Gypsy Life and Attachment

At some point I lost heart. 

At some point I gave up.

My heart aches for all the men that I have loved. 

My heart aches for all the places I have loved. 

I once deeply valued my ability to so casually cut off any kind of attachment I had to anything. After one last and final heartbreak in 2008, I decided that I was no longer going to be the rejected, but that I was going to be the rejector. I would no longer get left behind, but I would be the leaver. And then I became a gypsy, wandering to and fro, from this guy to that guy, from this job to that job, from this apartment to that apartment, from this side of the country to that side of the country.

I now face the cost.

I have adored and idolized the free spirit and adventurer. And now I tell the sad tale of a lonely soul that has no attachment to anything or anyone. I've moved three times a year, dated three men a year, and had about three jobs a year for the last eight years. My belongings are now in storage, I am single, and I am unemployed.

Truly Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, had it right years ago when he warned about the dangers of perpetually keeping all options open. "Clearly the cumulative opportunity cost of adding options to one’s choice set can reduce satisfaction. It may even make a person miserable.” I unfortunately have been the epitome of a "maximizer". “If you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximizer...The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better." Oh how I wish I would have learned the art of being a satisficer long, long ago.

And yet my lifestyle has not been so much a result of indecision as it has been a result of playing out my divine nature. I have no explanation as to why God created my brain and my body in such a way that I simply find it endlessly exhilarating to meet new people, see new things, and go new places.

Perhaps I am looking for home.

Like Moroni of the Book of Mormon, who wandered 20 years in the wilderness alone, I've found home in God. Truly the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, has been my one and only constant comfort and companion since I left home as a teenager, some 14 years ago.

Today I am taking my life back. I want to live and I want to try again.

I no longer want to live life without attachment.

There is something I have so deeply misunderstood about Buddhist philosophy and stoicism.

I deeply, more than anything, want to remain attached to people, places, and things. I want to take everything with me when I die. I want to take the sunshine and the sunflowers, the rain and the rainbows. I want the beaches and the best friends, the shared ice cream and shared memories. I want the love and the laughter, the pain and the pleasure. I want it all. With me. Forever.

Somewhere in there I disassociated myself from the grief of it all--the grief of mortal experience--and thus dissociated from all joy. I just couldn't take it anymore. I know God understands why I gave up, loves me, and doesn't condemn me. I physically and emotionally dissasociated myself from pain with distance and time. Embracing and idealizing adventure and thrill-seeking, I numbed myself to the satisfaction of everyday life because everyday life included all of the yucky things about life. Like a drug, I was always on the move--tragically the reality was that I was always in survival, taking uncalculated risks and laughing in the face of danger and finding myself again falling on my face.

I originally titled my blog "Gypsy Tales", but I quickly realized that I no longer wanted to write any more gypsy tales to my life. I don't condone complacency and rigid societal values that chain down ingenuity, creativity, and freedom. Yet I see now that my free spirit will never be free in survival. My wings will always be clipped as long as I am unable maintain financial security, stable work, reliable housing, and consistent relationships that feed my soul. Likely that the all-American entrepreneur fails four out of five times because creating something new out of scarcity is believing that miracles will replace hard work and wisdom gained through experience.

At some point I became a realist when reality became stronger than my dreams. I believe in miracles and I believe in God. But I know that I will eat by the sweat of my brow and it's going to be hard and I'm going to fail. A lot. The miracle I'm seeking now is not that God is going to do it for me, but that he will give me the strength to get up again and again and the wisdom to know when to quit--the wisdom to know when to give up and try something else.

And then the wisdom to know when to "hang in there" and hold on to people, places, and things. It's not his "will" that I have to give up everything all the time and making sacrifice more important than love. Love is attachment. Love is desire. Love is wanting. I have shamed myself for so many years for wanting what I want and now I declare what I want and I declare the desires of my heart! I want to love! I want to be loved! I want home! I want stability! I want adventure! I want freedom! I want attachment! I am gloriously attached to life itself and I am ready to embrace a new way of life that includes words of permanence like 'always' and 'never' and 'forever' and 'never' and 'I love you' and 'eternal'.

I want to acknowledge my friend Sam, my mentor Gary Acevedo, my friends at Landmark, my friend Adora, my literary friends Barry Schwartz and Lori Gottlieb, and my best friend Heavenly Father for leading me to this pivotal point in my life at which I intend to turn my life around and allow myself to embrace love and all that it means and all the things Heavenly Father wants for me in my life.

Happy Valentine's Day!