Being Authentic is a Bitch

I started writing today about all kinds of things but none of them seemed particularly worth my writing or your reading.  I don’t usually have that problem. I love to write and I am wonderfully self-centered enough to think I have stuff to say but yesterday I was humbled and reminded that my story is not an isolated one. 

Part of my journey –of everyone’s- according to Maslow, is to become self-actualized. To me this has always meant I would become authentically ME –who I was before I began learning how to fit in, compromise and get along. Before I learned that you’re not supposed to fart in public or enjoy the disgusting smells you can make. (Damn me if you will but I still love a disgusting fart!) Before I was told who I was, who I was going to be and what I was capable of by people who didn’t have a clue. By people who were running scared.

Maslow’s theory consists of a pyramid of needs he says must be met before one can actualize. (see chart above). They include food, safety, belonging and love. When I get all these things I am then “free to be me.”

I agree we have to eat to survive but I’m not sure about the rest of it. In fact, I posit that maybe the other stuff is actually getting in the way of becoming authentic. Maybe I can’t “belong” because I am a penguin who dances instead of sings? Maybe no one can love me because I am an ogre who lives in a swamp? You know, maybe Maslow has it upside down.

Most of the stories we love are of heroes who didn’t fit in, who didn’t belong. Heroes who were forced to leave their safety to find themselves. Can you imagine 3 movies about how Luke Skywalker learned to love farming? In fact, Luke was kept from his destiny because he loved his aunt and uncle and was trying to be a “good” person.

I tried being a good person. I was never very good at it. I’m still not. I had to make amends just yesterday for telling a friend his idea sucked. I didn’t apologize for the opinion but I wasn’t very subtle or loving when I expressed it. I am constantly in trouble for saying what I think without thinking. And who wants to be around that?

Well, I kinda do. I hate trying to figure out what people really mean, how they really feel, what they really want. Just tell me. I’ll get over it. What kind of friend lets you work for weeks writing an idea that truly sucks? Then again, who made me the expert on all non-sucky things?  A lot of my ideas suck too. Big donkey balls. Like marrying my first husband –that was a very bad idea and no one warned me. Oh wait, they did. Never mind.

I guess the point I’m badly trying to communicate (or communicating badly) is that we have to be the last, and final, judge of what is right for us. I married my first husband because I did. It was part of my journey towards myself. I hurt a lot of people by doing it but no one worse than me. And it could have been avoided if my ex had been truthful with himself about who he really was. (He was gay, ok? Now, you know.) From what I hear he is still in hiding some 35 years later and I feel so sad for him. What must it be like to never have the joy of loving yourself as you are?

I have always been selfish and terribly willful. I have always demanded to be myself. But it can get very lonely here in “Village Nancy, population of 1”. I have been blessed with a few people who have been able to stand me along the way –but they are few and far between.

 And that’s why being authentic is a bitch. Authentic Nancy does not suffer fools. Or make compromises. Or puts up with shit. Desperate Nancy does. Desperate Nancy just wants to be loved, cared for and talked about in ringing accolades. But she isn’t really me. She is the part of me trying to work my way up Maslow’s pyramid so I can have it all –my self and others. She is a big, fat faker.

I experienced one of the joys of being authentic yesterday. It was a humbling and truly amazing hour in which a woman I barely know shared with me her deep pain over the suicide of her son. She knows me from my meetings and I always let real Nancy out there so she felt she could be real around me. To everyone else she is doing “fine”, “coping”, etc. but she gave me the greatest gift yesterday –she let me be a witness to her grief. We all need witnesses to our grief. To our joy. To our fear. We spend so much time pretending we are “fine” because it makes people uncomfortable to know we are not –as though our unhappiness was contagious.

The gift my new friend gave me was priceless. She reminded me that although I get awfully lonely sometimes, I am not alone. Everyone around me is as terrified as I am. As lonely. As angry. 

Life is loss. Try to deny that one piece of truth and you’ll start worshipping Xenu. Or Allah. Or God. Anything, anything to not really feel. To not feel the real. 

To be authentic is to be singular and that is scary shit.