Another Damn Life Lesson

All my life, I thought it was a virtue.  Parents pushed it, rewarded it, praised it.  Friends, colleagues respected it.  Our country reveres it.  Independence.  Family folklore is that I came home one day from second grade and announced that I no longer wanted or needed help with my homework.  Independence.

If one of the kids asked my dad what a word meant, he'd point to the dictionary or encyclopedia and maybe help you look it up.  More likely, he'd sit and wait until you figured it out on your own.  Fostering independence, a presumed virtue.

On a first date eons ago, the guy asked me to describe myself using only 10 adjectives. I should have said "difficult and done", but I didn't. I don't remember the 10, but I'm confident "independent" was near the top of the list.  A virtue.  I was proud of it.
Same guy, long past the first date, told me I was several standard deviations from the mean for independence in women.  (Yes, I dated a guy who talked like that).  But again, I felt complimented; I'm sure I said "thank you".

Independence. It enabled me to run a pretty high risk company; it meant I could tromp around Europe, Asia, and  the Middle East with a sister or two; land in the scary Cairo airport in the middle of the night. I can buy a house by myself. I could make myself dive again the day after my scuba equipment failed 118' down in Belize's Blue Hole.  I could go to Law School at 50.

But then, the bubble burst.  After Sudden Cardiac Arrest, we examine everything.  Last week, I read something on independence as an expression of fear.  That we create an armor with independence - we fend people off with it.  "Independence" is code for "I don't trust people" or "I don't trust that I am valued enough that people will be there when I need them".  We announce in hundreds of ways that we don't need people.  That what we are actually saying is "I don't deserve people".
Is this why I have always found it excruciating, nearly physically painful, to ask for help? The reason I would much rather pay someone to do something than ask for help?  Because I don't believe I deserve the help - they must  have something better to do?

All of a sudden, my self-talk and self-image went haywire.  Independence can be a bold expression of a deep belief in unlove-ability?   Bizarre.  Planet gone wobbly again. Is this frigging TRUE?  Argh.

Uh-oh.  Then I look back at my men through this lens. Uh-oh.  Perhaps we make this prophecy come true; we prove that we are, in fact, unlove-able---- by choosing to engage with the hands-down winner of the "emotionally unavailable" contest - the alcoholic.  And I have engaged with more than one, more than two, more than....  Trust me, you will always come in second.  Every single time - second.

I  must say I am getting pretty damn tired of all this food for thought, all these life lessons.
Difficult and done indeed.