On independence

I wonder now, how independent any of us really are, ever, even at its—how do I say—peak availability, if you will. Can you ever value independence and not be to a large degree selfish? Are we ever as independent as we might think or say? Can we be together and independent, simultaneously?

As a child, we would visit our family in Connecticut. Traveling from Maine, we would have to pack our things for a couple of days and my brother and I were responsible for packing our belongings. “What can we bring?” We would ask and Dad would always reply with “we have a van, you can bring anything you want. So long as you will carry it.” From an early age, we were enabled to do what we wanted within our means.

Somehow this always related to independence for me, a sense that anything (you want) is possible so long as you are willing to do what it takes.

My Dad has always been obsessed with being independent. I am not sure where it comes from, but it’s there. Lately, I have seen it manifest itself differently—or perhaps it’s me who has changed. It’s gone from a belief in independence, to some form of selfishness, an obsession on doing whatever you want on your own schedule.

The OED [1] defines independence to include:

exemption from external control or support; freedom from subjection, or from the influence of others; individual liberty of thought or action.

While hiking along the Appalachian Trail last month, my Dad and I covered some 52-miles before needing a break. Over that time, it was obvious he needed to get away and this was just the trip he needed. Never before was this so pronounced to me. It reminded me of a friend, Margie who has expressed an interest in sports psychology, an area which I was unfamiliar. It was, as she put it, a specialty where therapists work with athletes who could no longer practice their work due to illness or disability; a 23-year-old soccer player who is forced to retire with a bad knee. In these cases, the athletes so completely identifies as an athlete that the mere fact of it being stripped away from them is devastating. My Dad though was fine. Sure, not a spring chicken, and having survived cancer, but he was mobile, motivated, and with his wits about him. What had changed—and continues to do so—is his relationship with my Mom, who through her own dealings with a recurring meningioma, has been wheelchair bound for several months now. (Not long ago, they would comment about her being able to drive again. I am not sure if this was out of desperation or merely a delusional hope. Perhaps there is something to be said hope, even when it’s grounded in...nothing.) His sense of independence was being challenged not by his own limitation, but of hers. I think this is where my sensing a hint of selfishness was coming from, not out of being selfish per se, but where by independence gives you permission to be and do as you please on your schedule; no one else’s.

I wonder now, how independent any of us really are, ever, even at its—how do I say—peak availability, if you will. Will I ever become a burden on my husband or him on me? Will we have the wherewithal to maintain our relationship without perceiving the other as a burden?

Can you ever value independence and not be to a large degree selfish? Are we ever as independent as we might think or say? Can we be together and independent, simultaneously?

As I ask my Dad about it all, he talks as if through a specific lens only, constantly relating everything back to the way he sees the world—never questioning his lens, but how or why something could possibly be, as though to question its existence. I struggle to recall a good example. This reminds of a passage in Everything Happens for a Reason when the author, Kate Bowles, describes the “prosperity gospel” and later states that “fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps.” What I am sensing could be a stress caused by a disconnect between what is fair, what is expected and what is reality.

I do not know how I would act in this situation. I would hope my composure and compassion would see me through anything, but everything has its limits. In the case of my parents, when everything you take for granted—taking a single step, unassisted—has been ripped away, and everything that took one person now takes two, there is no independence. Instead we are left with compromise, exposing our togetherness and selfishness, and finding a balance.


  1. "Independence, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/94323. Accessed 26 June 2018. ↩︎

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