More connection, less attachment

and the fear, allure and beauty of more.

1. All my life I’ve been attached to the idea of more connection. In elementary school it drove me, and it slayed me. I always seemed to find myself last in the picking of team members and even, literally, in my friend group. In third grade it was decided by the queen bee of our group that it would be a good idea for us to rank each other from 1-5 in order of preference on a sheet of paper, anonymously. The exercise of this made me physically sick as I intuited the political nature of it. When the slips were all unfolded, I was not surprised to see my name last on each sheet, even on my own. Of course I would sacrifice myself to be accepted.

2. Friendships throughout much of my compulsory education felt mostly like cold fronts. I’ve always loved the winter, the heavy silence of walking through falling snow, the ability to snuggle into multiple layers and accessorize with cute hats, scarves, mittens. But the cold fronts of my earliest female friendships consisted of arriving to school and being iced out. No explanation for the sudden silence, no answers to my questions or greetings, no refuge from the cold, just the stark, lonely, frozen tundra of my mind working overtime, “What did I do?!,” and what was wrong with me?

3. In high school my offense was the defensive stance of “fuck it.” I decided opting out was preferable to showing that I cared. Ironically this meant adopting a very showy way of being in the world, especially for 1984. I got a mohawk, I pierced my nose (by myself with a sewing needle and a carrot stuck up my nose), I stenciled A Mother’s Worst Nightmare on the back of my long black trench coat (this still makes me cringe). I wore the white plastic rosary from my first communion around my neck, I went to punk shows in Washington DC and found a tribe of other “rejects.” Eventually, at 16, due to unfortunate circumstances, I was cut loose from my home then couch surfed and lived on the streets and in abandoned buildings for a year, another kind of cold front.

4. It took me years to realize that many of the things I felt caused my exile from the pack were the things I valued in other human beings; strong enthusiasms, an interest in the esoteric, a deep abiding love of books, music, art and nature and a sense of perhaps being a little too much. It took me a while to meet these folks, develop those bonds, and I’ve still got my eyes peeled. I also realized my sensitivity, my too muchness, my overthinking, while not necessarily character defects, did increase my propensity for anxiety and for tap dancing endlessly; over functioning and course correcting any time I intuited I might not be accepted. Those early years of rejection had wormed their way into a rejection of myself and can still sometimes cause me to mind-read, to over function, to flee.

5. Once, over a decade after starting to meditate and becoming a Buddhist, I went for a walk with a friend, and she made the comment that Buddhist practice seemed like it encouraged a detached state of mind. This was not my own experience and as I struggled to explain the goal of my practice, I finally said for me it’s about “more connection and less attachment.” More however is a word deeply wound into my psyche and a motivator in almost every context of my life. I’ve lived my life as a person who seems to always be seeking more: more meaning, more understanding, more experiences, more words, more connection, with a big dose of existential yearning thrown in. I know I can chase this idea of more, it’s bedfellow never enough and their good friend don’t tie me down to my own detriment. The gift of my “no fucks to give” 50’s, a theme sometimes seen in the world of Gen X menopausal women on social media, doesn’t fit my mood exactly. I can acknowledge that my teenage self still thinks it sounds bad ass and I’m not opposed to bucking the system. But, unlike that armored up teen staring out at me from behind blue-black bangs, I am no longer afraid to share that I have a lot of fucks to give. At 57 I’m just a lot more discerning and aware of where they go, what is worth investing in, and have a lot better emotional management skills. So, more connection, less attachment, embroidered on a scrap of linen, another reminder of the work I want to keep doing.