The Annual Speech From the Throne
I think I'm ready to give up the hope that I will ever have what other people might casually refer to as a "normal" year, a year in which little of note happens, no boats are rocked, no groundswells of self-enlightenment happen, and there are no earth-shattering kabooms lurking around every departure from the safety of my house. In being an exceptional year, 2006 has proven to be no exception to the long-standing trend of exceptional years.
And I think, at almost forty years old, I'm finally coming to terms with that fact.
2006 has been a year of hard-fought battles (some won and others lost), and hard-earned lessons (some internalized and others... still in progress). Looking across the coffee table this morning at the man who became my husband in 2006 - a man who, a year ago, was quietly despairing that his fiance might never actually pay attention to his needs or respect him like an equal partner in the relationship - I find that the biggest gain of this past year has been the subtle but significant achievement of comprehension about a lot of things I had been glossing over in recent years.
In spite of spending the first six months of the year locked in a power struggle of epic proportions - not with Matthew, but with my own internal weasels - I have come out of the final half of the year with a better sense of who I am and where I fit in the context of my marriage, my loves, my friendships, my work, my creativity. I'm still struggling to make time and space for all of these aspects of myself according to their relative priority in my life, but in all honesty, who among us isn't? I have learned that I am not lacking autonomy, I'm simply sometimes blinded by fears that occlude the facts of where my personal strength and power really lie. I have also learned that what I used to define as "autonomy" actually translated to "freedom to do as I want, without responsibility for the consequences". And I have learned just how much damage and disservice that definition has done me.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned in this past year is how I perceive the relationship between happiness and contentment. Neil (my first husband, some fifteen years ago) used to say he was content, in a context that lead me to believe he used contentment as a white-trash-cousin kind of replacement for being happy. "I can't be happy, so I'll settle for content." It was a comment that I always found more than a little upsetting in the years with him. Coming full circle a decade and a half later, however, I have learned that contentment has become, for me, a baseline state, and happiness is a kind of biorhythmic pattern that fluctuates over and under that baseline.
It's been an extremely useful lesson, this one. Happiness becomes a transient state that can be purchased with all kinds of simple things, like wants. Contentment, on the other hand, is the longer term view, the overall state of being stable and satisfied, engaged, not stagnant. I can be unhappy in the short term, but content with the overall State of the Nation. I can be tremendously happy in the short term, but find discontent and unease in my core. They are two distinct, separate things for me now. As I explained to a friend the other night, the other advantage of distinguishing these two factors is the ability to map needs and wants to them now. Wants can affect my happiness on a moment to moment basis: get what I want = happy, not get what I want = unhappy, but a want is something I can live without quite handily without affecting my long-term, overall contentment in life. A need, on the other hand, directly affects my contentment. Needs being met in the long-term = contentment. Needs going unmet in the long-term = discontent. A need can go unmet in the short term without affecting my contentment (though likely affecting the transient sense of Happiness), but my core suffers if it continues in the long term.
My needs are being met. All of them, for the first time in any single relationship. My wants fluctuate wildly from moment to moment, but my needs are reasonably constant. I trust that I can bring them to Matthew, and that he will hear me, and that we can achieve collaborative solution (I don't do it often, but I've developed trust, over repetitive occurrences, that this is how things will happen when I do). Matthew confirmed for me this morning that this year's most significant achievement for him has been the development of a similar trust: that he can bring his needs to me, that I will hear them, and that we can achieve a solution. Given where we were a year ago, there is nothing more significant he could have said to me that would prove a greater marker of this year's lessons learned.
I like my life. I like my home. I adore my husband, I enjoy my lovers, I wallow delightedly in the companionship of a remarkable host of individuals who collectively make up my Tribe. On occasion I even enjoy the company of my cats, but don't tell them that, they still think I'm pissed at them for breaking a raft of tree ornaments this year. I am grateful in ways I cannot articulate, for the unconditional love and support I have been given and returned over the course of this year. It's a hard thing, to be patient while learning something new, but equally difficult is being on the outside of someone else's struggles, looking in and trying to help while also trying to stay out of the way. Anita once, many years ago, described it as being the kind of friend who will give me enough rope to hang myself, with the understanding that she'd also be the first person there with the knife to cut me down before things became irretrievable.
In 2006, I have encountered a lot of friends like that: people who have given me the space to have a very difficult personal year, and yet been there when I needed them. Some have even permitted me to return the favour. Many have avidly followed the progression of lessons learned this year, and a precious few have even started out on similar paths of their own, sharing their own lessons in kind. It's less a validation of my being on the right path, and more the validation that in the end, we're all in this lifeboat together, and everyone has something to teach each of us, have we just the patience to listen and willingness to hear.
On Yule, the seasons turned; the days have already started to lengthen. But as 2006 draws up the blankets and prepares to turn off the lights on the year in preparation for the dawning of 2007, I would like to make it plain and clear that I am happy. Perhaps more importantly, however, I find I am, in all things, content. That's not to say that there aren't decisions I would make differently than I did this year, should I find myself in similar situations in the future, but the high cost of getting to this point in time, this place in my life, has been a valid and valued process, the outcome of which is immeasurably valuable to me.
