On Betraying Ourselves
Self preservation leads to self betrayal. Every. Time.
Our days are filled with just as many choices to serve ourselves as they are to betray ourselves. It comes down to the discernment - the mindset you have when something is brought to the plate and you have a split moment, maybe a little longer, to decide “which way am I going to go?”
Recently, my mom asked if I would like to join her on an all-inclusive cruise. Let me preface this by saying I love my mom. I love finding time for the two of us to connect, just the two of us or even among other adults. I haven’t been on a trip with her solo since I have had kids, quite possibly even a couple of years before that (7+ years). This sounded like a dream! I asked a few clarifying questions; Where to? What is the date? Is anyone else planning to go?
Where to? To Europe. When? Spring of 2025. Accompanied by? A handful of other family members. I happily join in for holidays, birthdays, cookouts, etc. with this family and I typically enjoy that time with them. That being said, I knew immediately what my answer was; “Going on that cruise would be me betraying myself”.
My mom was confused at first and then fumbled around saying “Oh, I could see how it might not seem like that much fun with folks from the older generation and no one your age there, no big deal…” I could have easily let this explanation fill the space that the truth could have but that wasn’t compelling to me.
I shared with my mom that I am aware that who I am, who I really AM, is not given grace to feel whole around that family. My queer, divorced, single-working-mom, non-religious, yoga-loving, AA-immersed self isn’t fully accepted by that family. Rather, it’s something to be pitied and prayed for. Spending thousands of dollars on room and board wasn’t the ultimate cost in this scenario. The time I would spend trying to either keep the waters calm with them or the energy I would expend battling with being my whole self in close quarters with them on the cruise would be the cost. The cost would be self preservation. The value would be saturated with my masking. Bleck. No.
I have listened to conversations where this family parses out sins as if they can be graded on a scorecard. Being gay/queer is top tier sin, enough to not be welcomed to bring your respective partner around the children. Addiction? You guessed it - shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. JUDGEMENT. Unless you are already married to the addict because by golly, any hopes of working through that together would be dependent on the graces of God! Sin has levels. Speeding is low grade sin while stealing money is high grade. Got it? This relates back to the very first time I was hospitalized for anxiety - the thought I ruminated on until I made myself truly ill was “Am I saved enough?” That word, “enough”. That was the beginning. Buying into the scales that were responsible for justifying the value and risk of the ways of being something instead of surrendering to what just “is”.
My mom had never thought of the investment of time and energy like that, the cost outside of the dollars. I asked her why she hadn’t invited a friend to go with her. She said she felt like it would be a lot of work to try to bridge the gap between her friend and her family, like she would have to entertain them and be “on”. I asked her if she had realized that she can’t be her whole self, her whole self that she is with her friends, in front of her family. She hadn’t.
It takes years to be molded into to a place where you are living your life in ways that make other people happy exclusively. Often we are shaped by the parenting styles, traumas and religions we grow up in and that influences this. Breeding of codependency. It takes a significant amount of time to practice unwinding it, too. I am grateful to be in a place, after many years in relationships with addicts and serving as codependent, to be in a place where my sole question is “Is this best for Bailey?” Is it best for me? Knowing that being best for me means also best for my kids and my world - in that order. I flexed this when I left my marriage. Staying in a marriage for the kids wouldn’t have been best. It would have robbed them of the opportunity to see a healthy relationship, love and affection, happiness, shared responsibility and partnership. In lieu, they would have been left with a major depressive mother to care for them. It would have been better on paper but it would not have been better for their life and the lessons needed for them to healthily grow in their life.
I hear people talk all the time about that analogy where you put your own oxygen mask on before your child’s on the plan and it is used in comparison of exercise or developing healthy habits. The same is true for career and relationship (familial or beyond) advice - if its not best for you individually then there is no way in hell that it will be good for your kids or whoever else is involved, truly. Your kids are your dependents. Not just when you file taxes and register them for school but every single day. Every single day they depend on you to guide them, teach them, model for them. True friendship is rooted in being your whole self. We cannot afford to betray ourselves as members of society. We simply cannot raise and influence more people to grow up and do the same.
“A berm overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be. I don’t want anyone I know to take that terrible chance. And the only way to avoid it is to listen to that small voice inside you that tells you to make mischief, to have fun, to be contrarian, to go another way. George Elliot wrote, ‘It is never too late to be what you might have been.’ It is never too early, either.” — Anna Quindlen
So, the cruise verdict?? I’ll be spending a week in Mexico with my mom in October instead. An exquisite view will never triumph my inner peace.
