People: Easy To Collect, No Pesky Storage Issues

Nothing like a bunch of new people in your life to shake your psyche up like a little snow globe. Trouble is, the way the flakes fall look awfully familiar. But I guess sometimes you have to get out of your customary context in order to see that clearly. Most of the time our unconscious stuff just fades into the background of experience, a slow muzak that hums quietly just below perception. Hence the name unconscious...yes, brilliant Maya. And for my next trick, I'll stand here blinking.

So I met all these new people at PDF, sort of entered into a new world in a way, one more palpable and meaningful than the one I was living before in subtle but vital ways. It’s strange to think of all these people as my community, but it feels like an inevitability I might as well just go along with. And so suddenly I have too many people in my life to give proper energy to anyone. Okay, I probably did before, too, but now we've reached critical mass. And I have to cop to the fact that I’m sort of an emotional packrat, and all that that label implies.

I meet people, I connect with them, and then enter into some sort of unspoken emotional contract with them, in which we will talk and/or get together at regular security-enhancing intervals so that everyone feels liked and accepted and all that happy stuff, and before you know it, I’m 29 years old with over 10 years of time/energy/emotional obligations to everyone I was ever close to for any period of time, because God knows, if you don’t maintain all those relationships it means that you’re a bad person, or at least as shallow as Paris Hilton in a wading pool. And nobody wants to be that. Except maybe Paris. But probably not her either.

I feel spread thin, unable to really nurture any of the relationships I have, so much as make lots of belated calls apologizing for not calling back sooner. Juggling, neglecting my alone time, hounded by guilt. I used to think that maintaining relationships with people who I hardly connect with anymore made me diverse, made me accepting and loving of people no matter what. And that’s true to an extent, and I have certainly been enriched by the diverse experiences, but at what cost?

When I was a kid I would start out with one stuffed animal in my bed at bedtime. But I would lay there in the dark and think guiltily about my other favorite stuffed animals and how left out they must feel, so I would get up and bring them into bed with me. Then I would lay there and think about all my not-favorite stuffed animals, the ones who were once my favorites but had been replaced by newer, cuter, softer ones, and feel terribly guilty again and bring them into bed too, until every last one of my hundred stuffed animals was in bed with me and I had about two square inches in which to sleep, all contorted and crunched but at last not guilty because none of my beloved stuffed animals felt left out. I guess when I grew up I just transferred that complex from stuffed toys to people.

But it doesn’t really serve anyone, does it? I mean, I can see what an impact people have in my life, and maybe the life cycle of that relationship is a day, or a week, or a month, or a lifetime. But prolonging that in order to spare someone’s feelings simply prevents both of us from being enriched by more meaningful connections that are pertinent to the place we are at right now. And maybe a time comes when we resonate again, and we want to commit a little more time again, but living a lie for the sake of guilt is oppressive.

Unfortunately that means I have to make some hard choices and risk not being liked by everyone. And despite all the lessons in that area that the past 2 years have brought me, it’s still a little scary.