On My Mind

On Love, or Why I Decided to Go to Therapy

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I’m building walls again.

I thought I’d kicked the habit, but I guess not.

I’m building walls so I can hide. I’m looking for ways to feel safe, to protect myself from a constant feeling of hopelessness. I’m buildings walls that scream, “I don’t care,” because if I don’t care then I can’t hurt. If I can build my walls tall enough, if I can hide behind trap doors and drawbridges, maybe I can avoid the feeling of nakedness that comes with the deepest forms of human connection.

Because I’ve lost that connection with people I love. And I don’t know if I’m courageous enough to seek it out again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. The fluidity of how we use the word love to describe emotions about people, animals, things, and ideas. I’ve been thinking about what it means to fall in love, to be in love, to stay in love. All of those are different, and it’s fascinating to me.

Love is a verb. We never talk about that.

Along the way, that’s what I forgot. I forgot that love means doing. It’s a demonstration, physically or verbally, of becoming part of someone’s life and allowing others to become part of one’s own life. It is a way of being towards oneself and others. I think that I haven’t been very good at loving. I have certainly not been good at loving myself, which I think is why I’ve lost track of what it means to love.

I’m building walls because I’m in a process of coming to terms with my choices. And it’s hard.

I was 17 when I fell in love for the first time. The subject of my affection sat on the couch next to me, talking about something that I have since forgotten. I remember that at one point I stopped listening because my breath had caught in my throat, there were butterflies in my stomach, and I was filled with an instinctive drive to hold, protect, and give the world. I’d never felt anything like that before. Oh, I thought. This is love.

I was 18 when love brought me to tears for the first time. When I cried, it was out of despair at not being able to hold tightly enough, do enough, give enough, and adequately express all of my emotions. I was simply not ready to give up what I was giving up.

I was 21 when love scared me for the first time. I realized the feelings I’d called love had taken a different tone. They nagged, reminding me that they were not what they had once been. Those feelings had changed. I learned that with love sometimes comes rejection. I didn’t know how to respond and I didn’t know how to keep asking.

I was 22 when a coworker helped me make the connection between love as an idea and love as a verb. Love became action. It became deliberate demonstration of meaning, of care, of kindness. Love literally grew and blossomed because of attention to the way that thoughts become feelings, feelings become ideas, and ideas become actions. Love was not just evident, but tangible.

I was 24 when love scared me for the second time. I hid behind walls that love had steadily been tearing down from the time I was 17. Afraid of hurting and being hurt, I put up walls to avoid the former. I tried to forget about the latter.

At 26 I realized that I’d forgotten about a key element to love. I’d forgotten about loving myself. And as a result, I couldn’t act in love the way I needed to. All the hurt I’d hoped to avoid came crashing down and manifested in ways I never imagined.

A friend once called me guarded. I am. I have spent 26 years trying to do what is best for others. In doing so, I neglected myself.

Sometimes I remember to approach myself with compassion, which can be really difficult for me. But I have learned that without being good for myself, there is simply not enough of me to also be good for others.

So I’m trying to be good to myself. I’m trying to do what is right for me, at least when I think I know what that is. I’ve taken probably three steps back for every step forward, but at least there’s still forward momentum.

This is why I decided to go to therapy.

I decided to go to therapy because I’d reached a point where my inability to cope with the sadness I’ve been feeling in my personal life was interfering with my ability to direct my efforts towards areas that truly matter to me. Things like the state of the US right now, or developing a more peaceful world. Thinking about, learning about, discussing, and working towards change is the work I want to be doing. That’s the work that gives me the greatest sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.

I’ve been struggling to direct my energies towards that with everything else on my mind, so I’m going to therapy as a way of getting outside my own head and back into what matters.

This may be the most compassionate thing I have ever done for myself. It is also likely one of the most important.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha

New York

Coffee for a Cause

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I love coffee. Very much. It occupies a very important role in my life, and I wake up every morning excited for the first sip. Drug? I think so.

I am also passionate about helping others, so I was delighted when my friend Emily suggested meeting at The Greenhouse Café for a warm beverage and sandwiches on a rainy day. The Greenhouse Café is a lovely little spot that used to be, as the name suggests, a functioning greenhouse! I didn’t even mind the Christmas decorations . . . too much.

It was a bit chilly to sit in the greenhouse so Emily, my friend Paige, and I actually sat in the back, a much more typical café setting with dining tables, matching chairs, and sturdy walls.

