Inmost Places

Tonight, I return to the topic of attachment.  While this post still fails to follow the previous attachment-related entry with the promised research tidbits, it is saturated in human relatedness all the same.  An advisory: this is one of those "1/3 shared experience" posts on the topic.

I am undecided as to whether or not I am one who wears my heart on my sleeve; regardless of its daily positioning, the sum of my emotional governance has somehow migrated to the screen before you now.

I wrote earlier that attachment theory describes our connection to other human beings as the very foundational layer (post-DNA, of course) of our neural development, our physiological organization and regulation, and our subsequent responses (molecularly and behaviorally) based upon the relative continuity or dissonance of our attachment experiences.  As corny as the concept sounds, even neurologists specializing in brain development are musing at the undeniable imaging proof that human relationships have the mysterious power to both create and destroy the frontier parts of our brains that allow us to feel and somehow be human.

In a season of life when so many of my own "pillars of human relatedness" are migrating out of my inner and everyday circles (for unavoidable circumstances -- some welcomed, some not), I am evermore nostalgic about times shared, wisdom proven worthy, and joys multiplied -- praying from inmost places that the priceless gains of "together" will suffice to pay the toll when paths diverge and "separate" divides.  Ultimately, our paths diverge in permanence when life disequitably portions the sands -- the hours dissolving away grain by grain, with no way to lend our days to another.  It is a painful reoccurrence on our journey -- separation intrudes and asks no permission.  As if a surgeon's knife of severance was not cruel enough, the remaining awareness of our treasured other ebbs away less precisely -- one sensation gone (a familiar scent), then the next (the feel of intertwined fingers).  Yet, standing at the dark borders of inconquerable despair, an ember flickers... of times shared, wisdom proven worthy, and joys multiplied.  A prayer from inmost places that we will honor love by loving still, loving better, loving another in the way we hoped to know forever.

Stepping out of eternity and back to measurable science, it is with bittersweet acceptance that I acknowledge even science's take on attachment -- why is it so necessary to our survival to be in relationship and form a mental model (internalized existence) of our significant others and their regard for us?  The answer -- so that the patterned responses we learned as a result of loving and being loved well can make us more adaptive and resilient, propel us to seek out new and deeper meaning in our becomings, and sustain us through the separation.  (This goes clear back to experiments about separation anxiety in infants!)   In our finer moments, we nurture our human affections for the same reason a mother robin nurtures her hatchlings: to watch them fly untethered by earthly limitations, choosing to view love's investment as sustaining currents -- not an earthen fetter.

To this end, I choose the "looking up" tonight.  I celebrate the adventures that beckon some and the rest that comforts others.  And I pray, from inmost places, for remembering to light the beacons... until "together" comes again.

For Grampy, Grammy, Fred, Mandy, G., my nursing girls, and so many beautiful "lights" to guide me -- with love and celebration for you always.

Isaiah 61