"And now I'm actually an authentically different kind of person"

In a recent episode of The Knowledge Project, storyteller Matthew Dicks was asked “What’s the difference between a good story and a bad story?”. Part of his reply:

So a story is about change over time. Usually, it’s sort of a realization.

Like, I used to think one thing, and now I think another thing. That’s most stories. Sometimes they’re transformational, meaning I once was one kind of person, and then some stuff happened, and now I’m actually an authentically different kind of person.

Five years ago today I wrote this to family and friends in a newsletter about my late partner Catherine’s cancer:

Catherine is by no means at the end of her treatment options, but it’s clear, both from empirical evidence and from Dr. Corbett’s demeanour, that she’s entered a new act of this play. Meaning that, if you were planning to nominate her for a Nobel Peace Prize, I’d start assembling your paperwork (they take forever to process things).

But she is not on death’s door.

It turns out that Catherine was at death’s door: 6 days later she decided to suspend treatment for the holidays; 11 days later she was admitted to hospital with a hip socket fracture; 16 days later she came home for Christmas; 24 days later she was back in the hospital, in a morphine-induced delirium; 41 days later, she died.

When Catherine was diagnosed with cancer, in the fall of 2014 I was, in Matthew Dicks words, “one kind of person.” I remained that kind of person for the next six years. I was that kind of person when she died, and for a long time afterward.

Some things about that kind of person: 

I was afraid, but unwilling to admit it. 

I was desperately lonely, but unwilling to admit it. 

I thought I could control chaos by writing about it, that a dose of distracting levity could pierce any bad news. 

I thought my job was, at any cost to myself, to prevent calamity, to contain, manage, anticipate.

I saw vulnerability as a weakness, a third rail to be avoided. 

I had a long list of things I wouldn’t talk about, had never talked honestly about: death, sex, money, what I wanted to be.

I was angry. And anxious. 

I was anxious almost all the time, in a state of hypervigilance, unaware that I was. I thought it was normal to feel that way: brittle, at the effect of everything.  

And then “some stuff happened.”

For the longest time I thought the “stuff” was Catherine’s illness and death. I thought that was the inciting event for an internal realignment, that the experience changed me. 

But the truth of the matter is that on the day she died, and for months after, I was the same afraid, anxious, hypervigilant, angry, impenetrable person. Watching your partner wither and die is hard, desperately hard, the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. But the experience, in itself, did not change me.

Two years later I met Lisa, a magical sliding door connection that we are celebrating the third anniversary of this week.

It is tempting to credit our meeting, our connection, as “the stuff” that happened, the gateway to a fundamental change. 

While there is no doubt that our partnership is deep, connected, vulnerable, vital, I’ve come to realize only lately that I haven’t changed “because of Lisa,” but rather that change within me has allowed me to be the person I am in relationship with her.

I read this recently, about how relationships evolve from the initial heat:

There has to be some maturing, some settling, some turning inward toward resources that lie within yourself, rather than outside of yourself.

That turn toward “resources that lie within yourself” is the “stuff that happened” to me, a gradual process of unburdening myself from the mantle of control, contain, protect. 

I have had help in reaching inward, from family, friends, therapists, and, most notably, from Lisa herself, who so values introspection, and who’s modelled so much that’s helped me evolve.

But I did this. I am doing this.

“And now,” as Matthew Dicks described it, “I’m actually an authentically different kind of person.”

Some things about this kind of person: 

I’m still often afraid, anxious, stirred up, distracted. But I have ever so slightly more mindfulness, so that, some of the time, I can see this happening. “Oh, this feeling is me being anxious.”

I am no longer lonely. Yes, I am part of a loving partnership, one that feeds me every day. But unleashing the desperation of loneliness was something I needed to do before I met Lisa. 

Writing is still valuable, therapeutic, but trying to use it to obscure the darkness doesn’t work. I know that now.

I’m getting used to the idea that no amount of preparation and vigilance will prevent calamity. I’m getting better at living without control.

I see vulnerability as a strength, a necessary precondition to living a full life. It’s still scary. I still run from it more often than I like. But as I step forward more often, take risks, tell my truths, express my needs, it becomes self-reinforcing. I’m learning that being more authentically me won’t turn me to dust.

Death, sex, money, what I want to be: I am so much better at talking honestly about these things.

I’m still angry. And anxious.

But I’m not anxious all the time, and I’m no longer in a constant state of hypervigilance. 

What underpins all of this is a fundamental agreement with myself to no longer live life at the effect of others, at the effect of events I cannot control, to realize that all that I need is inside me, and always has been.

I cannot sufficiently describe how freeing that has been, continues to be.

Lisa and I returned from a two week vacation on Monday, a trip, by ourselves, to Tallinn, Helsinki, and London. 

While those cities were fascinating and magical, each in their own way, what I take from our time away, what will endure, is the opportunity to pause and feel the depth of our connection, to explore its vulnerable edges, to feel the lovely, squishy, chaotic feeling of being more ourselves with each other than we’ve ever been before.

What a gift it was.

During the three years Lisa and I have been together, every night, as we lie beside each other in bed, after we’ve talked about our day, settled into the warm snuggle, every single night I have a feeling that washes over me. 

For the longest time I didn’t understand this feeling, I didn’t know what it was; I tried to take it apart, analyze it, come to terms with whether it was okay to feel it. 

What dawned on me only recently: the feeling is happiness. 

How wonderful is that. 

And how wonderful is it to realize that the capacity for happiness, for connection, for joyful vulnerability with another, that was always there: I just needed to find my way toward it, to let go, to allow it to emerge.

I’m so excited to find out what comes next.