Parts of Self

A big chunk of me has slipped back into place unexpectedly.  I call it my nature girl.  Suddenly I’m appalled by fracking---especially in Pennsylvania.  And by the continents of discarded plastic, ghost ships cruising ominously across the ocean.  By the pellets of plastic lodged in the throats of seabirds and whales.  I don’t want to shout slogans or disrupt traffic or get arrested.  But I do want to write letters, post in my blog, watch what plastics I consume. 

This part of me went underground for the past 20 years.  It was the “biological imperative” that hijacked me, the compulsion to have a child. The cultural imperative for women.  But I wanted it, wanted to nurture another person into his or her genuine self: whole, authentic, happy.

Last night, Max’s face was bright with excitement over a new girl.  “She’s already beautiful,” he said. “If she puts on a little makeup, I won’t be able to look at anything else.”

Yet just the day before, he’d alarmed me and my husband and his teachers with a declaration of unhappiness and depression, completely uncharacteristic of him.

I’m not sure I’m convinced.  I think he wants to experience what depression is, to join the crowd of adolescents discussing their medications and therapists and hospitalizations, to garner some attention.  On the other hand, I know he is feeling pressured and overwhelmed in his senior year of high school.  He’s overly concerned with perfection and grades.  He refuses to accept his disabilities as real and not products of personal failure. 

Yet, I think if he weren’t panicked about completing graduation standards, getting an A in his college class, and getting into a four-year college--if he were free to move toward what makes him feel good and let go of what doesn’t--he would be just fine.  

So, my nature girl has returned.  Nature permeates her view of the world and of herself.  She feels competent in biology, in learning, in repeating what she knows on tests and papers.  She feels at one with others who share this foundational love: those who move about in nature and draw meaning from it and revel in its beauty.

At the same time, I have other selves, not ecstatic, not on top of things.  Hurt, angry, and demanding attention.  The authentic self and the wounded self have to live in balance. 

I guess this applies to both Max and me.