Carly Milne • Blog • "find it difficult to evaluate life and love on the basis of purity. However, truth, cold, unemotional truth, one's loss of innocence holds it. "

May 16, 2008

"find it difficult to evaluate life and love on the basis of purity. However, truth, cold, unemotional truth, one's loss of innocence holds it. "

I came home from Vancouver last Saturday and have been kind of hibernating ever since. That trip took a lot out of me in a lot of ways... most of them good, but I really needed to hide in my cave for a bit to rejuvenate. Part of it was because I had an experience that was somewhat... jarring for me. I had the great fortune to reconnect with some people that I didn't realize I really missed from my life until I figured out how long it had been since we spent time together. And then I reconnected with a mentor. And my world just sort of... stopped.

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I've had a handful of mentors over the years, and I recognize that they come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. For example, I consider my first grade teacher to be a mentor. He encouraged me to write, he made me read in front of the class... I actually had a moment at my Vancouver reading where I looked at Dayna and said, "This feels like it's grade one again and we're in Mr. Sob's class." It's almost like those little moments all added up helped to groom me for what's going on now.

Anyway. Mr. Sob was there in first grade, later on there were other teachers who encouraged me, other editors and employers, people who have come and gone, some who have been there through the whole journey. And then there was one mentor who has been teaching me not so much about how to write and make it a career - more so, they were teaching me to be myself.

It's probably been the toughest lesson. It's one that I've alternately loathed and feared, it's one that I'm still going through. It gets easier as time goes on, but man, those first moments as an adolescent were just hell. And while everyone else would tell me, "You'll wish for these days someday when you're older!" My mentor was the only one who was honest with me and said, "These will be the worst times of your life. You'll never want them back. But it will be worth it."

That honesty instilled a trust in that relationship that I didn't even know was possible. Everything about it gave me hope - that someone cared enough to coach me like that, that someone saw enough in me to care enough to coach me like that... it was the fuel I needed to not give up when things felt like they were at their worst. This mentor was like my heartbeat - I felt that connected, and even when we weren't in contact it was like there was no distance. I could hear that voice in my head egging me on.

I feel like I owe a lot to this mentor. I don't want to go into major specifics lest I hurt anyone else's feelings - because again, I've had more than one over the years that have influenced me in profound ways. So when I met with this mentor again and saw them... well, kind of lifeless, it stunned me. This is a person who walked into a room and lit it up, and everyone wanted to be around them. This is a person who would wake up one morning with an idea and bring it to fruition practically immediately, making it seem effortless in its perfection. So when they confessed to me that they didn't think they had much to offer as a person to anyone else, and that they were tired, and a whole litany of other - I'm sorry, but it's true - excuses as to why they were shutting themselves off and away from the world, it really shook me to my core.

Essentially, I learned my mentor was human. While they always seemed to me to be iron-clad and Teflon-coated, the truth was my mentor has the same insecurities, worries and low self esteem that I have suffered with to varying degrees over the years... and was essentially teaching me from their mistakes. Or so they told me.

I don't buy it.

Maybe it sounds selfish, but I honestly feel angry about this. I feel like they're giving up when there's still so much life to live. I feel like the person that pushed me all those years is the person I knew, and the person I reconnected with isn't authentic. It's just easier to give up and say those things. And yeah, maybe I look at this from the perspective that I kind of feel like my training wheels have been ripped off my bike before I'm completely ready. But for the most part I feel like I'm finally coming to a point where I can offer my mentor something in return for what they gave me... and they're rejecting it.

This troubled me so much that I actually talked with my therapist about it, and she told me, "At this stage in the game it's unlikely that your mentor is going to gain back what it is they're letting go of." And I hate that. I hate that because it's kind of like watching someone die, slowly extinguishing their own flame with old, outdated mental dialogue that's being allowed to win.

But maybe what I hate most is that I can't change that. I have to accept it. I have to love them for who they are, even knowing who they were. Which isn't to say that they're not loveable as they are - they most certainly are. But how would you feel if someone you knew as being so incredibly driven and talented suddenly started selling themselves short?

And maybe this is just another lesson, teaching me to do the opposite of what they're doing.

Does every major lesson have to hurt this much? I realize this sounds kind of melodramatic and that it's this person's choice to live this way, but for me it's kind of like the grown-up version of learning that there's no Santa Claus... when there bloody well is one, and I know it because I almost went to his house in Finland. (You get what I mean.)

Either way, I think I need to hike this one out of me tomorrow... or this is just going to continue to gut me.

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11:02 PM • permalink

3 Comments

Devon Ellington said on May 17, 2008 6:13 AM:

You can't live someone else's life for him or make choices for him anymore than you'd want those choices made for you.

I learned (the hard, painful way), that the best thing that can happen with a good mentor is that you eventually outgrow the person.

As a mentor, when you do your job right, you know when to let your mentees go and not try to live vicariously through them.

People's lives change over time, and their priorities change. Sometimes it's finding out that what you thought you wanted isn't really what you want, and you have to step back and find another path. Sometimes you burn out and need to do something else for awhile and recharge.

And sometimes, some people do just give up. They've used everything up -- usually by not drawing firm enough boundaries and saving enough for themselves, but via the mistaken idea that martyring themselves for others will get them what they want in the end. All it's left them is empty.

I don't know the details, and I wouldn't presume to project which scenario (and it might be none of the above) is your mentor's.

But, even if you disagree with the decision, it's not yours to make. The best you can do, if you really, truly care about this person, is state that you don't agree, but also offer whatever support you can (as long as it's not something hurtful, like self-mutilation or something).

Ultimately, this is not about you. Your life is moving along in ways you want and ways you can't even imagine. It is this other person's life, and this person has to make the choices. It's painful when we believe we see a better path, or if we believe that the person isn't living up to their potential, or, as you put it, the authenticity. It hurts like hell.

But we don't live in their skins, and, ultimately, it is not our decision to make. It's out of our control -- and that's sometimes as painful as seeing someone we care about making decisions with which we disagree.

Karl said on May 17, 2008 9:21 AM:

Yeah, it's hard sometimes to realize just how human our mentors are. I'm up and down a lot, emotionally, at times very motivated and at times barely able to get out of bed.

But being genuine/authentic is very much part of me. I don't always have the funny in me. Those days I blog about depression.

Carly said on May 19, 2008 9:28 PM:

Y'all have inspired a follow-up post. :)

Hey, Seattle! I'm doing a Sexography reading at The Center for Sex-Positive Culture on Friday, August 22nd!
I'm also doing a Sexography reading at Elliott Bay Book Co. on Saturday, August 23rd!
The next In The Flesh: L.A. is July 31st!
Donate to RAINN
Read my thoughts on writing Sexography at my Amazon blog!
For info on events supporting Sexography, join the Sexography Facebook page!

Stuff n' Such:

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