.SOMETIMES RAW.

A friend asked me the other day, how she can balance ambition and security. My first reaction was that this must be one of the most fundamental conflicts of human experience and that she might already know the answer. It was right there in her words: She is taking a leap, and now she cannot find her footing. I guess she cannot be airborne and grounded at the same time? It is an apt metaphor because ambition and security share a similar mutual exclusivity. To leap or not to leap? It is not the question, but it is always its own kind of answer. One of the other but never both.

I think it is right for anybody in a situation like that to feel untethered. If you leave something you know for something you don’t it is always strange and weird at first. Why? Because you are suspended in uncertainty, one of the squirmiest, most unpleasant emotions. I have made similar leaps myself that, in hindsight, have changed my life for the better, but I’ll still go to great lengths to avoid the feeling. In previous dark moments, I even hoped for someone or something to decide my fate for me just to save me from it. Which is to say: Learning to maintain your wits right now is good practice for life. You can, of course, try to level your unease with a truism like “everything will be okay” (impossible to prove), but I think you know this is what you have chosen: to lose your footing and float a little. But sometimes, it is the only way to move forward.

I understand this desire to establish a sense of structure though. For me, it is done by laying the foundation of a new world and putting up the proverbial shelves that I will find my way back to the ground. I think this comes naturally. For example, I signed a lease, found work, met new friends and explored a new city to exhaustion. I developed affection for a particular street corner and memorized the peculiarities of my commute. I tried, fucked up, did better the next time. Imbued with the learnings of my previous “life”, these are the new rhythms and habits by which I will live, and they will give me a sense of certainty and security that looks so attractive right now. Of course, these are also the tenets which, when overemphasized, can make me feel stuck. For me, this is the tension inherent to safety versus freedom.

Safety is knowable and certain. It makes me feel secure and protected even though deep inside I know that nothing is for certain. It can also be suffocating, making me yearn for the expansiveness of freedom, openness, and adventure. Freedom says anything is possible when safety says only some things are. Freedom implies a kind of lawlessness while safety favors order. Too much of the former incites fear and insecurity, too much of the latter can inspire an existential kind of dread. I think that these two notions are connected like joy and pain, each emphasizing the other in ways important and cruel. To me, a life well-lived entails a constant negotiation between both.

There have been times in my life where too much of one sent me running toward the other, like when I was 23, arrived in New York and felt so urgently stagnant that, in the span of a week, I started five creative projects and designed to change all the habits I believed were nurturing my complacency. I also believed the Sex and the City lifestyle is real. In instigating a flurry of change, I felt inspired, energetic, and a little afraid but loved the adventure. For a while, this harkened a unique era of fulfillment, but within six months, I was burned out. I had become so tapped into the life I wanted, I had come to resent the life I had. I needed a period of calm reclusion, a return to stability, which then stretched into months until, of course, I felt itchy again.

So, I rode the roller coaster for a long time, never quite sure which one was “correct”. Hustle or relax? There was a time in my life when I studied and worked full-time. Do I want more or be grateful? But the answer was not in committing to one of the other, it was in learning to let these parts of me cooperate rather than fight to the death. This balance looks different for everyone of course, but for me, it means being careful to balance routine with risk, deadlines with creative freedom, long days with time off. It is decorating my comfort zone while also stepping outside of it enough to remember why I have it in the first place. This leap will teach me about myself, about what I want, what makes me feel good, wrong, attentive and fearful.

From experience, I suggest that whatever you do, embrace the inimitable perks of freedom you have unlocked by leaving an established structure: the sense of movement in your body, the breath-taking number of possibilities on the horizon, the unknowability of the next move. They may give you vertigo. It did to me, but what good things don’t come at a cost? And when I eventually spun a new safety net for myself (and my son), that security will feel all the more satisfying for what came before it.

