Against Longevity

We are mistakenly under the impression that thing obtain value by lasting forever.

The earth, for instance, and the environment; we (especially us on the ‘environmental’ side of things) have a hard time feeling that this planet ball has any worth if one day, as it shall, it will explode, implode along with the universe and everything in it.

Heaven, some believe, succeeds where earth fails, and is the place we all yearn for, precisely because it is never-ending. Eternal life – the grail cup each of us dips into our secret hearts, drinking in the hope of it, quietly, secretly.

Relationships: We speak of them as “making it.” “Will we make it?” To which I say – “Make what?” Of course our love songs are peppered with the words of eternity – always, everlasting, paradise, forever and ever amen. A good relationship is defined by its length. My grandparents, for instance, married fifty or sixty-something years. Wow, impressive, right?

And then we speak of our individual lives, too – about “I’ve made it to 80 years” or a child dying as being “cut off too soon.”

I’ve got some bones in this whole ideology of longevity as-marker-of-value to pick, lick clean, and toss.

Time-Less

For instance: Encouraging people to stick with relationships for the sake of trying to achieve a certain amount of time put in – as if it were a job, a jail, a retirement fund? Criminal.

Is it not true?: A relationship can change you, challenge you, embolden you, crystalize and shape your beliefs, inspire your passions, awaken your intellectual curiosity – and last only a month, a year, a semester.

Of course, time affects and impacts the nature of a relationship, whether it’s a parent-child, teacher-student, colleague-colleague, or romantic relationship. And I believe in the value of intimacy and trust deepening over time.

But I also believe there is value in a thing in itself, not how it performs as compared to a model of fairytale endings. We certainly don’t feel college is a waste if it only takes four years to complete; why don’t we similarly perceive a four-year-romantic involvement?

And time is not always an indicator of character or a predictor of impact; to use it as the only measure of the solidity of a personality or the importance of an impression ignores the complexities and possibilities that occur in our lifetimes. I’ll never forget Jade Richardson, a girl I knew fleetingly for two years in high school, and our good friend Marcus, who died right before turning 18 and graduating. They mean more to me and affected my life much more than others I’ve known for longer.

To feel that you have failed because a relationship ended is to negate the worth of the time that was spent. So instead of leaving a marriage richer, you leave it feeling poor. Instead of appreciation for the joy of a life lived, you weep for the fact that it didn’t continue ad infinitum.

I’ve noticed about myself that I experience a twinge of social shame when recounting episodes from my first marriage, which ended in divorce. It took me a while to realize I was hesitating to say “my first husband” or “my ex-spouse,” because it was like waving a flag in front of my face: “Failure! Divorced! Unstable! Disaster Area!”

But these judgments have little to do with the sum total of that relationship, which had many positive elements and good memories within it. Why does the fact it ended cast a shadow over the length of time it endured?

Considering My Dad

My father serves as a good case in point, on many counts. He was married three times, but it’s the one that lasted 8 years, not 15, that meant the most, that surged and bubbled with love.

He canceled a lifetime commitment to his ministry, but not because he was unsteady in nature or failed to live up to a promise; he left because he was being true to an even higher duty, to truth and to his faith, which continuing in that particular ministry had started to compromise.

My father died when he was 52, certainly before anyone expected. He was too young. And yet, when I think of his life, it encompasses a full range of experience and expression. My father lived.

And after he died, we received hundreds of emails and letters from people, many who had not known him very long at all, but all of whom had been touched by his jocularity, charisma, and warmth. He had a singular ability to make people feel listened to, appreciated, and loved.

I didn’t get enough time with my dad. What I wouldn’t give to soak up hours, days, years of him.

But having lost him when I did hasn’t lessened my love for him. Death did not diminish him in my heart. Leaving marriages and a ministry did not lessen his religious conviction. He was not perfect or unwavering in all things, and he didn’t “make it” to any invisible finish line.

But oh, to watch him run! He did it with all his heart.

