The Endless Reaching

"Sold your soul
Built a higher wall
Yesterday
Now you're thrown away
Same rise and fall
Who cares at all?
Seduced by fame
A moth into the flame"
- James, Moth into the Flame

Hell is other people, like Sartre noted. They are really disappointing. Unavailable, inconsistent, absent, avoidant, deluded, confused, blind, distracted. Low on capacity. Capacity for reality, contact, presence. Capacity for love. They will let you down again and again.

And I love them.

I can't seem to be able to stop reaching. I used to reach out because of trauma -- by showing how special and valuable I am -- the transaction that was the safest way to get a hit of belonging. Fake, unsatisfying and temporary. But readily available.

Then I peeled that back and I would reach out for external validation of my worth. Maybe even less: just a confirmation that I exist, that I matter. That was also rooted in trauma. Attachment.

Then when that pattern wore off I was looking for recognition. See me. Know me. Notice the weight I've been carrying. Not looking for compassion or care just being seen. It was more pure than what came before but still misguided. Seeing from a distance is not the real thing.

My life has been littered with betrayal and loss. My dad beat me and treated me like his slave. My mom had BPD and was unreliable and inconsistent. My first wife had an affair, lied to me and left me. My second wife could not stop projecting her own trauma onto me. I waited for 10 years for her to see me. Helplessly, hopelessly.

Disappointment used to mean devastation: splitting, desperation, identity collapse. Once I discovered and processed the preverbal terror underneath it all, the devastation stopped. I no longer curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out while blacking out in pain. Because of rejection, real or imagined.

Yet disappointment lives on. Yet I keep reaching. Hoping. Why? Maybe there is no ulterior motive any more. Perhaps there's just the reaching. And I embrace it not because I'm hoping to get something out of it. But because that's what's alive for me.

Desire for connection for its own sake. Maybe I'm reaching out to people simply because I love them. Maybe I am not the moth afterall.