Wholeness

I saw this amazing photo (posted below) and was very moved by the idea of what happens when we give parts of ourselves away for the sake of others. I believe it was meant to be a father and a child, and to represent the cost of raising children. Upon further review I don’t buy it. As a parent, giving a child what they need from us should empty and fulfill in conjunction. In fact, I’ve seen parents glory in the end of their financial child support. Even though I  know that there are reasons for their happiness, it still makes me sick. What rolls through my mind is: “Financially supporting a child’s needs is your goddamn job for fuck’s sake!”

Last week in Virginia we experienced a hail storm which is a very rare occurrence here.  Everyone took videos and did our usual weather talk, as we do.  My son, however, experienced a loss.  This year he decided to grow some flowers from seed and has been very successful.  It gave him a great deal of joy to see the growth.  I was impressed as I’ve never seen anyone in my family of origin keep a plant alive for long.  One day they were new and bright and beautiful and the next day the leaves were filled with holes. Just like that, the   fruits of hard work and the laws of nature turned into mauling  by the capriciousness of nature. The hail tore through the plants leaving literal holes in the leaves.

He spent a week or two deciding whether or not to place the plants back into the sun, or keep them protected against any more coming storms.  A metaphor of one effect of holes.

It made me think of all the times I’ve heard or read about “wholeness” as a goal for human life and the holes of life.  With regard to parenting, all children eventually have to deal with the empty spaces which the parents were responsible for and did not do the job of filling those holes well enough.  I say all because even though some do better than others, it is undeniable that we all leave holes.

Maybe recognizing holes is what led some to try and define “wholeness.”  I’ve heard a variety of attempts to describe what it is and a variety of attempts to teach it.  Some will say that wholeness is not feeling a sense of loneliness at times, the “you are all you need”  style camp. Others may describe it as making good choices; i.e., eating right, sleeping well, staying active in mind and body, or the like.   It’s so easy to look at someone else and think “they have it figured out,” which is simply short-sighted and comparison-based but easy to do.  My interest in this stems from a lifelong desire of  wanting to know things that help me not be a miserable cow, to put it succinctly.

My current conclusion is that there is no it.   Fundamentally, our lives, our psyches, our goals, our relationships, everything in life is full of holes. The number and size can ebb and flow as we give and receive, which is another way of looking at filling and emptying.  But if wholeness is a chase to fill all holes, all the time, when life is full of loss, pain, and fear, periodically at cavernous levels?  I can’t see how anything but denial could do that.  So, maybe there is no it  but a shift in perspective to accepting holes as a norm to experience a good life.  This simple acceptance can lead to examining personal holes and may reveal that some of them were never ours to begin with.

This is similar to the adult child’s task I spoke of earlier.  Of course we swallow up other people’s fears, demands, losses or ideologies at times and have to then spit them out.  Well, nothing in this life is actually simple, and that one particular example doesn’t even touch the complexity of holes or the laundry list of personal struggles or neuroses that are common to all lives.

So that photo has quite a bit of truth to it. Not that it is anyone’s job to remove parts of themselves for another but that our interactions with others and with ourselves can have the effect of creating holes or filling them. Living costs and living pays, so to speak.

My best friend has a saying that I come back to quite often, she says, “find what matters [to you] and let it be enough.” It doesn’t let anyone else define your “enough.” It flies in the face of perfectionism or one-path-only thinking. It rocks comparison thinking down to zero value. It lets there be room for holes without letting them be the rulers of our lives. It may be no one else’s dictionary definition of wholeness, but I can’t imagine a more fulfilling life.