Letting Go of Their Needs to Fill My Own

I have become suspicious of anyone who offers, entertains, or allows only two choices: black or white, right or wrong, saint or sinner, pure or contaminated, pro- or anti-. Reality doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t work that way.

I had been trying to read The Rebel by Albert Camus, but I am giving up. I can no longer handle the limited viewpoint from which he thinks he has enough information to formulate answers or, at least, ask important questions and present definitive evidence to support his points. I got just beyond his discussion of Rimbaud. By that point, I was taking in words but not what the words signified.

I know something about Camus, but not much, and frankly, I don’t care if I ever read another work by or about him. Those more familiar with the man and his ideas may think it outrageous to imagine that his thinking was in any way all-or-none. Again, I don’t care. I no longer write for grades, accolades, or a temporary balm that soothes a soul that never got what she needed. I am finally finding what I have needed, and I haven’t had to look far. It’s there inside me. Why couldn’t I access it before? It was buried beneath everyone else’s shit.

When you have been taught, since birth, to distrust yourself; when you have been told that God loves you unconditionally but only if you do this and don’t do that; when you have had responsibility foisted upon you at too young an age; when you have been led to believe (by the way they treat you) that you are why they treat you poorly, you have a hard time letting go of all that. And you keep trying and trying and blaming yourself for other people’s problems (narcissism, usually). You keep trying harder to be who they want you to be, but it’s a zero-sum game and you will never be the winner, because you will NEVER be who they want you to be.

I went through all that, but as I reminded myself last night, in the midst of yet another family crisis (the result, as always, of unmet childhood needs): There is no way the fuckers are going to pull me back in.