What I really enjoyed about Greenhouse Café, even more than the self-serve refillable coffee and the apple-cheddar panini prepared before my eyes, is that Greenhouse Café is part of Coffee Connection, a local nonprofit that purchases and then sells coffee that is fair trade, organic, and sustainably grown. Purchasing these particular coffee beans supports farmers who are committed to those practices. Coffee Connection then sells the coffee in a number of retail and wholesale establishments, providing jobs and job training in their coffee shops for women recovering from addiction.

That’s what we call a social enterprise and I love it.

It wasn’t until the woman who made our sandwiches and provided the necessary huge coffee mugs mentioned the original Coffee Connection on South Avenue that I realized I’d been there! The coffee is roasted on site at this café so it always smells delicious. There’s also a shop selling artisanal Peruvian goods in the back.

Friends, coffee, positive local and global actions. Works for me!

PS I have a soft spot for all social enterprises and spent a week in Battambang, Cambodia last year exploring a wide variety of them. I particularly love those that support vocational training for women. Check out The Nail Social if you’re ever in Singapore.

New York

An Open Letter to New York City

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Dear New York City,

Most days, I hate you.

I spend a great deal of time startled by your noise, crammed into your trains, waiting in your lines, trying to get around leisurely walkers on your streets and sidewalks, and stunned at your prices. Most days, frankly, you are anything but serene with your noise pollution, skyscrapers, and frenetic pace of existence. Stop and smell the roses doesn’t exist here, so much so that there aren’t even any roses.

But when I stop to think for a moment, you do continue to leave me in awe. How have you built skyscrapers so tall and so wedged together that they often eliminate the need for sunglasses? How have you constructed a mass transit system that allows me to go anywhere (except, regrettably, work) without the need of a vehicle? How have you managed to welcome people from all corners of the sky and unite them in the common desire of finding the best bagel or slice of pizza?

Your shops, subway notices, and countless agencies and organizations operate in languages I’ve never heard of and can’t recognize. You have a sense of style and flavor influenced by all those who dream of you, flock to you, gaze around in anticipation.

You have an energy that is unmatched. You are always ready for the next innovation, and not just because you’ve anticipated what it is. People write songs, poems, and stories about you. You are the cool kid on the playground, the teacher’s pet, the current big thing and the next big thing. You are, by millions, loved.

And like anything loved, you are often trying. You are an exhausting place to be at the end of the day when all I want is a carton of milk at the grocery store. You make it hard to manage a budget – so much to do and it all costs so much money! But you give a little, too. You build parks, organize parades, and sponsor cultural events. You know you’re expensive, and sometimes you apologize and provide a free night at a museum, knowing you’ll be forgiven.

As hard as I try to understand you, you remain a mystery. Your abundance of options and activities has me perpetually concerned that I’m missing something. As I cope with feeling left behind, I gravitate towards the places I’ve come to feel comfortable and at home. They know me at a coffee shop now. Isn’t that enough? Must I continue to seek out yet another? Goodness knows you have them! And that’s precisely the problem – you have everything and it’s left up to your residents to find it.

In a lot of ways, you’re a playground bully. You taunt and yell, urging more and faster. And then when someone looks up, you are contrite. You open a door to somewhere quiet. You wink and slip away for a while.

It’s been an adventure getting to know you. You’re like a best friend – present, patient,  accepting, full of adventure and excitement – and also like a worst enemy – loud, invasive, taunting, difficult to shake. Some days we get along pretty well. Other days, I want nothing to do with you and it seems like you want nothing to do with me. We have a love-hate relationship, you might say. Or, more accurately, a like-hate relationship.

Getting to know me as I relate to you has been a different adventure entirely, one that is very much a work in progress. You’ve brought out things in me I don’t like – a tendency to walk with my head down, a reluctance to speak to strangers, a sense of urgency even when I’m not going anywhere, a feeling of hopelessness, anxiety, isolation, and frustration at the poverty you’ve permitted, the children you’ve let down, and the inequality that you allow to persist.

But I have to thank you, too. You constantly remind me that there’s work to be done to improve the world. You force me out of my comfort zone every minute of every day. You’ve emboldened me to read, write, and think about the choices I’ve made and the choices I will make in the future. Whatever doesn’t kill me will, in the end, make me stronger.

You’re unlike any other, New York. And though there are many, many days when I want to give it all up, throw in the towel, and call it quits . . . I’m not quite through with you.

Love always,

Rebecca Michelle

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On loving, learning, and living