Existing in a world of wars

I started meditating during the pandemic because it was the only thing I could think to do. I found myself drawn to meditation tracks featuring Buddhist principles and I often choose those now, when my mind is racing and I feel I would benefit from a bit of meditative guidance. Back to the basics. Toward the end of a well-worn track, the guide encourages a moment of compassion, first for myself (I mentally skip right over that one, most days. I’m working on it.), followed by a moment for others, people who I believe could a use prayer of care. I am a fairly literal person, so it’s important to me the words I say in my head line up with my intentions. I am sure whatever energy is in charge of taking my thoughts and translating them into peace on earth, isn’t interested in my carefully curated specificity, but I feel better knowing I’ve addressed my prayer of care correctly. When I think of those who need it, I think of the people caught in the chaos of a battle they would not choose to fight, the ones who merely aspire to exist in the world while people with power duke it out around them. This covers a good portion of human suffering, I think. Thus, my meditation is maximized for good.

In recent years, I discovered that I had been unwittingly caught in a battle that was not mine. Luckily for me, it didn’t affect my physical body or home like so many others. Mine is a battle inside the mind. The first shot was fired four decades ago when my parents decided to have me to hide their own shame. They stretched and tugged me to cover themselves like a too-small blanket. When their shame continued to eat at them, they’d blame my imperfect existence. If I had just put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher, they could be happily married.

Of course, this is silly. That’s not what they actually said. Two years ago, when I was still speaking with my mother, she told me that my depression and anxiety, the generational continuation of her depression and anxiety, is the direct result of my Dad’s secret vasectomy after their first two children. She told me if she had had three children like she wanted, she would have been happy. Ironically, this insensitive comment was a gift for me. I could stop trying. What a relief after all these years of attempting to cure her depression through perfection, achievement, and self-sacrifice, I finally discover that I failed because my team was simply down a man. I, her first-born daughter, was doomed to fail because I was only me.

The story of the war in my family is complex and I don’t feel good about wielding the weapons I collected and sharpened through my years living on the battlefield, so I’ll say this: Love is love, and kids are kids.

While her statement didn’t cure me, I was able to let go of the anchor I was dragging behind. In fact, I believe that was the moment I realized I had been hauling it. This is what all those well-meaning people are getting at when they say that surviving trauma makes you stronger, I imagine. I felt as though I could run a marathon after I crossed Make everyone happy off my to-do list. The comparatively minute task of Make yourself happy is more manageable and does not rely on time travel or Parent Trap style antics to encourage the conception of a third child, the key to happiness. That’s the part I’d like to add to the trauma makes you stronger trope. You’re stronger if you have the freedom to put it down. I left the anchor there on the plateau I discovered it on and continued my climb out of my mental disorder without carrying anyone else’s baggage. Please excuse the mixing of metaphors. I know you always do.