185. dither

A few weeks ago I met up with my friend Sarah to go see a show at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. It was Four Humors Theater’s adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 screenplay based on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel “Lolita” about a twelve-year-old girl’s sexual relationships with two adult men.

As performed by three adult men, the actor playing the title character looking absolutely nothing like a twelve-year-old girl. It was predictably awkward and hilarious, especially at the end when the actor playing Lolita reveals that he had no idea that the story is about a “sexually precocious girl,” at one point crying out in horror to the other guys: “My grandmother was going to be here tonight! Gran! I’m sorry!”

This was the company that did the brilliant adaptation of Voltaire’s Candide at Fringe last year.

Afterwards, Sarah and I grabbed dinner in lieu of not making it to the following show that she was hoping to see. During dinner, she told me about a book she’d been reading called Attachment by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. In it, they discuss three different relationship “orientations”: anxious, stable, and avoidant.

Attachment theory has been around since the 1960s and 70s. According to the Wikipedia page, the styles break down in the following ways:

• secure: “It is relatively easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don’t worry about being alone or having others not accept me.”
• anxious (preoccupied): “I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them.”
• dismissive (avoidant): “I am comfortable without close emotional relationships.”, “It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient”, and “I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.”
• fearful (avoidant): “I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others.”

Anyone who has followed my blog for some time will probably recognize the second category, anxious/preoccupied, as describing my relationship style spot on. I usually feel uneasy around the people in my life, and I worry almost constantly about whether or not they’ll reject me. If we have a disagreement or fight, or I do something to offend or that oversteps boundaries, I assume that the person hates me and wants nothing more to do with me. In reality, they have no idea that I feel that way and often assume that everything is perfectly find.

The fact is that I’m an affection junkie. I didn’t grow up with much praise at home, and in my early years affection was often conditional. I had to behave a certain way or meet some benchmark that my parents set before it was granted. The lesson I learned as a child was that I’m not worth loving unless I perform well enough or do enough to earn that love. I unconsciously do things for the people in my life, trying to earn my keep in their good graces, all the while a script is running in my mind: “If they really knew you and how much of a fuck up you are, they’d drop you faster than a half-way decent show on Fox.”

This causes me to see any of my accomplishments or personal victories as just a drop in the bucket that I need to fill just to begin washing away the stain of my failure as a human being. I’m constantly trying to prove to everyone that I am special, yet nothing is ever good enough to silence the critical voices in my mind that are leaping to tear me down before anyone else can get there first. The hope is that if I do a good enough job beating myself up, everyone else will leave me alone.

With lovers, I tend to bend over backwards to keep them and obsess over relationship status. Each rejection a black mark on my worthiness report, in the same way that missing a credit card payment goes on your record forever. It leads to me sticking around longer than I should, and putting up with behavior that would make anyone with an ounce of self-respect walk out at the first sign of trouble. These are things that friends will attempt to comment on out of concern, that I will dismiss like a stereotypical battered spouse, saying: “But you don’t really know him.”

My fears about turning 30 were mostly about having another reason for guys to reject me, my terror at being alone with myself, and not knowing who I am without someone to validate my worthiness, even though I don’t really believe affirmations. At the back of my mind lurks that dark voice whispering: “If they ever saw behind the mask, they wouldn’t say nice things about you.”

And the pathetic thing is that I believe that inner voice. It’s easier than believing that someone could love a flawed and insecure person like me, or that I could ever learn to rest easy in some guy’s arms and not worry that he’s going to leave me at the minute things get unpleasant. The thought of ever being happy terrifies me because I’m always waiting for the next disaster.

The cute, sexy, nerdy, intriguing guy I’m talking to inevitably ends up being partnered, or isn’t interested in a relationship.

I’m not cute, interesting, muscular, or (curiously) vapid enough to catch anyone’s attention.

In short, I’m struggling to find evidence to support the claim that friends make that I really am a terrific catch, and that everyone else is stupid for turning down such a great guy like me…

184. spigot

July was a rough month for David.

