For all of my talk about being present, and nonduality, and trying to understand (and practice) the basic concepts of Buddhism… for all of the podcasts that I listen to about mindfulness and acceptance… I can be pretty bad at putting it into practice. In certain aspects of life, I’m pretty bad at remaining unattached. I’m pretty bad at not trying to anticipate/control the future or being overly sentimental about the past. I can be pretty bad at not overthinking, and preparing for, the emotional roadblocks that may lie ahead.
I tend to be routine driven when it comes to things like making breakfast and getting ready for the day. So it was odd when I put the small scoop of sugar in my coffee mug and then walked over and stood in front of the toaster oven daydreaming as the timer ticked. Usually, I put the sugar in, pour the coffee, and add a splash of milk. In that order every time. Instead, I was almost mesmerized by the ticking of the toaster oven. I was thinking about the few days I’ll spend at the shore. I was thinking about how I can avoid rush-hour traffic on Tuesday. I was thinking about returning home to an empty house. I played the scene out in my head as if I could brace myself for the void. It will be, I think, the first time in over two years of walking in the door when I won’t be greeted by my dog. The first time when I won’t have to bend down to calm and greet and wiggle with this 70 pound beast whose presence is exuberantly unavoidable.
This brief moment of being lost in thought, this brief disruption to my routine was the subject of my daily fifty-two words which I wrote shortly after (or during) my breakfast of two waffles and some coffee. I hit publish and thought about missing the dog. My thoughts shifted to an old blog post from April, 2020 that I re-read last night. That post was about a dream I had in which my cat, Nick, had been attacked and severely maimed. I woke up from the dream before he could die in my dream. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed about the dog. Am I going to have bad dreams about him when he’s gone?
And this is where being bad at non-attachment, non-judgment, non-anticipation comes in to play. In those few seconds, maybe minutes, of contemplation, I began to think that I love my dog, but not as much as I loved my cat, Nick. I felt guilty for thinking that way. I felt like maybe my brain is broken. Why can’t I accept my dog on his own big, dumb, dog terms? Why even make a comparison? I extrapolated outward. What if that’s what the future holds? That nothing lives up to the past? A series of missteps that in hindsight will look like a wide and slow spiral down the drain of trying, and failing, to live a good life? What if the next job, the next pet, the next girlfriend, the next, the next, the next, are all worse than what’s come before?
I’ve written (on this blog) about a guy I know. He’s been in a committed relationship for years. He’ll sometimes talk wistfully about the one that got away. A past relationship that, when it ended, sent him into a tailspin of depression, alcohol, flings, and drugs. While he’s come out of all of that, I’m not sure he ever fully moved on. I think about him as a slightly different version of me – a version without the flings and drugs and only some of the alcohol – a version sometimes stuck in the past. I don’t know how often he thinks about that relationship or her, but he’s mentioned her to me on at least two different occasions.
I know a woman who is convinced that her husband thinks his first marriage and wife is/was better than her and their current marriage. She lives with this insecurity every day. She lives with the thought that somehow she doesn’t measure up. She’s certain that she’s not first in his heart, and maybe never will be. She tries to accept it. She tells herself she gets it – they were together much longer, they have more history.
How many of us are walking around with these hidden insecurities and infidelities? Are they infidelities? This is good, but not as good as… I love this person, but differently, and maybe not as much as…
It feels a little less harmful to have these thoughts about my dog. I could flat out say to him in a cutesy mushy voice, “I love you, yesh I do, but not as much as Nick, but I still love you…” and he would have no idea what I’m saying. He’d wag his tail at the attention and tilt his head as I scratch behind his ears. He doesn’t know that when we walk by a house with a cat in the window, I sometimes wish I had a cat instead. But with people? How do we reconcile those type of betrayals (if they are betrayals)? We seldom say those things out loud. We seldom share those small, mental excursions that happen when our memories are jogged. I dated a woman who said she thought of her husband whenever she saw a Subaru that looked like his. Reflecting back, I appreciate the honesty, the admission that these things are a part of who we are. I suspect suppressing those admissions can become a slow toxin that corrodes the heart and the mind. A corrosion that reveals itself in projections, accusations, jealousies, and miscommunications. Depending on our attachment styles, the shame and guilt we feel over these “less than pure thoughts” can manifest in lashing out, pushing away, or clinging.
But what’s the answer? It’s easy to say don’t compare. It’s easy to say love takes many forms and we would do well to embrace all of them. It’s easy to say be in the moment and enjoy whatever is in front of you. But as human beings, we’re wired (or at least conditioned) to judge. We’re taught to evaluate the world – to line things up in order of good, better, and best. We name things and assign values to them. Making order is how we make sense. If being nonjudgmental is off the table (if it genuinely goes against our nature), what’s the alternative? Search endlessly for the one who eclipses all others? Turn inwards to the point that the relationship with the self becomes the pinnacle?
Or maybe, the answer is that there is no answer. Yep, sometimes we live in our past. Yep, sometimes we worry about our future. Sometimes, we feel as though we couldn’t possibly give enough love and other times we feel as though we’re not receiving it in equal measure. This is all part of it. Life is constantly changing. Given enough time, new circumstances always arise. The love I feel today will grow and diminish. Let’s not reduce this to something so small and petty by trying to predict its possible outcomes. Something this magnanimous doesn’t fit neatly into containers and we are not static creatures.
Perhaps the answer is a form of acceptance. Perhaps the answer is in trying to love in ways that minimize the ego. We’re all familiar with variations on the saying “if you love someone, set them free.” Stripping the ego out of the equation allows us to accept that maybe remembering the one that got away, the car someone drove, the vacation we took overseas… maybe allowing space for our partner to hold more than one person in their heart and mind is a “higher form” of love. It doesn’t seem like it should be a competition – yet our insecurities insist we measure anyway. We want to get it right. We want it to be tidier than it is. We want to be the one who matters most.
I got stuck in this loop of thinking this morning. As much as I know “better,” I couldn’t help but to play with the idea that we can be terribly bad at recognizing the good things that are right in front of us. We can be equally good at causing unintended harm. I found myself comparing the dog to cat, new friends to old, potential future loves to past loves. I found myself needlessly worrying (and worry isn’t really the right sentiment) about the very real possibility that I might meet a bunch of different people but not find the one that feels like home, the one willing to take risks and be open and be curious and kind… Not because they’re not out there, but because my vision is clouded and I’m not as open to finding it as I could be – or worse, that I don’t know how to get out of my own way. It’s a silly thing to “worry” about or even ponder. Either I will or I won’t. This river flows regardless of my efforts and I’m trying not to fight the current.