Cutting Loose
I’m ready. There is no two ways to say that. I’m ready to cut loose and to be cut loose. Everyone wants to feel needed, but some of us have been needed to the point where we need to be less needed. In most things I have done from family (nuclear and extended) to primary work (my career as it has morphed) to my not-for-profit activities, I have always felt driven to proactive acceptance of responsibility. This tendency does not just happen, it is bred into us by our hardworking forefathers. In my case, I think about my mother’s father, who found the gumption at a young age to emigrate from Slovakia to upstate New York to work in a salt mine until he could find his way into the roadhouse business and an extra portion of ambition in the bootlegging of Canadian liquor into the country during Prohibition. Apart from that, my mother did not fall far from that tree and bootstrapped herself into college and built a professional career that she assiduously pursued for forty years…being of service to others less fortunate around the world. Think about that. One generation pushes forward for a better life and the next pushes forward further by giving back through outreach to those of the world that need help and cannot find the path that the first generation found. As the third generation in this string, I have found ways to mix the two paths and both push the quality of my family’s life forward and still be of service to others around the world that need a helping hand. But now I am tired.
The truth is that I am not so tired that I would sit on the porch and do nothing to move forward in one way or the other. I think I am tired of all the interpersonal friction that takes place in any endeavor that involves more than one person. Whether its family, workplace or organizations, the most wearying part always seems to be the back-and-forth that reflects the angst that people have towards each other or perhaps just with themselves. The last two days have been just such angst-filled time for me for some reason. Before I start in, let me remind myself that life is beautiful and I have absolutely nothing to complain about in the grand scheme of things. That is an important tone-setting disclaimer because all too often people focus on all the bad things in their lives and ignore the good. I call that out whenever I see it, so it is only fair that I call myself out on it so that I do not go into full whining mode.
To begin with, in terms of family I do not like to get too specific because many of my family members read this and I have yet to find a way to write about any of them in a critical manner and not get the fur flying. So, I will just say that I think we are all showing the stress of not having seen one another in over a year. We all think that FaceTime and Zoom are not so bad, but that is only a short run substitute for face-to-face interaction and spending quality time together. One is needy, one is sensitive, one feels put-upon and the other feels ignored. One wants to be left alone and the other feels abandoned. In short, there is no solution to any of it. With my children I try to be there for them but I try equally hard not to crowd them or demand too much of their time. They are all learning how to juggle all of the demands on their time and I have had enough experience with that to recognize that it is stressful and subject to a learning curve. It is interesting to see younger ones experience exactly what we all have and still feel that these are original problems that are unique to their circumstances. In general, my children have been cut loose by me and their mothers, which means that I have been cut lose from them, but am I really? As a long-time absentee father to all three of my kids, I never forget that the only thing that matters in the long run to them is my being there. Giving them space does not give me license to think that I have been cut loose. All it means is that I am able to be more reasonable than perhaps their mothers or in-laws in the demands I put on them.
The further outward we go in our nuclear families the lesser the demands. The height of obligation exists at level one, which is, by definition between parents and children (both up and down the generational ladder). The second level is lateral and involves siblings. As I have explained, it might technically be most intense between full siblings, but half siblings need to be careful not to assume that those ties are subordinate to full siblings. There is nothing to be gained from that realization and you want to avoid any form of ultimatum between them. I have the situation that with two full siblings and seven and counting half siblings, I am constantly aware of the need to stay vigilant in regard to these relationships. I have lived life with a loose connection to all siblings, but have chosen to be here to lend assistance to them as they age. I think that adds a valuable perspective because let’s face it, their eventual demise is bound to have a bigger impact on you than most things they did in their lives. The book Passages would say that it is all about coming to grips with your own mortality.
Friends are another matter altogether (and I group close friends and non-nuclear family members in the same cohort). As I have noted before, I do not consider some old friends as that different from family. This is particularly so with regard to the issue of cutting loose. People who have been your friend a very long time are simply too hard to abandon no matter how curmudgeonly or difficult they become. It’s too late to just declare that you don’t like them or that they are bad people. You have made your bed with them and chances are that you are stuck with them, so don’t bother trying to cut loose, it is likely more painful than to just stay put and minimize contact.
Organizations have been an interesting issue for me. I have generally found that he hierarchy in a not-for-profit organization is as challenging or more than in a business organization. As my pals in academia like to say, since there is no money to argue about, they are left to argue about the more personal things like offices (status), titles (status), parking spaces (convenience) and the ever-present issue of power. We all join these organizations to supposedly give back and be of service. Some use it as a stepping-stone to connections and as a resume polisher, but let’s ignore those lesser angels. But somewhere along the road, usually after many years of involvement, cracks appear and honorable intentions come strained. It is the natural course of things and so long as it does not get out of hand, it should simply be treated as the signal to move on. I have had that occur with my Alma Mater after twenty-five years of service and with a global charity after a dozen years. In both instances, I cut myself loose either due to term limits or physical moves. To make my point that I have not soured on academia or NFP work, I am reinvolving myself with another University out here in San Diego.
And then there is work. I have been cut loose and I have cut myself loose and neither is without complications. I am on the cusp of another instance where I am being cut loose because I have expressed an interest in cutting myself loose. That makes it easy for us all to say that we are getting what we all want and that it is simply time to move on. Here’s the thing though, it is very much like having a baby. You want it. It’s the right thing. It will all be good in the long term. But in the short term there is no way to have it happen without some postpartum angst. I can feel it coming on me already and yet, cutting loose is what the world demands of us all, over and over again.