Luann Udell / Durable Goods

Monday, January 02, 2006

FRIENDS

Here's a snippet from an e-mail to a trusted "life advisor" I wrote today. I had written to her asking for help figuring out some relationship issues I've been having over the past year. I had to ask for help much, much more than I've ever been comfortable with. Sometimes people came through in astonishing ways. Other times, they "failed" in astonishing ways.

Part of the support system this woman taught me to create is being able to ask for the help we need--to learn to ask for the specific help we need. When it works, it is astonishing. So how do we reconcile people who decide they know better than us what help we need? Who commit but cannot always keep their commitments, who offer expertise it turns out they do not have, who want to help but who are hampered by their own fears and jealousies?

And who am I to judge? I have failed my friends in "astonishing" ways, myself!

Here is what I told my advisor I'd learned:

I've been reading Ben Zander's book THE ART OF POSSIBILITY and had some amazing insights to my issues on friendship.

I thought it was about setting boundaries and "limiting liability" so as not to be disappointed, or finding "better friends" (though I knew in my heart that was not it--I have AMAZING friends), and it's not.

It's about being able to accept people for what they can offer AND what they cannot, fully recognizing that they have their own priorities and commitments and issues they have to deal with--even when they commit to mine temporarily, theirs may still have to come first.

Feeling they have not chosen "me" is a lose/lose proposition, and does not serve either of us well.

And that any venture that seems to depends on them, no matter how important it may seem at the time, is still not as important as the friendship between us.

When my friends love me and care for me, then they will show it in a million different ways, unasked for, even if there are times when I ask for it and they cannot show it that way, at that time, in that place.

It seems to conflict with the "support" question--being able to ask for support and getting it--but I'll figure out where the two are compatible, eventually! It may interfere with asking for help, when you fear it will not be given, but I think it will have something to do with rejoicing when it does appear and letting go when it doesn't.

This is huge for me--letting go of judgment and disappointment--but I think I can do it! :^)

In a way, I think it's a blessing to have come to this in my own time, though it's been a hard journey. Thank you for offering to help, and thank YOU for being a blessing in my life yourself!"

To all my friends who have appeared in my life over the years, thank you from the bottom of my heart! Some friendships were strong, some were long, some were easy and some were not. But when it was good, it was very VERY good, and when it was bad, well, I still cherish the good.

I hope you can forgive and overlook my own shortcomings and oddities and know that I wish you the very best.

I hope I'm not beginning to sound like I've joined a 12-step program, because I haven't. But it was just time to say that.

comment [] 7:57:45 PM

THE ART OF POSSIBILITY

The last day of 2005 was a day of a fourth "intervention". I began to read the book THE ART OF POSSIBILITY by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander (who I wrote about a few days ago in the blog entry BEN AND JOANNE).

My issues lately may seem focused on doing this one show, or trying to clean my studio. But it's been harsher than that. I simply could not think of a good reason to get out of bed in the morning, other than sheer will.

I could not think of a single activity that was pure fun. Or a single relationship that was whole and "unchewed." Or a single plan of action that brought me joy--with my art, with my family, with my life.

Trying to write about things in an encouraging way felt more and more like a huge lie.

I think I was--no, AM--mildly depressed again.

I've been here before, just before I embarked on my artistic career roughly ten years ago. I knew it that monumental sea change had happened once.

I just could not really believe it could happen again.

I know when you are in the middle of such a change, it seems endless and it takes its own good time. You cannot force your way through it or jump ahead to the good parts.

But the slowness of the process has been bringing me down, down, down.

This book is helping me to see the state of mind I achieved back then. I can almost remember, almost FEEL what that felt like. I can feel wheels creaking slowly as they start to move again, or like the barest hint of a thaw after a long, hard winter.

I have been caught up in what the Zanders call the "calculating self", creating a vision of the world built on competition and shortage and measurement. This is a world I can never hope to conquer or subdue. I will never achieve enough to truly feel successful. There is no measure of success that will PROVE to me I am the artist I desire to be. Because it cannot BE measured. There will always be someone "better", someone more successful, someone more highly respected, someone more talented--or simply someone who will refuse to see you at all. My calculating self will never be satisfied.

But it can be set aside.

I want to get back to what the call the "central self"--to create a personal sense of the world of possibility again. It's what I WANT to believe, it's where I am at my best and most fulfilled as an artist. I just haven't FELT it in a long time.

I want to apply a different story, a different spin, a new interpretation of my world and my place in it. It worked before. I now KNOW it will work again.

So in keeping with determination to set the calculating self aside, to embrace this spirit of a world of possibility, I will NOT list my achievements of the last year.

I'm going to be working on a letter of contribution--a letter to myself, describing who I will be on December 31, 2006, and what contribution to the world I will have made.

It's going to be a hard letter to write, because I have felt so empty. But I now know it's going to involve renewed faith in who I am and more open-hearted delight in others; some healed friendships due to lowered expectations about what what others "owe" me. And lowered expecations on what I have to do to be "successful." A letter detailing much laughter and joy and FUN. If I can think it, I can be it.

In fact, I want to try snowboarding today, but my son is trying to talk me out of it. Maybe I'll go for a long walk with Jon up "the big hill" he's been trying to get me up all week.

The sun is out, and I'm reminded that there's "no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing", so off we go.

To put on better spiritual "clothing".

comment [] 12:22:02 PM