Elina left today . . . I was hoping she would not, but she just had to go. Hey, sometimes you just gotta go. Altogether she was here most of the week . . . I like having her around. She even has her own toothbrush here. In my mind she is a little sister to me. When she stays with me, we drink gallons of tea and coffee and watch movies. If we do end up leaving my apartment, it’s to go to the corner späti to get Fun Beverages, or else to the grocery store to restock the fridge. She sleeps in my bed and I sleep on my couch. Elina seems to require 12–13 hours of sleep a night . . . I get about half that if I’m lucky, but we both wake up at the same time, which is in the afternoon. And then we just do the whole thing over again.

It is immediately obvious to me once Elina leaves that my natural purpose or state is to take care of someone else. Now that she’s gone, I don’t have anyone to cook for, or make tea and coffee for, or run the bath for, and on and on . . . I don’t have anyone to turn to and say “Do you want a T-shirt to sleep in?” or “Do you need another pillow?” or “Are you warm enough?” When she is not here, my nervous system goes out of whack. It is searching for a problem to fix. It is calibrated to take care of other people’s needs before it takes care of mine. Because taking care of other people is what takes care of me. In regulating others I regulate myself. I’m not saying this is a good thing!

The other day I wrote about nervous systems and how two people’s nervous systems can regulate one another. Under ideal circumstances, it’s a two-way street . . . you’re both jacked in . . . attuned! Sometimes, if one person feels sad or scared or lonely, they will (unknowingly) “borrow” a safe person’s nervous system to find refuge . . . simply hearing this safe person’s voice or sitting next to them on a couch stabilizes the one who is down and out. In the past, I was often that sad and scared and lonely person. I have countless times relied upon and found comfort in the strong nervous systems of my strong friends who freely lent them out to get me through periods of utter darkness. Without them I would be in a ditch. Truly! Even recently, the last six weeks especially, the great affection of my friends has spared me from being completely annihilated. I was shielded gladly in the glow of many familiar nervous systems that reminded me of one I knew and relied upon long ago.

And here I must speak, once again, of the distant past.

IT WENT LIKE THIS:

A long time ago, when I was very young and stupid, I lived within a good woman’s nervous system for what ended up being years, although at the time I was not aware of this. I was drawn to her because she was so warm and kind and affectionate towards me and she wanted nothing in return for any of it. Being in her presence felt like being behind an impenetrable barrier . . . you felt an immediate all-encompassing safety. You were protected from everything as long as you were connected to her. I was connected to her because she loved me for no other reason than I was me. It was such a natural feeling that you hardly understood where it was coming from and could almost believe that it had been there all along. It came to feel like oxygen to me and eventually I took its warm glow for granted. This love that she freely gave me year after year was so good and so strong that subconsciously it began to unnerve me in some primordial sense . . . I felt a feeling deep down that she was wrong about me and that I did not deserve that love, and so of course my brain went to work finding ways to completely sabotage the whole thing. And when I finally succeeded in destroying that love she had given me, I immediately felt very cold. Now I was alone on the outside of that nervous system that had been my home and it was nobody’s fault but my own . . . in despair I realized how much of herself she had given me when I hadn’t given her nearly as much in return. She had never asked for more when she deserved it all. And yet at her peril she had loved and protected me anyway. To say I felt ashamed of myself for how I’d treated her would be an enormous understatement . . . I did not truly forgive myself for casting her out until only a few years ago. It had haunted me every day until I finally had to let it go. But I have never forgotten the way her love made me feel. I remembered its vast shape and depth and alone I took that feeling with me.

Years later, now older and still stupid but nonetheless in possession of a strong nervous system, I find it is my nervous system that my (primarily) younger friends sometimes borrow in order to regulate themselves when they are struggling to do so internally . . . some borrow it briefly, maybe the span of a phone call, and others staying within it much longer. My nervous system may as well be a mansion with many rooms, such is its capacity, or else an island upon which is fixed a lighthouse whose light rotates in reliable intervals . . . and the tenants of which being free to lodge there as long as they wish, until they feel all right again. And they can always return when they need to. No need to ring . . . just come on in . . .

I can regulate all the live-long day. What turns my nervous system into a self-sustaining, endlessly replenishing resource is this: the reciprocity I experience is that in regulating other people, I am regulated. As I have said, it feels good to be a source of safety or comfort to someone who needs it . . . otherwise what’s the point of all this? What else is there? I believe in friendliness with no ulterior motive . . . friendliness stripped of high-pressure salesmanship, for someone who might never come again.

Now a little sadness: at various points in my life, there have been a handful people whom I loved and cared about very much, and who unknowingly leaned upon me and borrowed my nervous system because they could not find comfort anywhere else. I felt it in my body. In some cases, I could tell the safety they experienced with me was almost novel to them . . . perhaps before it had always come with a price. And so after a time it began to unnerve them and they came to regard that safety, whether they realized it or not, with a sort of suspicion. When you sense that in someone, you know that they have been conditioned long ago to see such a thing as a mirage or a trap. To them, a bonding to a safe figure means danger . . . they believe that just when they come to rely upon that external and invisible thing which soothes them in a way that they cannot then conjure within to soothe themselves, it will be taken away from them, and then they will feel humiliated and rejected and alone. They will feel a great pain. That pain is imprinted upon them in the deepest levels of their brain. It is ancient wiring. You sense a real fear in them, a sudden realization that they feel they do not deserve that love because they hate themselves, and then they sabotage it and run, just as I once did. When someone has been abandoned their entire life I feel a special sort of sadness for them. They could have lived within my nervous system as long as they needed to and I never would have kicked them out. It was always a free gift given freely . . . there was never a bill coming due. It was enough for me that they felt safe. I let them stay because I loved them. Someone once loved me in that way and I have never forgotten what it felt like. That love is beyond words— it must be felt. If you live long enough you will come to see how rare that sort of love is. You are beyond lucky if you experience it even once. And yet you cannot force them to stay because staying would require them to believe that they are worthy of it. They were all worthy of it. I still feel their absence in my body every day.