Not everyone will be able to (are we always to use the word “relate”?) to this post, but I’m convinced that a few readers will. So—for them:

Probably by now, just about everybody has heard the expression that’s become a pop culture truism: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result each time.” We behave insanely in many different contexts, but the definition is usually applied to (are we always to use this word?) “relationships”. Sometimes our insanity is comic; sometimes, tragic. It’s good to pause a moment at this point and recall an instance, or two, to refresh the memory. I’ll provide a little testimony:

Many years ago, I had it in my head how a mother is supposed to be. I’d read stories, seen plays, TV shows or movies—both secular and religious. I knew what a mother is supposed to be like, how she’s supposed to respond in a given situation. I’d been taught well, and I was a believer. So, just naturally, I expected my mother to respond to me as I’d been taught that mothers are supposed to.

In the midst of yet another personal crisis in New Orleans (I used to have a lot of those), I called my mother in Tampa. I needed mothering. The details of the crisis don’t matter; neither do the details of the conversation. What matters is that the end was the same as always. I hung up the phone angry. And my mother probably hung up the phone confused or hurt, or both. In fact, we were both confused and hurt.

But on this epiphanic occasion of that painful ritual, something occurred to me: This happened every time I called on my mother to “mother”. If I wanted it to stop, I had to stop calling on her to do something that she clearly was not going to do. I especially had to stop doing it at those very moments when I was most vulnerable, those moments when I was most in need of caring, encouragement, or consolation. I should make something clear here: I was not an unloved daughter. I knew well that my mother had always loved me. It’s just that she was not loving me on my terms, according to my perceived needs. The solution came to me—I had to stop expecting her to.

It changed everything. I won’t say I never called on her again; I did, but only a few times after that epiphany. But when I got the same result, I wasn’t angry with her, just with myself for having forgotten that I was asking her to do something that she could not do.

That one experience taught me a whole book of lessons that I had somehow escaped learning. Some of them are:

1. The cause of disappointment in someone is always expectation. No exceptions.

2. To cease expecting something of someone is not to cease trusting them. You can always trust if you define trust correctly. It’s not emotional dependence (as it’s almost always depicted in pop “flicktion”). It’s simply knowing that someone will behave as they’ve taught you they will behave. That is what “trust” is. I trust the sun to rise tomorrow, not because I need or want it to, but because it always has.

3. To love with detachment means to love with detachment from one’s own expectations of the beloved. And that is possible only if one recognizes the sovereignty of the beloved as absolute and inviolable. Without that recognition, bond becomes bondage and love becomes morbid.

4. To love someone requires that we love them as they are, not according to some template we have for them, not according to some need we have of them. It’s those templates that make forgiveness impossible. Let them go.

5. To love is utterly necessary for life. There is no wisdom or growth, no happiness or meaning, without loving. To be loved is—nice. Don’t expect it. It’s not a right. Being unloved destroys the lives only of those who believe they have a right to be loved. They’ve been tragically misinformed.

6. And finally, just as light can’t exist unless there’s pre-existing darkness, solution can’t exist without a pre-existing problem; that is, the solution to any problem is always in the problem. If it comes from outside the problem, it’s not the solution. I’ve actually tested this and found it true 100% of the time. Ergo,

7. Thank God for every problem. Only within the cross is he found.

Yesterday in a phone conversation with a relative (is there some conspiracy behind this cognate? Relate, relationship, relative?) I committed the same error—again. I extended an invitation—again—though that same invitation has been refused consistently for decades, with excuses absurdly transparent. That’s why I’m remembering all this today. If the definition of insanity is still valid, I’m still not completely sane. Guess I need a few more lessons….