Maybe I’m the Asshole

It was the end of long week and I was finishing up alone at the clinic at 7pm on Friday.  Radiant groups wandered past the window on their way somewhere fun, and although I was exhausted, I didn’t want to drive home with only loneliness for company. Ecstatic dance was starting just up the street in half an hour and I hadn’t been for years. I grabbed a quick tuna wrap from the market and then joined the introductory cacao ceremony. Finally I was in a circle with people my age, people with messy hair who were talking about their hearts, and I felt a surge of energy from feeling I could express myself. When the music started, I crawled on the floor, rolling and exploring the walls with my toes. I rose up rooted and let myself sway, feeling all the sensations I had held in my core move out into my limbs, through my fingers and toes, and then drift away from me. Everyone began moving in their own way and we all belonged in differences, seeing and being seen without self-consciousness or manipulation.

Then I felt a new presence approach and when I looked over, there was a woman, no more than a decade older than me in a shimmering, golden dress clinging to her serpentine curves as she melted into the crevices of her partner, swaths of golden eye shadow exaggerating the beckoning twinkle in her eye. I felt a wave of disgust, of resentment flood through me and towards her. She was embodying the one way I was not okay with a woman dancing. This was a place to express free from the usual confines of self-consciousness or vanity – a place to dance and move without being sexualized, ogled, man-handled. I resented her for compromising my sense of comfort and safety. Old judgments surfaced around whether I was okay being as I was, as a woman, as a human being. And I hated myself for perpetrating those same oppressive judgements onto her. As she ended a twirl and I saw her profile, I was struck by the ghastly realization that I knew her face. She was one of the facilitators of the ecopsychology program I have braved financial, emotional, and social barriers to come here and take.

Maybe I’m the asshole. When I face the relative emptiness of my weekends and the vulnerability of trying to find a home and new friends, I am bombarded by memories of moments of meaning and connection in my past, and dreams for my future that I ache to admit I am still so far from achieving even though I have sacrificed so much. I have come to believe that circumstances are always shifting – people and opportunities come and go from our lives and we must grieve them and make space for the new. The moments when things click and shine with purpose are to be celebrated as a mystery gifted to us, not coveted as a prize we can win through sheer effort. But what if I’m wrong? What if I’ve really lacked the clarity to be honest with myself, the courage to invest where it matters most, the humility and resourcefulness to see it through, and the gratitude for belonging despite mutual imperfections.

If I’m honest, I harbor some degree of resentment for almost every person and opportunity I’ve left behind. The trend is getting worse as I get older, and the resentments I hold all have the same flavor. “So and so, and such and such, didn’t support me enough, appreciate me enough, validate me enough in the right ways at the right times so that I could feel like I belonged and had value and was secure.” I have grown increasingly jealous, resenting when people I used to love find happiness in their lives without me. I know this is because I walked away from them, suffering in service of my own greater happiness that has, for the most part, eluded me. I feel freer for not being tied to a false self, but constricted by financial and social insecurity. And when what I value most in life is connection and co-creation, I feel a foreboding sense that I am moving in the wrong direction – away instead of towards. A part of me believes that if I just show up somewhere with the right people, they will fall in love with me, and I will feel loyal and grateful to them, and we will all live together bonded in happy, productive community.

I feel sick to my stomach when I think about this, because I keep showing up to new jobs and communities and people, and the same thing keeps happening. I love them, and they love me, and we all feel full of hope, until something happens that offends or frightens me and I shut down. I punish them with my stubborn pride, and when they don’t change fast enough or in the right ways, I punish them with my absence. Isn’t that what an asshole does? It’s all about them. It’s all about people and circumstances meeting their needs, not about how they can be of service. My problem seems to be that I am either one or the other – becoming exactly what’s needed to smooth the wheels or setting the whole car on fire.

I suspect I’m being a little harsh on myself. I’ve resisted sharing these thoughts because I’m afraid the value of the insight will get lost in a gush of encouragement to love myself and not be shaming. I find it’s not so simple as just confronting the inner critic. Do I believe I am loveable? Yes. Can I feel love from myself and the Universe when I am alone? Yes. Do I long to share deep love and acceptance and vulnerability with another human being? Yes. Do I feel deeply pained over the fact that it’s almost impossible for me to feel love from others? Yes. Do I think it’s my responsibility to make good choices about who to let in and work through my own fear of being open? Yes. Do I also believe it is the responsibility of the other person to show care and skill in honoring my vulnerability and sharing their own? Yes. Do I believe this is possible to find? Do I believe I’m capable of this? I’m not sure. My history has shown otherwise, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

