I encountered an interesting example of the avoidance style when I spent a year in Topeka, Kansas. I was a Research Fellow at the Menninger Foundation, one of the nation's leading centers for the study of psychiatry. I soon became aware of the fact that there was a community of "permanent people" in Topeka and a number of smaller groups of "temporary" people. The permanent people were the Topeka residents who more or less had their roots in that community. The temporary people were those who had come to study at the Foundation and knew they would be in the city for only a year or possibly three years.
The permanent people tended to avoid deep contacts with temporary people, their friends usually being other permanent residents. On rare occasions a permanent resident would become involved in the life of a temporary person and allow a friendship to blossom. Since this seemed to be the exception, however, the temporary people sought each other out for their friendships. Deeper and closer relationships developed because of their temporary nature.
I decided that the permanent poeple avoided us temporary types because they did not want the pain of giving us up. If they allowed themselves to like us, it meant they would miss us when we left. So it was easier to avoid involvement and thereby avoid the pain of letting us go! By avoiding the pain of involvement, they also cheated themselves and us of potential joy.
The interesting thing is that all our relationships are temporary. Can you think of a single permanent relationship? Mother? Father? An old and dear friend? They all die eventually. Or move away. Or change. Just as you and I change and grow. If we cushion ourselves against deep involvement because someday we may lose the person, we only cheat ourselves and them as well.
So why not celebrate those relationships now while we have them? And while we can appreciate them? Even if we have them for just a day, or a week, or a year.
I was sitting with an old friend on the campus at Berkeley one warm spring Sunday afternoon. The sidewalks and courtyards were swarming with people out for a stroll in the sun. Pete and I sat on the cement for a time, listening to an informal group of musicians beating out primitive rhythms on an assortment of bongo drums and old cowbells.
It was fascinating ot watch the faces in the crowd around that pulsating musical heart. People just enjoyed each other, enjoying their right to be free, to wear odd clothes or go barefoot. There were children hanging from the branches of the tree under which the musicians beat out their ancient music.
We were reminiscing that day, Pete and I. Recalling the day we had played hookey from high school classes for a walk in the park and had to face the dean...Remembering old girlfriends...And double dating...And we talked about my kid brother, Jim.
Jim was killed in an Air Force jet crash in Portland, Oregon. Jim and his pilot were patrolling the Northwest coast during the Korean War. Jim was flying radar observer. The jet simply went dead in the air one day. He and his pilot could have bailed out, but they rode the plane into a clump of trees to avoid hitting the homes nearby where children were playing. (I remember sitting through Jim's funeral without crying. I thought I was being strong then, but now I know I just wasn't allowing myself to feel the pain that was there. I had to do my crying for Jim years later - and may still have some to do.)
I was the brother who made the headlines, but Jim was the one everybody loved. Who was the more successful? Is success measured in becoming known, or is it in loving and being loved?
Pete and I grieved awhile that day about the loss of a young man we had both cared about deeply. Our conversation went something like this:
Pete: What a tragic thing it is when a life can be snuffed out like that! What a loss. He's gone and there's nothing we can do about it.
Me: That's right, we can't do anything about it. But there is another way we can look at it.
Pete: What's that?
Me: Look, we both feel pain at losing Jim, because we loved him. I don't want to deny that pain for a moment. Be we can also rejoice that we had him for twenty-four years. We did know him, and he did enrich our lives during that time. Why not celebrate what we did have rather than grieve what we can't have?
Pete: I really hadn't thought of it that way.
It often does not occur to us to celebrate the good, the joy, and the love that we have received. We spend our time feeling bad that we don't still have it today, and so today is dampened by that sadness and is not celebrated for itself.
We can make choices about our life style. We do every day. We can choose to live a life of regretting, and "if only" style. Or we can choose a realistic, sometimes regretting but basically celebrating style that focuses on the good along with the painful. That is celebrating the temporary.
When you have nothing else to celebrate, celebrate your pain! At least it proves you are alive.