True Love

I have it posted on my Facebook page that I’m the biggest Julie Andrews fan ever. I am also, I would contest, the biggest fan in existence of Alanis Morissette.

Sure, her first album’s attempt at profundity led her to fumbling hands in pockets and other half-contrived lyrics, but you can still see that she’s thinking - and I for one loved the fact that she sparked vehement discussions about the definition and types of irony throughout English classes everywhere. (And no, let’s not get into it now, folks.)

And then she went to India, and despite the risk of incurring an unforgivable overload of cheesiness and cliche from that trip and its following album, that CD is amazing. She skates past the hyperbole she couldn’t avoid in her first album with songs that rhythmically and lyrically soar outside of themselves. And then her third album is just brilliance.

On this third album is “You Owe Me Nothing in Return,” which serves, in my opinion, as the definition of unconditional love:

I’ll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it
I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need it
You can speak of anger and doubts your fears and freak outs and I’ll hold it
You can share your so-called shame filled accounts of times in your life and I won’t judge it
(and there are no strings attached to it)

You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it’s my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return

You can ask for space for yourself and only yourself and I’ll grant it
You can ask for freedom as well or time to travel and you’ll have it
You can ask to live by yourself or love someone else and I’ll support it
You can ask for anything you want anything at all and I’ll understand it
(and there are no strings attached to it)

I bet you’re wondering when the next payback shoe will eventually drop
I bet you’re wondering when my conditional police will force you to cough up
I bet wonder how far you have now danced you way back into debt
This is the only kind of love as I understand it that there really is

You can express your deepest of truths even if it means I’ll lose you and I’ll hear it
You can fall into the abyss on your way to your bliss I’ll empathize with
You can say that you have to skip town to chase your passion I’ll hear it
You can even hit rock bottom have a mid-life crisis and I’ll hold it
(and there are no strings attached)

You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it’s my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return

I’ve meditated on these lyrics quite a lot during the last several months – testing myself, testing the assertions here.

“You owe me nothing in return” can almost feel impossible to say to someone you love, whether it be a parent, a lover, or a child. I mean, don’t we all believe in reciprocity? Wouldn’t it be foolish not to expect and deserve at least an equal amount of energy and love in a relationship?Is Alanis proposing that she’s a weak doormat who will let the object of her adoration do whatever he wants, while she hangs around like a loyal dog?

No, she is not. What these lyrics speak about is true egoless love – which I actually believe/agree is the only kind of love there is. Love that isn’t true isn’t love. The notion of truth is part and parcel of the definition of love. Other feelings we have for people are about need, desire, infatuation – not that these aren’t powerful or valid emotions to experience and express, but they are about feeding the frenzied and fearful self.

There is possibly nothing harder than loving someone who chooses to leave you, who chooses to do things you find reprehensible, who cannot offer you the same open heart of acceptance and affirmation that you cannot help giving to that person. It is hard to forgive people their limitations. It is hard to stay open when someone slams a door in your face.

I am not suggesting that true love is playing a doormat. Healthy relationships do require reciprocation of trust, kindness, respect, listening.

But learning to love in the way Alanis describes is not about trying to make another person conform or perform, not about sustaining a relationship – it’s about letting another person follow their heart. If doing so leads that person into your sphere, great. If not – well, then you wouldn’t want them there anyway. Either way, if you truly love someone, the love doesn’t stop because they are here or gone or yours or not. That would imply it is conditional. And conditional love – love dependent on a condition – is not truly love.

True love is like getting disemboweled. It’s painful. It turns you inside out. It requires that you empty yourself of wanting and needing things to go your way before you can care and have compassion for another person.

I am working on my heart – kind of like needlework across a raggedy napkin. Stitching it together again with the threads expressed in this song. A heart that can be open enough to say those words and mean them all the way through can’t truly be broken. Love is never lost when it is true.

And that may be Disney-level cheese – but trust me, sometimes cliches speak truths – and that’s an irony you can stick in your pocket to keep.