Sociopathic Tendencies

Well, the time is nearly upon us... The time when everything is going to come to a close. In two short months, I'll be back in the United States, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm still trying to nail down the exact date I want to come back, but June 7th seems pretty likely. I'll be sad to leave my job here, and there's a few people here I would have liked to have gotten to know better, but that's life. At this point in my personal journey in these eighty or ninety years that I've been gifted, I'm no stranger to loss or separation, and truthfully, it worries me a bit sometimes.

I think it's good to be able to handle separation in all its forms: death, moving to a new place, being laid off, breaking up, whatever mask it wants to wear. But sometimes I wonder if this comes at the price of not forming deep, meaningful relationships with people. When I look back at my life, I do think of loss as being a huge shaping factor. I'm not necessarily saying I've lost more than anyone else, but when I think back on life, it's what stands out to me: who's no longer alive, relationships and friendships that didn't become what I had envisioned them to be, dreams that no longer seem possible or even desirable. But I've learned a small secret. However, it's preventative, not curative: Do it completely, burn it up fully or completely, and leave no trace, not even its ashes.

Before coming to Colombia, my boyfriend and I broke up, and he found it upsetting how little emotion I showed over it, or at least showed him. I was upset, but I did it in private. If I'm upset around others, I feel the need to perform, and then I no longer worry about experiencing the emotion fully. I'm worried about trying to keep it together for the other person or not embarrass or bother them. But alone, I'm free to feel what I need to feel.

It reminds me of my Aunt Andrea's funeral. When I saw her body for the first time, I left the room and found a corner where I thought no one would find me, and that's where I broke down and cried over this woman who had taken care of me as if I were her own son. My mom discovered me, and I, through sobs, yelled "GO AWAY!" "Well can I at least get a hug?!" So we hugged, and then she left me to do what I had to do. The same thing happened at my step-father's, Walt's, funeral, except that funeral home had better hiding places.

But this is just another way to enact that same idea: Do it completely, burn it up, leave no trace. Feel the sadness or the loss completely so it doesn't linger, so it doesn't set into your soul, so it doesn't poison you. This way your memories can stay untainted. When they're stained by your unshed tears, they blur and distort, but if the feeling is felt completely, it burns itself up. It's like trying to purposefully forget something. You can't, you have to dive deeper and deeper until you come out the other side.

We're trained by movies, novels, and anything with a narrative format to think that endings wrap up perfectly, that unfinished business is rarely if ever left behind, that our life is like chapters in a book or levels in a video game, these complete units that have little effect on one another. But we all know this is bullshit. Here in Colombia, I've traveled a lot, I've learned a lot about teaching, and I've met new people and learned about a new culture, even if it wasn't exactly a perfect fit. I saw beautiful things and met beautiful people. I made memories, and who I am will always be marked by my year here. But the experiences were had, they were complete, and when it is time to leave, I will leave completely too.

So does this make me slightly sociopathic or well-adjusted? Does this prevent me from experiencing things meaningfully, or does this actually encourage me to experience them fully? I don't really have an answer. But it's something I think about, as my thoughts drift more and more toward what it life will be like in Indiana... Governor Pence signs the religious freedom bill