This emotional binary is not reserved for life’s most significant peaks and stalls. We pursue and avoid the trappings of freedom and safety every day. We seek solace in maintaining a habit, and pursue adventure in breaking them. We cling to what we know then resent it, lust for something new then grow sick of it. So, isn’t it that we all just dance a delicate dance between tending to what we know and courting what we don’t? Always dance, but stand steady on your feet.

The other day at the supermarket register line I encountered some existential quandaries and saw a German magazine analyzing Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s body language. An “expert” claimed does she know that Meghan’s hand placed on Harry’s arm means she is enjoying the moment. Or that the position of Harry’s fingers indicates that he is a relaxed parent. When it comes to body language, I can recommend the book by Allen and Barbara Pease, “The Definitive Book of Body Language” that I enjoyed quite a lot. They train lawyers, journalists, salespeople, and other professionals in the art and science of body language. I would like to share some insights of the book that are helpful on a daily basis because reading body language is a superpower.

Sometimes I can see the subtle, nuanced element of human communication so I guess I studied linguistics for something. When talking to each other, people are mostly focused on the words the other person is saying. In the book, it says that our bodies reveal how we feel in ways we may not even realize. If you’re nervous, you might rock slightly, rub your lips with your finger, or play with your hair. I was surprised how many industries use the services of body language experts to read people better and recognize, for example, a customer’s reservations about making a big purchase. I love to learn more about body language because my goal is to understand people better.

What I learned while/after reading the book

The book highlights that there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when reading body language. Culture and context are really important, as are “clusters”. In body language, a cluster is two or more types of gestures a person makes at around the same time. For example, say a person is talking to someone and they crinkle their nose. Crinkling the nose is a micro-expression of disgust. That is a clue on its own, but when paired with other gestures we can extract more information about what a person is really thinking. Crinkling the nose and leaning away from someone would indicate the subject’s dislike of the person they are talking to, or of the topic. If they crinkle their nose while nodding their head, they may be trying to give the impression that they agree when really they do not.

I am not a mind reader. I think, however, that body language is a combination of art and science. To “read someone” is by no means a 100 percent certainty. But think of it this way: not all doctors are going to solve the same medical condition the same way, right? They might try different medications or procedures based on their expertise and experience. It’s important to remember that body language analysis is just my/your interpretation of the situation. Obviously, it is almost impossible to interpret someone’s body language based on a TV appearance or a photo. There is only so much information you can get from a photo or video. No clue what happened before the picture was taken, there is no context at all, but newspapers and crappy magazines do not care. To interpret someone’s body language, I need a lot more context. If it were that easy to tell if someone is lying, we would not have the Innocence Project, we would not have this high false confession rate. You could also spot someone cheating on you a lot earlier because you would have been able to see right through the deception. It is not that easy. I wish it was! It becomes more challenging if the other person sends you mixed messages and signals such as he/she doesn’t look in your eyes much and often looks over your head. But at the same time, touches your arm occasionally when you say something funny. The authors suggest to closely watch the person when they are talking. He/she might feel uncomfortable, lying or hiding something if they look everywhere but in your eyes.

I believe moving through the world is easier when I am more mindful of the body language signals I am giving off and receiving. It is helpful to be in the right mindset when talking to someone because your non-verbal cues will reflect that. The final test: Person A (whom you really like and kinda hung out with for a couple of weeks) takes you to a party. As soon as you arrive, he takes off and completely ignores you the entire evening. He does not talk to you, does not sit next to you and hangs out with his friends only. What does this tell you? (A): He really likes you and loves spending time with you or (B) His focus is clearly not you, he does not care about you.

Moving to Vienna is great for my professional and cultural life but was temporarily nightmarish for my social life. I am doing really well on my own but it is crucial to have some friends to connect with; especially without children, to overcome my social brokenness. It is not easy to start all over in a new city, a new country and leave all my friends behind. In the first couple of weeks, I felt like the human incarnation of this wired cigarette cockroach. Ready to do things but all alone.

