Done Living Off Scraps

Most of my life I lived off scraps of love. A little here, a little there. Constantly scavenging. Quick to scarf them down, no matter how long I’d waited. No matter how many beatings I’d received. No matter how old or dirty the morsels were, even if I knew I’d get sick after. Mangy, dirty, scrawny I was. But most of all, hungry, famished.

Because deep down, that’s what I believed I was, I deserved. So I attracted and sought out people and relationships that made it so. Because the wounded part in me saw the wounded part in them, offering them the care I so desperately needed, in a way nobody else could see. I waited weeks, months for replies to messages and then responded within minutes, grasping onto those coveted words as they came into reach, pulling them close to the broken heart of the little boy inside.

I tried to fill the void in all the ways — food, tv, sex, alcohol, adventure, video games, work, exercise, religion, travel. But it was bottomless. I brought flashlights, ropes, duct tape, company. But the abyss only grew wider, darker. We could call this anxious attachment. The Buddhists have a more visceral framing, the hungry ghost...tiny head, insatiable appetite. Whatever we call it, it’s born of suffering, breeds more.

I’d been slowly shifting out of this pattern for years, decades, until I saw it clearly, named it at the end of dieta, as I turned on my phone and saw one such message — “I’m done living off scraps!” I declared, from a deep place of self-love. I finally knew I am more, deserve more, already have all I’ll ever need. Right now, inside. It’s always been here. Always will. The little boy only needs my love, and of that, there is an unending supply. The vast, open, still place that’s exponentially expanding inside, that is the very universe itself, which I increasingly realize through my practice. All the attention and care I’d been pouring out into the cups of others all that time, secretly hoping they would in-turn fill mine…it was always for me, too.

One of the mistakes I’d been making was wanting to receive from the person to whom I gave. This is, of course, selfish, but deeper down, rooted in ignorance. They do not have what I need. No one does. There is only One source of such Love. Some call it God. Some call it Buddha. Some Nature. Some Spirit. Whatever one calls it, it is One. This is what we practice remembering, sati. This is what we wake up to.

Now that I can fill my own cup, oh how much sweeter the nectar that I am able to pour for others. Without expectation or want. Without hope. What a joy to simply give. And need not.

And the beauty of where I live now is, when I forget, my taxi driver Everardo, Juan who literally fills the water tank for my house, and Natali, the owner of the café I frequent, help me remember.

Two books I’ve recently read informing this journey are The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I highly recommend both.