind me that English, the lingua franca of the Internet, has funny quirks and weird effervescence that we don't always see with the naked eye.

It was the same reason "Tammy Pierce is Unloveable," the comic memoir that ran on the back page of BUST magazine, made me so uncomfortable. The Roz Chast-style illustrations—all manic wavy lines and haunted grimaces—combined with the awkwardness of adolescence, was just a scootch too familiar. Tammy Pierce was a gong show, for sure: constantly getting her period in the middle of gym class and accidentally brushing butts with the school's resident dreamboat. She was an ur-teen: horribly relatable to all but the most well-adjusted high schooler.  But combined with that declarative, inviolable IS UNLOVABLE, right across the top of the page? Suddenly, Tammy's whole normal, awful human experience had been indicted as unworthy, alien...unlovable.

Look, I know that I read too much into things. I have an English degree. I was trained to overthink a text in the same way a doctor can take a temperature; I can think in themes the way a composer thinks in melodies. This is great if I want to explicate the homoerotic themes of Billy Budd; less awesome if I start thinking too critically about myself and my own life.

In my late 20s and early 30s, I was...kind of an awful person? I had finally reached the pinnacle of human achievement, which was having a steady boyfriend. I had a job that paid enough that I could be low-grade snotty to my parents without real repercussions. I had enough time to work out, so I was looking [insert flexed-arm emoji]. And I hadn't yet internalized the idea that other people might not love being gossiped about, might not think jokes at their expense were hilarious, that an apology wasn't a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for thoughtless behaviour, or that the perfect outside-looking-in scene wasn't a replacement for a messy, imperfect, interiour relationship.

In the couple years after I got married, but before my whole world fell apart, I lost two close friends. In the process of disengaging from our friendship, they both said basically the same thing: you're not really all that nice, you're not really all that kind, so we're gonna...go. And go they did.

In the moment, I thought I would be fine! I was like, "Pfft, those girls don't know what they're talking about. Have you seen how hot my body is these days? I'm fiiiiine."

Reader, it took a while to kick in, but I was not fine. I coasted along for a few years, but in the span of about 30 months, there were some huge traumas, only some of which were of my making or under my control (parental cancer! birth trauma! eviction! homelessness! an affair! hell, let's throw a cockroach infestation in there for good measure!) and suddenly, the inside of my head was a pretty scary place to be. I struggled with the idea that, if I had made different choices, like not having a baby, we wouldn't have been evicted or my dad wouldn't have gotten sick. I responded to all these injuries with rage, or emotional shutdowns, or suicidal-ideation-level anxiety. I made jokes. I stopped sleeping and eating. I ate a lot. I looked out the window at a white sky, and felt a sweeping, paralyzing fear that my life was unfixable, that I was unlovable, that I was being punished for not being all that nice or all that kind.

Some days, I still feel that way. I feel like the turns my life took was a sort of punishment for letting those friends go, for being kind of a shitty person. In my early 20s, I was bulimic and a binge-drinker. I took eight years to finish a four-year degree. I have always been a late bloomer, and not a little emotionally stunted. In my early 30s, all that dumb shit came home to roost. I had done a bit of therapy, but honestly, it was like knowing how to paddle a canoe in the face of a tsunami. It's not quite the same skill set.

Every relationship is based on, you know, relating; it's a two-way street, where each person starts with his or her own values, priorities, interiour language, sense of humour, justifications, dead zones, and boundaries—what Anne Lamott refers to as "your emotional acre." In the process of creating a friendship, you hope that enough of those things match up, and that there can be an honest flow of emotion and good vibes. I think that's what people mean when they say "we grew apart": that the street just got a little too long, that the middle was too sparse. Sometimes, there's an earthquake, and a rift will open up right between your zones, and there's no way to clamber over the wreckage without getting exhausted. 


It's funny, because I don't fault either of those people for ending their friendships with me. Going through that process, in addition to all the other stuff that happened, has given me a what pop-psychologists might call a growth opportunity: a chance to take a step back and examine who I am in a crisis, who I want to be, and where I need help. I had been a shitty person; was I still? Was my behaviour who I was, really?

Last summer, when the affair and the cockroaches were all I could think about, I lost my sense of humour. I didn't want to talk about it all the time, but the inside of my brain was just screaming, constantly. I didn't know how to say, "Fuck, I need to talk about this but I can't have another sympathetic look or another piece of advice or another person say, 'god, I don't know how you do it, you're so resilient,' because realistically, I'm thinking about taking the toaster into the tub with me right now, as we're talking, so I'm going to smile and nod and then say I'm tired, which I am, and that I'm going to sleep, which I'm not." So pardon me if the jokes are thin. Losing my sense of humour, which I had carried with me through what I had thought were the worst times, made me feel fucking awful. It made me feel unlovable. It was like I was constantly seeing myself through the eyes of those old friends: the people for whom I was not nice, and not kind.

Maybe that's just...who I am? Maybe mean, shitty people deserve a mean, shitty life.

Or maybe not. I mean, look at capitalism: if that whole shitty person = shitty life thing was real, we'd have honest politicians and great HR departments.

My most favourite people are not unscarred by their own traumas. They have lost parents and partners, become estranged from family, been evicted, lost jobs. They are still kind. They're my goddamn role models these days: the people who are smart, funny, compassionate, kind. The people for whom anger isn't a dirty word, but neither is it a guiding force. There's a meme that surfaces every now and then, saying something like, "the kindest, softest people got that way because their life was harder than you can imagine," and for some people, I think that's true. The wolf you feed is the wolf that grows, right?

That whole growth opportunity that surfaced before comes down to this: I have a choice these days. I choose to keep living, which is an obvious one, but sometimes, I have to say it out loud. I choose to try to improve myself: read the books, do the therapy, wait ten seconds before speaking, find the forgiveness. I choose to try to improve my life: move, get fulfilling work, try to maintain the friendships that work and, these days, forgive myself for losing out on some that didn't. I am imperfect, both in who I am and what I do; I choose to accept that, too. My own emotional acre got blown over and dug up and infested with cockroaches; it's not going to be a rose garden any time soon. But the soil is fertile, and I'm trying to make some things grow.

Maybe I am unlovable. But I don't think so, these days.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. You touched on so much I'm trying to find words for. I think your level of self reflection should be a sign you aren't a 'bad person'. We all just need gentle spaces to get rid of those itches. I personally, think you are amazing Thanks for sharing. Seriously

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