Tired: Pizza Rat – Wired: Cigarette Cockroach

Tired: pizza rat
Wired: cigarette cockroach pic.twitter.com/HPxBLkWstX

— Tom Kretchmar (@tkretchmar) October 18, 2019

First, we walked around to explore and expand my network. I figured out subway and bus lines, cafés, bookstores (obviously). Then we moved on to museums, galleries, and playgrounds. Here, as a mother, it doesn’t just mean facilitating hangouts with basically strangers, it means being honest with myself and others about my desires to grow my connections in Vienna. The second thing I did was even more important than that: I simply let time pass. I learned how important patience is in the process of making friends.

To find new friends is one thing. How about letting go of a friendship? My friend Laura Kelly recorded a great podcast about how she broke up with her BFF. Check it out if you would like: Laura Kelly’s You Might Not Like It Podcast

I moved many times in my life and it is natural that certain friendships end. Maybe “end” is not the right word. They fade out naturally. But those who have substance will last. When is it time to end a relationship? Also, when a friendship ends, does it alter the value it had? The timing feels eery, as I am grappling with ending a friendship myself. This also meant I wasn’t sure I was equipped to speak on any of it yet. Did it matter that I hadn’t fully metabolized the experience? Or intellectualized the shit out of it until I could explain it away with the right words? “I don’t know why it bothers me so much,” I said, my chest tightening.

As contact with this friend of mine started to wane, the health of our friendship was not always clear to me. Was our drifting organic or evidence of a more serious problem? In hindsight, I should have asked because communication is key. At that time though it felt alarmist, or even self-centered. So, the not so smart thing to do is to keep trying to be normal with the person until it was clear my efforts weren’t being reciprocated. Quietly filling in the blanks through all this probably made things worse. And more pressingly, it gave my fears a lot of mental real estate, especially as they pertained to the new friendship(s) I am trying to build in Vienna.

From an outsider’s perspective, maybe it was obvious we were going in different directions, but from the inside, it felt like a kind of betrayal, the way even necessary change sometimes can. Friendships exist at an unusual emotional intersection in that they feel both deeply important and easy to push aside, mentally, in favor of things like love, family, and work. This incongruence can be startling when a friendship is a source of pain rather than bolstering and additive. Friendship breakups may not happen all at once or even require us to change our lives to weather them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be just as consciousness-alerting. I think, friendships are primarily driven by mutual understanding or compatibility unlike family, who are not chosen, and unlike romantic relationships, which are charged with something more primal. Moving on from those often means acknowledging a deeper change within, or within the friend. It is a personality problem and I know I cannot move on from a friendship without moving on from a pat of who I once was. I realized that it means to accept that I also cannot control how the other person feels about me.

When I first met my friend, we were going through different but compatible transitions, and this lent our connection a key of alchemy and harmony. However, when our situations changed and the connection fizzled, I was left to question if we ever had anything in common at all. A loss of a friendship can feel disarming like that which brings me to the question I raised earlier: “When a friendship ends, does it alter the value it had?” My insecurity wants me to interpret this breakup as proof the past was somehow false, or my reading of it delusional. It is probably more true that our connection was strong for a reason, even if that reason was somewhat ephemeral. This reminds me of the trope that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. It is the kind of cliché one forgets until we stumbe upon it ourselves.

Some friendships aren’t forever, but that doesn’t make them any less important. Friendships represent parts of ourselves, and navigating them isn’t so different from figuring out who we are. [Yes, I finished “A New Earth” by Eckhart Toll]. Simply confront the other person. Ask. Talk. Sometimes it may lead to a really difficult conversation but it may primarily save the friendship you have. This then may inspire you to approach some of your other relationships with a similar kind of care. When we downplay how they make us feel, I think we miss an opportunity for a unique form of introspection. Social connection, with all the comfort, and sometimes heartache, inspire. They can be external reflections of our internal worlds. In the end, who we choose to connect and disconnect with tells us a lot about what we want, who we are, and how we have changed.

After a friendship ends, don’t feel like the wired, lonely cigarette cockroach. Go out and play with someone else.