On Independence…
Independence: freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.
Do I have this?
Financially, I’ve been largely independent since age 17 (well, somewhat so since age 15, but still lived at home). I think the last time I borrowed money was when I was 23, a full-time student with two children, and I paid it back as soon as I could. I hate to feel beholden to anybody.
On the other hand… I felt like a piece of portable property the first 17 years of my life, and then again while married from ages 18 – 26. What I mean by this is that all actions were sanctioned by the person I deferred to. As a kid, questioning the rules only got me verbal or physical abuse. As a wife, I’d never hear the end of it if I wanted to do something outside of the approved activities. In addition to whatever moaning/groaning/whining/yelling/manipulative words that my “stupid” suggestion would garner, I would be treated as if I was abandoning the family if I went out alone or even just talked to anyone who was not pre-approved. And so, it has only been in the last couple of years that I have fully understood the nature of being an independent human.
I have always had a hard time believing I should control my own life, not because I can’t do it, but because I have always believed I wasn’t allowed to. At some fundamental level, I truly believe that my life and thoughts and feelings are unimportant. I know intelligently and intuitively that this is a falsity, but I still feel a fear of retaliation if I do not comply. And so, I am mostly free from the control of others, but I still feel pressure to respond to manipulation with subservience.
This bothers me. I try to break away from it, but sometimes I do it without realizing… and then I have to backtrack my way out of doing things I don’t even want to do. It’s infuriating because it makes me feel so weak and idiotic that I can’t even recognize when I am supposed to stand up for myself until I’m already being taken advantage of in some way. It is at these times I feel hate for myself and my automatic simpering. I feel disgust that I do that without even noticing. Really, though, I am just afraid because I feel like other people can still control me and I am afraid of that.
I can’t say that other people have influenced my personal thought processes much at all. Yes, I would outwardly agree or go along with whatever the prevailing opinion of the surrounding people was… but I’ve never actually agreed internally unless I already had the same idea. I am singularly stubborn when it comes to “changing my mind”, and it takes me a lot of thinking and researching and consideration to change my stance on something I truly feel to be important. On topics I have no strong feeling about, I participate in conversations by bringing up points from both sides of the argument because I like to learn as much as I can about a topic, even if it doesn’t particularly interest me.
Of course, this is maddening to other people because they can’t figure out whether I’m “the enemy” or not… Which I don’t get – why is anyone who doesn’t agree with you automatically THE ENEMY? Where has respect for humans as fellow humans worthy of respect gone? Now, respect is only given to those who agree with us on our hot-button issues. I can’t stand it. I call people on this all the time, and they just get angry and call me names, but I am on to the hypocrisy. I’m watching with my bold, staring, eyes; watching you like a hawk because your hypocrisy is apparent to me and I’m calculating just how long it will be until you turn on me…
Indeed, I am suspicious and have a hard time trusting anybody. I readily agree that conspiracies are a possibility and I do not rule out answers to mysteries simply because they are weird. Most people have a problem with “weird” (aka scary) because it’s not socially acceptable for one to be on intimate terms with aliens and ghosts and un-sparkly vampires, and so on…
But, I don’t care much – the occult, metaphysics, mysticism, and the unknown have always interested and excited me. I remember telling a scary story to my babysitter when I was about five – the main character from the story was a demon with goat feet who came from the cemetery about a mile away from the house and was walking up the driveway as I was telling the story. Yeah. I’m a creep.
Regardless of my theorizing and strange ways, I still wish to be understood and love and cherished and appreciated. I’m not sure exactly what that has to do with independence, but I do know that I want to be loved independently of what I do for those who would love me. For complicated and very personal reasons, I have no interest in random romantic relationships, and so I am not particularly talking about romantic love. I just mean in general. I’d like to be accepted and loved without feeling pressure to pretend.
I don’t know that I will ever find “my people”, and I am very jealous of folks who’ve found their soul kin. I feel lonely now because I feel a strong deficit of a soul that resonates with my own. I don’t feel lonely for people, per se, but I feel isolated when I think of the communion that is found with like souls. I think I’m lazy, because I don’t really want to go out looking for people who “fit”. And the truth is, I just don’t have the time or energy to shop for friends. I honestly have no interest in trial and error, and it’s annoying to me that people believe this means I’m “stuck up”. The truth is, I feel like if I’m meant to find people who fit with me like puzzle pieces, then I will find them in the due course of my life – no searching is necessary.
And so, I am independent from the need of constant companionship, but not from the need and contentedness of love. Does it count if I feel love that is not returned? I don’t know. I really can’t say. Either way, there’s nothing I can do about it.
And, in my cryptic way, I’ve just told you the main problem with my emotions; the reasons I am deeply confused. And, though I can’t tell you all the details because it is too dear to me, I still feel the soreness of not understanding how these things are falling together.
And so, the question becomes – is one truly independent if his/her life is “falling together” in ways s/he cannot perceive?
I don’t know, but I am willing to live in that paradox if it means I will find the rest of my soul.