My long-term contract finally ended at the university where I’d been doing administrative support since March 2012. I’d been informed of this about two weeks prior and started sending out résumés right away in the midst of completing the project work I was doing there. I let two temp agencies I’ve worked with in the past know that I’d be available starting July 1st.

Then June 28th came around, and there was not a bite on any of the applications I submitted. Granted, that was the week of the 4th of July so a lot of hiring managers may have been out on vacation. So I kept filling out and submitting applications. The temp agencies started calling with job opportunities that sounded like a “great fit” for my skill set that they wanted to submit my resume for, only to call back a week later to say that the client had selected another candidate.

I started getting email responses like this:

After screening your application materials, you are not among the candidates who will proceed to the next step in the process. However, you may be considered for future vacancies as additional positions become available.

A couple of the places I submitted résumés to that actually responded wanted me to come in for interviews, only to call shortly after to say that I hadn’t been selected. Meanwhile, the bills kept coming in, rent was due, and I had to buy groceries to avoid starvation. A haircut still seems like a luxury, even though I do need to look presentable (read = hireable).

This has been a demoralizing month, not to put too fine a point on it. My thirtieth half-birthday just passed, meaning I’ve passed the half-way point to thirty-one, and I’m without a job and steady income. My application to receive unemployment benefits finally went through a few days ago, meaning that I have a little cushion room while looking for permanent work.

Just another first.

I did experience some relief in my contract ending with the university. While I liked the people, I wasn’t really happy with the kind of work I was doing there, or the work that I’ve been doing the past few years. It’s tough to find anything else with my skill set, however. I trained for a career in music academia, and at the $11-12/hr pay rate my degree and experience have garnered, it’s been virtually impossible to pursue additional training and, you know, pay the bills and live.

The truth is, I’ve been rather down on my experience and education since graduating with what I’ve often referred to as a “useless” degree in music composition. From a conservative Christian liberal arts college, no less. It wasn’t until talking with a friend who is a career counselor several years ago that I even saw the marketable value in such a credential. A music education is not the fluffy walk in the park that many high school seniors seem to think it is. It’s actually one of the most rigorous fields of study there is, aside from medicine or law. It requires a high degree of analytical and creative thinking, learning to work and think collaboratively, and retaining a great deal of information that you’re required to apply and synthesize into performance.

The amount of rejection I faced both in college and after led me to believe that what I had to offer was something that nobody wanted—that I’d wasted almost a decade of my life pursuing something that was only going to be decorative. Like most people, I can’t make a living doing what it is that makes me feel most alive. Yet being stuck in an office, at a desk, staring at a computer screen at spreadsheets, and formatting and filing documents is suffocating and deadening, like the gnomes of Bism in The Silver Chair, held in captivity too near the surface.

The other day I was finally able to see my therapist after over a month of not being able to afford to go. It didn’t feel like a very productive session as I was pretty low that day and felt like I was just babbling most of the time. What I did manage to get out of the visit was the reality that I’m in the midst of a crucible of renewal, both personally and artistically, and that I often fail to see the actual value in the wealth of experience that I do have.

Though I’ve flirted with pursuing other professions and fields of study, the one that has most consistently held my interest is music. Over the past couple of months, after beginning to connect again with musical friends, I’ve started composing again, and the feeling of satisfaction in putting notes to paper is palpable and intoxicating.

Another realization that came after seeing my therapist was hearing that I’m finally approaching my career, creativity and life purpose as me, as my authentic self. While I wasn’t necessarily an empty shell before, I was living my life by what I believed other people wanted for (and by their expectations of) me. It felt like being a shadow, and I had very little idea of who I actually was.

Once I started getting free of the anger and resentment that followed my deconversion from religion, I could begin to piece together who I really am and what I truly value, and live by that. I’m not entirely sure yet what that means for a career, but it does involve making this world a better and more beautiful place. For creativity, it means pursuing what deeply resonates with me (instead of what will glorify God), promoting a Humanistic worldview, and using music and art to highlight issues that matter to me and to bring people and communities together.

Life is too wonderful and short to keep my head down and work for retirement. Because there’s more to my passion than a pile a stuff.