How do I stop being an asshole? I think it starts with being honest about what I cannot be and what I cannot love. Many of the relationships I harbor resentment over I felt ambivalent about from the beginning. They were often founded on a mutual agreement to grow or heal together, not a mutual admiration to embrace each other as we were and build something together. For this reason, I’m intentionally being really picky about the room I chose to rent – partly because I want to believe a nourishing home exists, partly because I’m aware how much I need it due to my limitations, and partly because I need to practice saying “no” at the very beginning, especially when I am afraid of losing something I might need later. Living together is very intimate, especially with virtual strangers, and the risks we take with our bodies and hearts when choosing house-mates are just about as severe as those we take when dating.

My job is also a place of recovery from being an asshole (asshole rehab didn’t sound quite right…). At the most fundamental level, I am being paid to provide a service I agreed to provide. Of course a job should also be about respect and enrichment, and hopefully fun and friendship, but when it all comes down to it, the way I feel about what I am being asked to do in a given situation doesn’t really matter, especially if my feelings are just about my wounds and not the needs of the company. I would confront a friend if they were hostile or dismissive towards me (or more likely just give them the cold shoulder until they left my life), but when it’s a customer, it’s about the company’s reputation, not my pride. I might question a particular project, but it’s ultimately the boss’s decision how to invest resources. At the end of the day, it isn’t about me meeting my goals or feeling good about myself, it’s about the business getting shit done. I’ve shot myself in the foot in many jobs by making it about my needs and ideas. This is particularly anti-social when everyone else is equally frustrated, but still trying to make the best of things. People let me squirm and grumble as long as I like, and when I leave, they find someone else. And, for the most part, I think everyone else enjoys more peace and quiet.

Nothing and nobody owes me anything. If really practiced what I preach about the world being one interconnected ecosystem of mutual exchange, there would be no reason for me to write about this. The problem comes when I pretend to be something I am not and when I try to forceably extract something that is not forthcoming. Both of these actions feel violent to me; coercive, exhausting, out of integrity, and in total alignment with much of what breaks my heart about how our world operates. I long for those times of ease when I simply showed up as myself, found myself doing what I do magnified by others’ contributions, and received everything I needed. Rediscovering that flow takes faith that I am not alone, and my willingness to stop being an asshole. There is no need to punish or resent or coerce if someone is unable to see me. And if I am unable to provide what I am designed to give, I must work with the limitations of the situation, or leave, and not admonish myself or the system.

I wanted to run from that ecstatic dance, but I knew wherever I went, that anger would be there. So I told myself to stay and dance it out. I danced anger and hatred, growling in my belly and kicking my feet and slicing my arms through the air. And then the sadness came, the feeling of utter lostness. The anchor for my purpose was crumbling and the guiding light fading. And then I saw a woman, probably in her 60’s with close cut hair and a colorful top, wearing a huge grin and the easy movement of a free conscience. The thought came to me, “There’s a woman who’s been through it all – grief, betrayal, anger – and gives zero shits.” A simple joy bubbled up from my core and I burst out laughing. Then I thought “Fuck that lady in the golden dress. And fuck me for judging her. She can do whatever the hell she wants. And I don’t have to become her in order to learn from her or share an experience with her.” I scanned the room, making eye contact with everyone and feeling each of them as a part of myself: the head-banging techy in the corner, the lean and too-cool-for-school dude just letting his hands dance, the two young women undulating, the old hippies with their bell bottoms doing the swing, the woman lying on top of someone in the middle of the dance floor.

Just because I liked that smiling woman in the colorful shirt more than the slinky woman in the golden dress didn’t mean one was more or less a part of me than the other. They were all a part of me because they reflected parts of me. I know I have issues with my sexuality. I know I’m choosing not to deal with them right now. And because of that, that makes me an asshole sometimes. I gave up a shit ton of comfort, had my heart torn from my chest a dozen times, and lost a career and city I loved to economic and social pressures beyond my ability to navigate. That means sometimes it feels safer to shut down that open wider, sometimes I think I have to twist someone’s arm a bit to get what I need, sometimes I feel entitled to things I haven’t earned. And that means that sometimes I’m an asshole. But I can love myself anyway. Just like I’m slowly learning to hold onto my love for others when they’re assholes too.

Nancy

Me to my coworker: “I’m sorry. I get controlling when I’m stressed”.

Her to me: “That’s okay.”