12 Questions Series: How will you live now?

In Bhanu Kapil’s book, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, there’s a Twelve Questions poem that I knew I wanted to find answers to the moment I read it. I love a great exercise of interrogation and of course, the hope that in some small ways, I discover some truth, come across a changed thought or simply better understand this self, this nuanced life and learn ways to carry well that which I have been given.

Question 4: How will you live now?

You have to believe me when I say I do not yet know how, or what to make of my days, or how to get by fully alive. The easiest thing is to say I want to live freely, unencumbered by fear, and at a pace that allows me rest and significant rewards of labor at the same time. And of course, that I want to live in an abundance of love and infinite joy & beauty. But these past few weeks, I have been hurt and felt betrayed and it saddens me to realize what this experience is doing to me, how much it is changing me.

C. S. Lewis wrote about this—the self-protective lovelessness: “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

When I think about love, I think about the opening of self, the kind of vulnerability that sheds everything in its way and cries, This is me, this is all of me. A voice that says “Some parts of me were hidden in the dark until you showed up.” It’s a leap of trust. A surprising readiness to have your body in the arms of another because not only did you crave to be held, but now you realize there are arms that are hungry to embrace you just as much as you are to run into them. When I think about love, I imagine throwing away every defensive armor—of which I have many. And as difficult as this may seem, I did the bravest thing and I loved all the way through. I have loved deeply and fiercely and I have come away very bruised and disappointed.

I chose a friend to whom I could share so much of my life with and in the past month, I have stood on the edge and watched the relationship crumble at my feet. I have and continue to grieve the loss. The heaviness of it has shocked and frightened me. The pain of it has broken and weakened me. Now my tendencies are clear before me: my urge to latch on to people, my fear of inadequacy and the lie I have so often made myself believe — that I’m small, incapable and helpless on my own—so much that while I spent years convincing myself of this, I was simultaneously showing people how to treat me, and in what ways to respond to my needs. In this manner, people have showed up with the hope to save, to hold me firmly and keep me together. And while it’s not entirely wrong for such grace to be extended to me, I have seen the danger in this.

If there’s one thing I want to resist, it is the illusion of power and control, the thing that has someone believe they are morally superior and have the right to dictate what you ought to do precisely because of all they’ve given you.

It should disturb anyone who finally realizes those who have cared for them are also the people provoking a sense of indebtedness and projecting ingratitude. It is a cost I am finally coming to terms with— stand your ground and uphold your truth or spend the rest of your life walking in another’s shadow. I don’t want the latter. It is an exhausting and compromising way to live, and it cannot be sustained. It is a tragic business of diminishing, stripping, and of erasing oneself. And it is what I shall not bring myself to tolerate or justify. To be utterly truthful, my inclination these days is to live so far away from anyone who offers love, to raise walls high above and guard my heart. Yes, I know it is no way to live but look what happened when I opened myself up. I can’t help but question the motive of people’s kindness now, feel the burden of expectation when I stretch out my hand to receive a gift. I am afraid of all that is left unspoken in the gap. I am afraid to trust.

There’s no denying this reflection is pushing its way out from a fresh wound. I am certain that like most things, time will make much of life’s grief less sharp and more bearable, but what I have felt, even temporarily, will always be true. Again, I realize I am not completely exempt from being on the other side of this table. The reality being we think we know our hearts and our ways until we are pushed and then suddenly we realize we’re just as flawed and that we too are susceptible to the same awful tendencies.

I hope that my memory of this experience only drives me to become a better human. That having seen how hurtful it can be, having trusted and been let down, I will be urgently mindful when someone else opens up and reveals themselves to me.

For it may happen that someday I be the one who does the giving, attempts the saving, and with my eyes, witness intimately the light and darkness of a heart. And I hope to God I don’t attain a level of entitlement, I don’t elevate my life above anyone else’s, I don’t ever perceive myself superior or in possession of something valuable beyond another’s life, their integrity, their substance. For in doing so, I bite on this very fruit I’m trampling on and I may leave the people I love devastated in the place I was once desperate to flee from.

Zadie Smith wrote what I suppose is an idea I’m driving at in this post: “I think the hardest thing for anyone is accepting that other people are real as you are. That's it. Not using them as tools, not using them as examples or things to make yourself feel better or things to get over or under. Just accepting that they are absolutely as real as you are.”

I want to live with a soul that is not disengaged or indifferent, with an optimism for life that is not lost in the ruggedness of the world. To live with extraordinary resilience in the face of unkindness. To awaken my mind to the goodness that still abounds, to the fortune of love and trust that carry a friendship. Ultimately, to learn to do again that which is difficult but necessary, the task of humanity: to choose the enduring path of love day after day.