#29 Wanting

I’ll never forget a time I was upset about a situation where my husband didn’t respond to what seemed to me like a fundamental human request. Worse, he didn’t even seem to want to. I felt stopped in my tracks, could see no way forward. A wise friend said to me, “If it’s truly human, of course he wants to, even if he can’t know it yet himself.” Somehow these words transformed my attitude. I didn’t have to rage—or despair—in the face of this wall of non-responsiveness. I could know that he was reaching out to the best of his ability, be confident in his essential loving nature and love for me, and continue tending to my role in the relationship.

I’ve been reminded of that lesson as I’ve struggled to build a friendship with a woman of a very different background whom I met in the course of my work several years ago. We’ve had enough moments of good contact to know that we like each other and would choose to do more together. But it’s been hard going. She rarely returns calls, hasn’t responded to a variety of other initiatives, seems consumed with her own life. It’s a situation in which I could easily imagine getting confused—starting to believe that she didn’t like me, or want me, or have room for me. It would be more comfortable in a way to decide to give up, to cut my losses in order to avoid feeling rejected once again. Yet I’ve been sustained by the sure knowledge that she wants this relationship as much as I do. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s a blessing to be so sure, when all the obvious evidence points in the opposite direction.

This world is crowded with wonderful human beings who want all that is good and human—for ourselves, for others, and in relationship. We just aren’t always in touch with that wanting, or able to act on it. Most of the time most of us live crowded in by the confusion that this difficulty breeds, our sense of confidence diminished by the action (or inaction) of others. We live hedged in by doubts and uncertainties, focused on protecting ourselves from being hurt.

Yet the truth is that we want each other. With this woman, there are a host of barriers, some as simple as the priority of the moment, others that probably neither of us fully understands. On the surface it looks like nothing is happening, that we remain as separate as ever. Yet I see a much more dynamic reality—a wanting each other, a reaching out that just hasn’t been completed. There’s a possibility that we may never make that strong connection we’re reaching for; I don’t have total control of the outcome. But when I keep this picture in mind, it’s not hard to keep trying. It’s what I want to do.

We all make choices about how to invest our relationship energy—and there is wisdom in not pouring it all into places where nothing comes back. But there is a difference between thoughtfully deciding to put our efforts into more promising directions, and cautiously giving out only as much as we get, hedging our bets, focusing on defense and protection.

I’m deeply attracted to a way of living my life that assumes we are all reaching out as best we can, all wanting the best for our world. Then I don’t have to take personally the places where others seem to fall short. I don’t have to waste too much energy in anger and disappointment, or judge my efforts by the immediate response. I can continue to do my own wanting and reaching and not giving up, confident that it keeps me more alive, and that it matters in ways that I may never fully know or understand.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 1/05