The Full Circle Reason

The first time I met a new patient of mine, I found myself surprised to see her sitting outside on the patio given that she is on Continuous Care. We only put you on Continuous Care when you are having medication issues or for immanency, and I heard she was on due to her death being expected shortly. A young woman in her fifties shrivelled from cancer and aged by at least thirty years. The visit with her was short given how easily exhausted she becomes. She fell asleep numerous times while we spoke–even in the middle of sentences–so I sat quietly praying for her and for her daughters.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my nieces. I will do anything for them. In many ways they contain God’s greatest gift to me. No matter how much they might drive me nuts, I always can come around for them. I just love them–and forgive them and me for our humanness–that much. So when I meet other young women of a similar age, I find my heart picks up the same rhythm it has around Morgan and Piano Girl. For this reason, I offered to come back and speak at a more convenient time to my patient’s twenty-something daughter. I thought about my nieces and what they might need from a chaplain if Sista was dying. And I gave thanks that for at least one more minute I am young and cute (if I do say so myself), which goes a long way in reaching out to someone also young and cute and facing one of the most horrible losses of her life.

I arrived as agreed and met “Stacy” in the parking lot of their complex. Right on time, she came whirrling into the lot in her bright orange sports car. The car fit her personality, at least what I saw of it ever so briefly on my first visit. We went inside and she flitted around like a butterfly on acid ordering Chinese food, talking to her mother, and to our nurse. For a brief moment I thought she was going to cancel our conversation, but finally she looked up at me and asked, “So, where do we do this thing?” We ended up sitting next to each other on the couch and with a rush she began.

“I am really having a hard time. I can’t lose my mom–you know, I kind of still have hope she will pull through this–but I also know in my head that she is going to die. I do not trust anyone. I need help, but I can’t let anyone help me. I push people away. I am really independent like that. I think my sister is going to take a leave of absence and come down. My boyfriend is always trying to help me…but I have to find ways to pay him back. I feel bad if he stays to help me, like he has better things to be doing than helping me with my mom or because I am scared. And my friend from work–well, I pushed her away a couple of weeks ago. I always do that. I have a hard time making friends, especially with girls. I do not trust them. Not that I trust guys, mind you, because they all cheat. I mean my dad–before he died–cheated on my mom. My step-dad too. Every man cheats. I know my boyfriend cannot be trusted. My step-dad beat my mom, but he helped so much financially. She stayed with him because of us. I do not know who to trust or have help, so yes I am young but it is all up to me. That is why I like to help people and want to help people for a living. I am good at that. So, what exactly is it that you can do to help me?”

As I sat there listening to her I felt prepared. I heard this story once before, just with a slightly different cast of characters. At the time, the story was just a personal history. I filed it under “everybody goes through shit” and this is the shit The Bean went through. I look back now and see the signs he would eventually implode, but at the time the story was just that. A story. History. Past tense. Over. Done with. The imploding, however, got my attention as I lay devestated from the nuclear fall-out.

I looked at her ever so softly and asked, “Who was the alchoholic…your mom or your step-father?” The answer: Both of them.

I read a book about Adult Children of Alcoholics after The Bean imploded and left. I paid attention. I saw much of my own family dynamics, and the ways I continue to practice day after day healthier ways of living and relating in the world. I saw just how fucking hard it is, as best I can for someone who did not grow up that way, and how much work it takes to really deal again and again with it as it comes up. I learned some things I shared with this terrified girl, most importantly that being in relationships–especially intimate or fragile ones–wakens the beast of fear and that she did not have to reinvent the wheel to find her way to safety. The path has been walked by many, and they are availible to help her find her way.

When she repeated to me again that she just cannot trust anyone, I gave her the only promise I know: “You can learn to trust yourself, so that when people fail you–and they will because we are all human and make mistakes, even Chaplains– you will trust yourself to get through it and figure it out.”

I sat there so grateful I grew up in some terribly important ways…so grateful all the imploding shit was not just left to rot out me and my heart, but could be used for good somehow. All of a sudden, in one conversation all the pain of this terrible heartbreak was bearable. All of a sudden, I was glad I met The Bean, and I was ready to say that I do not regret meeting him. All of a sudden, everything was okay. All of a sudden, everything came full circle.

Now this is the place where some of my dear readers might be saying to themselves, “Yes. Everything happens for a reason.” I do not believe in that lie. If everything happens for a reason, then The Puppet Master we call fate, or destiny, or God, is intentionally causing terrible things to happen to us in order to teach us a lesson. I posses no freedom of action, just freedom of emotional reaction until I get to whatever reaction this Puppet Master has deemed pleasing to itself. No thank you.

I do, however, believe things happen for the reason we give them. I believe in our limitless creativity, which I think continually surprises God in its joy, love, forgiveness and at times, cruelty. I am the one who can with all the love in the universe take back a thing meant only for my harm and find a way to make it into something life giving for myself or others. I am the one who can invite God into that space to whisper in my ear “potential” when my heart is crying out “impossibility.” I am the one who can forgive, let go, reshape, build anew, and design good things for my life with whatever comes my way. As I said to Stacy, I can trust myself even when others prove untrustworthy.

So, I changed what I wrote about him in The Dating Game.

Here is the old version:

The Bean. Bank Robber, Cynic, Musician, Writer and Atheist. I must admit that he possess lovely qualities: whip-smart, funny, kind, playful, an amazing teacher, generous, fun to be around, reads books, talks about real things, compassionate. Or at least that was The Bean I experienced until his ex-girlfriend called, he went to have dessert until after 2 in the morning, and… Loving him changed me forever and in beautiful ways. I never want losing him to take away those things or change me into someone more cynical, more fearful, and less trusting, but so far, it has. I only want to be my true self–like I was when I met him and with him– regardless of the pain he caused when he left. Although he is the only person I feel I ever really “fell in love with,” none of it remains as sweet as it might of if we had broken-up over not being good together and with integrity. He said, “I only dated you because I was lonely.” I believe this to be true. Unfair. Wrong. But true, even if only in part. Given this, I wish I never met him, which is terribly hard and painful to say, but given the lies my joy was based on, it is also really honest. No one likes to be the fool, even if everybody plays one sometime, so every memory, every thought, every feeling became tainted in one cruel week. As I said, I wish I never met him.

Here is the new:

The Bean. Bank Robber, Cynic, Musician, Writer and Atheist. I must admit that he possess lovely qualities: whip-smart, funny, kind, playful, an amazing teacher, generous, fun to be around, reads books, talks about real things, compassionate. This is The Bean I experienced until he “imploded” (his word). Loving him changed me forever and in beautiful ways. I never want losing him to take away those things or change me into someone more cynical, more fearful, and less trusting, so I have worked very hard and intentionally to not let them. I only want to be my true self–like I was when I met him and with him–because I really like her. She is a good girl. I think I understand now that he did the very best that he could do, and even while it may not have been the very best for himself or for me, it was all he was capable of. The day it ended I told him I remember who he really is. He replied, “I am glad one of us still does because I don’t.” I carry that beautiful, imaginative, kind young man who really gets it in my heart and only want the best for him. I want that for me too. I give us both countless amounts of freedom to find it for ourselves, by ourselves.

Amen. So be it.