OBSESSION

The other day I was remembering a period in my life when I was obsessed with a certain kind of pottery. I covered miles and miles of Southern California searching for it in antique malls and flea markets. When I found a piece I wanted, my heart would race, I probably was flushed - and I just had to have it. It didn't matter how many pieces I already had; I simply had to have more. 
     I can see the benefits of that kind of obsession. It focused my time and my thinking. There was no guesswork to planning the day; my time was structured around the hunt. I didn't have to think about anything else - all the things I wanted to do, the things I wasn't doing, any of the feelings I had which made me uncomfortable or depressed or fearful. An obsession is an easy way to get out from under having to take a good look inside. I was afraid of what I'd find there and I can remember times when I was very low thinking how much easier life would be if I was a heroin addict. My life would be about only one thing, getting the next fix, and everything else would fall away. In fact, I was afraid of heroin and I think I see why: I sensed that some part of me craved addiction itself, understood its powerful seductions, and felt how easy it would be to become hooked.
     Have I had any "good" obsessions? I'm not sure but I know they exist. I think of the mathematician going sleepless trying to solve a problem, or a painter making painting after painting trying to solve the riddle of the canvas. So many socially acceptable obsessions...
     But each of us knows when our interests are veering off into self-destruction or just something I'll call self-waste. There's a tipping point, and suddenly something or someone is taking up too much room, getting in the way of things we have to do or explore. Obsession is all about lack, the need for something or someone to fill the hole inside, to "fix" us. We know when that hole has torn through the fabric of our daily lives and become all we can think about; we know the pain of that enormous need.
     When I think about how obsessions, both small and large, used to rise up and claim me, I see how much I've changed. It's not that the part of me that is available for obsession has completely disappeared. It's that the part of me that wants to come out from under its sway has grown stronger. I recognize now what it feels like to be consumed by a particular hunger and I don't want to feel it. I know now I don't have to be claimed or consumed and that's what makes the difference. I've learned that even the strongest feelings of obsession are ephemeral and can be released bit by bit, as if I'm peeling one finger at a time off a prison bar. What I think, what I feel are all creations of the choices I make. I may not get free quickly, but knowing that I can, that it's possible, has permanently changed the dynamic. The part of me that feared the seduction of obsession, the part of me that craved it, has come so far down to size, it's lost the power to prevail. 
     That's all I can ask for. I don't want to be transformed, all my struggles washed away. I want only to understand them and see that I have a choice.