My whole life, I thought I loved people. The truth is that I was terrified of them. Of you. Not what you would do to me physically, but what you think of me. What I think you think about me.
What I loved was your approval – your attention. If you laughed at my jokes, were attractive in some way, or had something I wanted, I would engage in this weird love calculus to decide how much “love” you would get from me.
Problem is, I didn’t have much love to give, because I mistakenly believed that it was your love that filled my reservoir and I was always running low. There was never enough for me so I became very stingy.
I had always let myself off the hook, because I was always careful to be “nice”. I was polite and agreeable, but I wasn’t kind – not in the way I understand that word now.
I have a superpower: when I don’t get my way, I can radiate poison and contempt; a suffocating miasma of negativity, often with a smile on my face. I can fill the room with it.
Around the third anniversary of my getting sober, I was sitting in a room with friends, feeling unbearably alone – much like I felt in those last dark days of drinking. It struck me this time, however, that you weren’t doing this to me; there was something amiss deep inside, that nothing would change unless I did.
You see, I held people at arms length because I knew you wouldn’t, couldn’t, love me if you knew. What did I fear you’d discover? I didn’t know it then, but I think I was afraid you would find out what a miser I had been with that precious, sacred, life-giving force -love- and you would rightly turn away in disgust.
I’m not sure how, but something slowly shifted in me. Maybe because I was afforded a stark glimpse into the truth about how I had always felt, with no energy left to dress it up in nice clothes this time. A deep realization that I could never get enough love from you to feel OK.
Surrender, born of hopelessness.
Over time, an amazing thing happened. I would see you out in the world and I was simply glad to see you. Nothing more. Your reaction to me didn’t matter. Even if we’d never met before. If you ignored me, sneered or reacted in anger, I remained unbothered. Not always, but often enough that I noticed a profound and qualitative difference in the way I felt about you.
Love freely given. Nothing required in return. The shocking awareness that I had never really loved anyone before. Maybe as a very young child, but probably not even then.
This is all difficult to articulate, but it’s important that I try. I understand now that the love I’ve always needed never came from you. It’s inside of me. I don’t believe it is from me, either, but comes through me, from the same power that grows grass and makes dogs.
It is infinite or at least abundant. There is more than enough for everything and everyone I encounter. I only have to stop throttling it, believing that I have a limited supply.
When I stop being greedy, I find myself walking around in a state of loving. It feels really fucking good.
I got a message one dark morning, a matter-of-fact, quiet thought with the heady weight of Truth: “If you can’t figure out a way to love everyone, you can never really love anyone. Including yourself.”
Yeesh.
I’ve been chewing on that ever since. “Everyone” includes people I don’t like and even… my enemies.
It doesn’t mean that I can’t kindly set boundaries, or when those boundaries aren’t observed, leave the room. In fact, real love demands those things of me.
The further realization that no love is “special“. If we’re in a romantic relationship and you leave me, the pain I feel is me throwing you out of my heart because you stopped acting according to my wishes and my pride is hurt. I also stop giving anyone else love as I’m grieving the loss, which only serves to make me feel absolutely bereft. Self-pity shuts the valve. I do this to myself, but I’m convinced that it’s your fault and make up stories about how you are a bad person, undeserving of love.
I am not a saint. Nowhere close. I’ve gained this “expensive knowledge“ through loss and pain that seemed unbearable.
After being dumped recently, I started to skirt around the edge of the chasm of self-pity (again) and thought, “It’s not all about you, Ben”. Evidence of how spiritual and (very) occasionally unselfish I’ve become. Before I could properly congratulate myself, one two-letter word bubbled up from the Truthful, grass-growing, dog-making void: “at”.
“It’s not at all about you, Ben”.
Fuck.
Going into that relationship, I had been inspired to play by Boy Scout, campground rules; no matter what happens, you will leave her better than you found her.
We’re still good friends. A miracle.
The gift of loving people is that I become a loving person. As a bonus, I feel pretty good about that guy (me) at the end of the day.
An analogy I’ve heard that I like: we are like lamps. Powerless by design. We have to plug into the power (Truth, Void, God?). Lamps aren’t meant to light themselves. Such a lamp would be worthless; you couldn’t sell it for a nickel at a garage sale. No one wants that crap.
My deepest, heartfelt desire is to send the light I have been given out into this dark world.
I love you, wish me luck.
This is exactly what I was before sobriety:
"What I loved was your approval – your attention."
After sobriety: "The gift of loving people is that I become a loving person."
Glad we are on this sober journey together.... x
Ben you are a gorgeous writer. And so far, to me, it seems, a wonderful human as well! Sometimes it takes a while to get there though, doesn’t it.
Looking forward to more of the story.