Nothing Special

It seems that I have spent a lifetime trying to unlearn things that I have learned. At least I've done my best to unlearn my upbringing, the nurture part. The nature part (DNA) is a struggle, too. One recent development in my quest for unlearning is the realization that there is nothing special about me. I mean that not in a self-centered way, but pragmatically. There is not one thought or emotion or "reality" that I have experienced that someone else has not experienced before me. I'm sure that Mallory meant this knowledge to console me. Everyone goes through the same mental process after a divorce. Shouldn't that be comforting? I am not alone. What feels like unique pain is universal. We are all wired the same.

Population Clocks

U.S. 302,693,838

World 6,613,983,597

11:15 GMT (EST+5) Aug 25, 2007

There are 6,613,983,597 homo sapiens in the world, "bipedal primate mammals that are anatomically related to the great apes but distinguished especially by notable development of the brain with a resultant capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning, are usually considered to form a variable number of freely interbreeding races, and are the sole living representatives of the hominid family." ("Man", Websters Online)

We are big selfish mammals that take up a lot of room, eat too much, get fatter and fatter, dirty our nest, fight and kill each other for natural resources, multiply multiply multiply, and have inflated self-worth, believing we were created by God and chosen to have dominion over the earth.

Even Mother Theresa, who lived against most negative human tendencies, was not special. "My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains," she wrote in 1958. "[People] think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing, and that my intimacy with God and union with His will fill my heart. If only they knew." Later she went into more detail: "The damned of hell suffer eternal punishment because they experiment with the loss of God. In my own soul, I feel the terrible pain of this loss. I feel that God does not want me, that God is not God, and that God does not exist." Il Segreto di Madre Teresa (Mother Teresa's Secret).

Mother Theresa realized that she was not special. Somehow I find that comforting.

I Will Never Learn To Obey

Dolly hugged my arm as we walked around the lake on Sunday, every other step asking "Did you tell them I left,"or "Is it ok that we are walking so far?" and it hit me like a platitude that we had reversed roles. Everyone knows this eventually happens. We like to quote Ecclesiastes and sing our plaintive folk songs about "Turn Turn Turn"-ing. "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal..."

If I were a geriatric Dolly and she were me, I'd like her to be the 10-year-old fearless me that explored the woods and caught frogs and hugged the wet dog that lumbered from the lake and shook a spray of muddy water over gleeful me. Or even the teenager who staggered in the house with Veronica at 3am, hidden beer bottles sliding from her jacket that rolled slowly across the living room floor as Dolly, who had waited up, stood watching in her bathrobe.

Dolly has become the obedient and "perfect child". Now that I am her mother, she does all the work for me. I don't have to worry about her wandering away from the assisted-living facility. She is a mother's dream. Funny, I used to try to get my kids to skip school, get a little wild. All were such disciplined athletes and smart people. None matched my reckless rebellion.

When I grow old and am unable to care for myself I must get myself to the wilderness, push myself off in a canoe, and drift away. Caring for an aging me would be unbearable, no doubt. I fear I will never learn to obey.

The Burden of Being Butterfly

Being a new person isn't so easy, I've found. It's like losing weight. Easy going on, but long and hard coming off. I like to eat. I'm a lazy coward.

"I need an ambulance! I need an ambulance!" were the desperate words that awakened me with a shock in the night. Had I said them aloud, or were they a little secret tucked silently away in my mind?

Maybe I'm dying, I think (metaphorically, of course). Just when you realize you will never possess that which you desire (and in fact could care less), it's yours.

The burden of accomplishment. Getting. Possessing. Striving. Having a dream. Reaching a goal, running to the finish line, believing, achieving, actuating, high-five, riding-high, looking good, confident, proud, satisfied.

What a lot of distraction.