Tomorrow night, my husband and I will draw around ourselves many of those who are nearest and dearest to us, to help us put 2006 to bed and ring in the New Year. It is an act of love and welcome that is, for me, the best way of saying Thank You that I know.
Be well through this holiday season and beyond.
And I think, at almost forty years old, I'm finally coming to terms with that fact.
2006 has been a year of hard-fought battles (some won and others lost), and hard-earned lessons (some internalized and others... still in progress). Looking across the coffee table this morning at the man who became my husband in 2006 - a man who, a year ago, was quietly despairing that his fiance might never actually pay attention to his needs or respect him like an equal partner in the relationship - I find that the biggest gain of this past year has been the subtle but significant achievement of comprehension about a lot of things I had been glossing over in recent years.
In spite of spending the first six months of the year locked in a power struggle of epic proportions - not with Matthew, but with my own internal weasels - I have come out of the final half of the year with a better sense of who I am and where I fit in the context of my marriage, my loves, my friendships, my work, my creativity. I'm still struggling to make time and space for all of these aspects of myself according to their relative priority in my life, but in all honesty, who among us isn't? I have learned that I am not lacking autonomy, I'm simply sometimes blinded by fears that occlude the facts of where my personal strength and power really lie. I have also learned that what I used to define as "autonomy" actually translated to "freedom to do as I want, without responsibility for the consequences". And I have learned just how much damage and disservice that definition has done me.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned in this past year is how I perceive the relationship between happiness and contentment. Neil (my first husband, some fifteen years ago) used to say he was content, in a context that lead me to believe he used contentment as a white-trash-cousin kind of replacement for being happy. "I can't be happy, so I'll settle for content." It was a comment that I always found more than a little upsetting in the years with him. Coming full circle a decade and a half later, however, I have learned that contentment has become, for me, a baseline state, and happiness is a kind of biorhythmic pattern that fluctuates over and under that baseline.
It's been an extremely useful lesson, this one. Happiness becomes a transient state that can be purchased with all kinds of simple things, like wants. Contentment, on the other hand, is the longer term view, the overall state of being stable and satisfied, engaged, not stagnant. I can be unhappy in the short term, but content with the overall State of the Nation. I can be tremendously happy in the short term, but find discontent and unease in my core. They are two distinct, separate things for me now. As I explained to a friend the other night, the other advantage of distinguishing these two factors is the ability to map needs and wants to them now. Wants can affect my happiness on a moment to moment basis: get what I want = happy, not get what I want = unhappy, but a want is something I can live without quite handily without affecting my long-term, overall contentment in life. A need, on the other hand, directly affects my contentment. Needs being met in the long-term = contentment. Needs going unmet in the long-term = discontent. A need can go unmet in the short term without affecting my contentment (though likely affecting the transient sense of Happiness), but my core suffers if it continues in the long term.
My needs are being met. All of them, for the first time in any single relationship. My wants fluctuate wildly from moment to moment, but my needs are reasonably constant. I trust that I can bring them to Matthew, and that he will hear me, and that we can achieve collaborative solution (I don't do it often, but I've developed trust, over repetitive occurrences, that this is how things will happen when I do). Matthew confirmed for me this morning that this year's most significant achievement for him has been the development of a similar trust: that he can bring his needs to me, that I will hear them, and that we can achieve a solution. Given where we were a year ago, there is nothing more significant he could have said to me that would prove a greater marker of this year's lessons learned.
I like my life. I like my home. I adore my husband, I enjoy my lovers, I wallow delightedly in the companionship of a remarkable host of individuals who collectively make up my Tribe. On occasion I even enjoy the company of my cats, but don't tell them that, they still think I'm pissed at them for breaking a raft of tree ornaments this year. I am grateful in ways I cannot articulate, for the unconditional love and support I have been given and returned over the course of this year. It's a hard thing, to be patient while learning something new, but equally difficult is being on the outside of someone else's struggles, looking in and trying to help while also trying to stay out of the way. Anita once, many years ago, described it as being the kind of friend who will give me enough rope to hang myself, with the understanding that she'd also be the first person there with the knife to cut me down before things became irretrievable.
In 2006, I have encountered a lot of friends like that: people who have given me the space to have a very difficult personal year, and yet been there when I needed them. Some have even permitted me to return the favour. Many have avidly followed the progression of lessons learned this year, and a precious few have even started out on similar paths of their own, sharing their own lessons in kind. It's less a validation of my being on the right path, and more the validation that in the end, we're all in this lifeboat together, and everyone has something to teach each of us, have we just the patience to listen and willingness to hear.
On Yule, the seasons turned; the days have already started to lengthen. But as 2006 draws up the blankets and prepares to turn off the lights on the year in preparation for the dawning of 2007, I would like to make it plain and clear that I am happy. Perhaps more importantly, however, I find I am, in all things, content. That's not to say that there aren't decisions I would make differently than I did this year, should I find myself in similar situations in the future, but the high cost of getting to this point in time, this place in my life, has been a valid and valued process, the outcome of which is immeasurably valuable to me.
Tomorrow night, my husband and I will draw around ourselves many of those who are nearest and dearest to us, to help us put 2006 to bed and ring in the New Year. It is an act of love and welcome that is, for me, the best way of saying Thank You that I know.
Be well through this holiday season and beyond.