Eating the sauerkraut that my aunt gave me in a hotel room in Minneapolis, wondering if they'll recycle my plastic cherry tomato container, and trying to coax Kwasi off the hard wood floors and onto the bed. That's what I've been up. That, or trying to play tetris with all of the stuff in my car in an attempt to find enough stuff for a bike ride. Traveling across the country hasn't been glamorous the entire way, but it has at least afforded me the space to think. A lot.
I don't think you get away with a cross country road trip without a lot to think about. So naturally, I've been thinking a lot about the experience in front of me. The empty pages of a new chapter. Blank and inviting, begging to be filled however I choose. Wait a second, do I get to choose? Have I been choosing? A lot of the people who I talk to about my upcoming adventure have a tendency to assign emotions to what I'm doing. "You must be so *insert emotion here* about your trip!" Scared. Excited. Those seem to be the top two. And yes, both of those are present. Also worried about making it out there without a problem, annoyed about finding an apartment remotely, interested in what I'm going to be learning, grief over leaving behind my family and best friends, the list goes on. Now, I'm not expecting any one person to sit with me and sort through all of the things that I'm feeling, and I'm not upset with anyone over the fact that they told me that I was supposed to be scared or excited, in fact I do it to. It's so easy to get swept away by our days, go onto autopilot, and respond from our bank of appropriate conversation responses, but I'm looking for a shift in the way that we ask each other questions and relate to each other.
Brene Brown was telling me today, while I was driving through midwestern traffic and weather, that when we do this; assign each other with the emotions that we felt during a similar experience, it's an attempt at empathy. Which is great! I'm ecstatic that I'm surrounded with people who are empathetic. But, we're going about it in the wrong direction. We're empathizing with each other's feelings before we even understand them. If, instead of saying "Oh, you must be so _____ about your trip", we ask "Hey, how are you feeling about your upcoming adventure?" it opens the floor for a more authentic interaction. I, too, get why we make statements instead of questions. It protects us. If we don't ask, we don't run the risk of hearing about the deep sorrow the person in front of us is feeling while they rip themselves away from their support system. We then don't have to tear open our own wounds from the times that our loved ones have left us, or when we've done it ourselves. We aren't forced to recall the time that we made a similarly risky move with only a beacon of hope that it'll work out. Which is what we would be obligated to do if we want to avoid disengagement, and what my girl, Brene calls 'false empathy', which are both ways of diminishing trust, and humans subconsciously understand and avoid that (no trust = no community = no good). When we state or assign instead of ask, we bypass the risk of getting the 'good' answer, with a shrug of the shoulders. Which, honestly seems worth it sometimes. During our day to day interactions, it seems like we'd much rather hear someone talk what excites them about learning new things and traveling new places even with some imposition, than to get the dreaded, conversation stopping 'good'. But what do we risk when we do that? An opportunity for authentic interaction. A chance for your story to hold meaning for someone else. How many times have we missed out on our story having significance for someone else because of the way we used our language? When you put it that way, a small change in the way that we interact with each other doesn't seem like so much after all.
I've had a strange relationship with mirrors through this process. It seems like each time I look in the mirror, in addition to making sure I look presentable.. I check to make sure I'm the same person. It's so easy to forget who you are when you are surrounded by an environment that you don't know. I've been waking up every morning and writing down where I am since May when I quit my job and half moved away from Burlington, so that, when I look back and wonder why I've been feeling so uprooted I can point to that and say 'of course'. On the surface, and intellectually, I understand that I'm the same person. I have the same genetic make up that I always have. The same eye color, hair color, voice, scar under my chin, etc. that I always have (putting away the idea of theseus' ship for one second). I own the same things and I have the same birthday. What I'm talking about is the visceral understanding of who we are and what we know about ourselves. The ways that we interact with those around us, the values that we hold close, the things we do and don't enjoy. These are the things that, when we go through a new experience, may change. Ray Dalio explains that intelligence, money, and happiness are not correlated. And that many intelligent and wealthy people are very unhappy. Breaking news, I know. But what he goes on to say is that the highest correlation with someone's happiness is community. Feeling a part of something, and connected to other people. So you can imagine how difficult it has been to feel happy and confident about my decisions after drawing away from the web of my community...
What I have also discovered about myself is that I have pulled close to me, a community that just won't let me go. The overwhelming love and support that I have received from my community has been more than enough to make any girl driving through states where she knows no one, feel like she's at home where ever she goes. It feels like the web of my connections, the people I've woven into my life, and netting with which they hold me up has been stretched over my map and driven into place like railroad spikes. That's the honest truth. So when I say that I look at myself in the mirror every morning to tell myself that I'm the same person, I see the eyes of the congregation with which I sit, looking back, reflecting who they've turned me into. They’ve reminded me everyday since I’ve left that physical location has nothing to do with what you mean, how you talk to, and how much you love each other.
