Self-exile

I made three promises to myself this summer.  They are simple: organize the visual chaos and clutter in my house, improve both my mental and physical health, and meditate on what is important to me and take action on what is important. In order to accomplish all of this, or even an acceptable portion of this, I have, in large part,exiled myself from social functions.


As I look back on the past seven or eight months, I am struck by how little I was living for myself.  Instead, I had become focused on pleasing specific others in my life. I ceded power to those individuals and lost me.  Those individuals did not appreciate that I had temporarily obliterated myself, indeed the opposite occurred.  They took me for granted.  I could see plainly what was happening, but my desire to please consumed me.  Ultimately, loneliness won the day. I let it.

This affected every part of my life.  I was so emotionally drained at the end of the day, it was everything I could do to clean the dishes.  The rest of my house soon resembled the aftermath of a tornado.  While I do not believe that "cleanliness is next to godliness," I can plainly see that this house was not a healthy environment for my son, or for me.  Since the end of summer school, I have started to go through each piece of paper laying around, each container that needs recycling and clear the space.  My house does not look like an episode of Hoarders, but I was clearly on the path to that type of misery.  My exile feeds my desire to expedite this process so I can once again have people to my house for laughter, food, and drinks. As if anyone is going to visit me in Canada, but that is another issue.

Thomas Merton once said, "It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers.  The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them....Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say." These profoundly sage words strike at my core.  When the school year ended, I was rarely leaving my classroom.  If I could have installed a small private bathroom, I would have done so and never left. I felt under siege from many sides: a son whose ways of dealing with stress and anxiety were more and more unhealthy, the politicians who are looking to destroy public education, the corporate reforms already underway in my own school, the Kool-Aid drinkers who jockeyed for positions of false authority, people who I thought I could trust, but could not, and finally my own inability to control the mental debris in my head.  The way I chose to react to all the other forces led me to withdraw from nearly all contact with colleagues. A friend had noticed and even gently chided me.  I have been thinking about her words and she is right and wrong.  I do need people, but I need the right people.  People who think about me when they are making plans, as in, "Hey let's call Toni." People who will recognize when I am in pain and reach out at that moment and not hold back.  I'm not sure that I have those people in my life right now.

This, however, is how Merton's words affect me.  Perhaps those people are there, but I cannot see them.  I need to be alone, in solitude in order to pay close attention to what my instinct tells me.  I need the solitude to let go of the hurt that I felt towards those who let me down and to forgive them and accept them for who they are.   I need the solitude to determine who is worthy of staying in my orbit.  I cannot do that in the middle of a crowd.

Solitude will be additionally useful as I try to make my body a little healthier.  I won't drink as much alcohol if I'm not going out.  I won't eat as poorly.  I'll have more time for exercise, like my early morning walks.  If I'm out late, drinking, I won't want to wake up at five in the morning so I can walk by six.  I would also miss my after dinner workouts.  The exercise is good for my body and brain.  I clear a lot of mental debris when I exercise.

Finally, it didn't take long for me for me to identify what is important to me.  My child is number one and he has many issues that need addressing.  I won't go into those here; some things need to stay private.  He needs my full attention though.  He has it. I am making one small road trip, a day trip, and that is it.  No London - though I do miss it.  I must make him the center of my world or things will get much worse.

I'm not refusing any social invites, but I am also not desperately chasing after any.  I feel good about the physical and emotional work I have already done.  I fully anticipate that, in the end, my solitude will lead to less loneliness.