Authenticity

And, while I’m on a roll…

Avril asks As a multiple, what does authenticity mean to you? I’m thinking beyond simply staying true to one viewpoint or one deeply held value. How can the system maintain authenticity to many different values and priorities? And says other neat stuff in her comment, and I’ll have to track that stuff down ’cause it sounds cool.

I think when I say authenticity I’m probably at a slightly different (earlier?) stage with it.

As a member of a multiple system so much of my life experience has been about disconnects… my favourite, true, example is that until I was in my late 20s I had never, ever, ever in my life experienced or remembered apologizing for something. As far as I was concerned, arguments/fights were something one either started or suddenly found one’s self in, and then after some unspecified and vague period of time things were okay again.

That’s because I never personally apologized; Teresa and others did, and I never even was aware of the process. So it was kind of a shock to me that this whole “apologizing” thing was something that I/we ever did. I kind of thought it was a sort of urban legend, that we trained our kids to say sorry but as teens/adults simply… implied it, or something.

So for me part of becoming authentic is not only being able to express that – to say hey! I was 28 before I ever apologized! And it has shaped my experience tremendously and actually I am most comfortable with people like asshole men who never apologize or accept apologies!

But also to learn how to do it myself and not just hang back and let someone else do it.  And apologizing sort of breaks down as an example here, but the thing is that for me and us there are at least two modes of being. In one mode, we all do what we were “made” to do – so I fight, Lynn strikes, and JJ soothes.  And that feels familiar and in some cases works quite well.

But in the other mode, the authentic mode, we seek out full experiences – I work, but I also apologize at work if need be, and so on and so forth. Co-consciousness goes a long way in being able to do that, like I can be there for Lyria’s gardening and she can be there for my meetings.  But part of feeling authentic, for us, is feeling that not only are we there but we have gotten there in some coherent way – chosen to show up, as it were, for the day.

So that’s one sense in which I use it, that it kind of is exciting to be there, but then it sucks that say, Lynn’s showing up means she gets attached to her poetry group, but then we can’t often make it to their readings. 

The values… is harder. I do value a work ethic, for example, and financial “independence” (I know we are not really independent from each other) fairly highly, and I’m willing to consume more fossil fuel to get there, and stress out my kid just a little.  Lyria is already being driven mad by the lack of public transit to our work destination from here and she values a small footprint and time to be much more.  And Lynn values artistic expression pretty highly; I suspect she is going along with the job because she thinks there will be some synergy and more ‘scope’ and there is some truth in that. JJ values balance which is why she’s so helpful at times like these. I don’t really know yet what Dominic values, so we should ask him sometime.

It is a really good point that those are values to try to reach simultaneously, and some years we do and some we don’t. What I think has maybe surprised me the most the last two years is how crazy it is when we add a baby to the mix. I am so lucky to have all of you to muse about with and hear about Jamie’s great daycare and so on.