Society Ellen

Upon my return from living in France for two months, I found it difficult to answer even the most basic questions, questions that I probably could have seen coming, questions like, “how was your trip?” and “how are you settling back in?” I remembered phrases like “it was great!” and “it was awesome!” but when it came time to elaborate thereupon, I wandered off into strange territory that neither I nor my interrogator could have seen coming.

I was freestyling, baby. Anything that came to mind was fair game: no anecdote too insignificant, no generalization too unexamined, no statement too grandiose. I was philosophizing, thinking out loud, journaling at my conversation partner. In truth, I had no idea how I was settling back in, and only an inkling as to how my trip had been.

I decided that my brain was mush and in need of organizing, lest I continue to leave my friends and acquaintances bewildered and slightly worried. I took out a small piece of paper and scrawled out the title, Modes of Being. Underneath, I made the following list:

• Animal Ellen
• Society Ellen
• Cosmic Ellen

Animal Ellen was the part of me that needed food and water and sometimes felt scared. Society Ellen was the part of me that played a role that made some kind of sense to the people around me. Cosmic Ellen was the part of me that wasn’t really “me” at all, the part that directly experiences the universe and sometimes has thoughts about life.

The plan was that, at any given point in the day, I could determine which of these modes was appropriate for the situation, and could summon it to the fore. If I felt sleepy, Animal Ellen could take a nap. If someone asked about my trip to France, Cosmic Ellen could take a seat and let Society Ellen do the talking. Come to think of it, Cosmic Ellen could pretty much just stay seated.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Society Ellen had a breakdown the day after establishing these delineations. We’re talking full on panic mode. I assumed I had made false distinctions and that I should instead try to be a whole, “authentic” person, thereby not putting so much pressure on Society Ellen. She obviously couldn’t handle it.

As the weeks went by, I slowly regained my ability to talk to people. Granted, I received fewer and fewer questions about my trip, but I managed to navigate the occasional query with my dignity still intact.

It wasn’t until yesterday, after having been home for more than a month, that I realized that Society Ellen’s mini-meltdown was not due to her being an imaginary prop. She was as real as anything else. No, it was due to the fact that she’d been out of commission for two months, and was a little rusty.

I didn’t need her when I was in France. I mean, I still made it a habit to wear clothes in public and not go around destroying other people’s personal property, but as far as answering for myself and making communicable sense of my existence, I was off the hook. In a foreign land, you are fulfilling your place in the world simply by being out of place. It is assumed that your life at home must look very different, and there’s no expectation that you should try to bring that life with you. In fact, a respectable traveler is one who leaves home behind and is willing to truly inhabit a different way of life, even a different persona. When else can you shed Society You?

When it came to probing questions about my life and plans and career and purpose and dreams and intentions, people generally left me alone, but more importantly, I had decided to leave myself alone. I could have easily spent those two months holding my own feet to the fire, “taking the opportunity” to take stock of my life and figure it all out, but I somehow had the good sense to know (call it being 38) that that was a recipe for crumbling if there ever was one, and I did not want to have a breakdown overseas.

I made it my sole aim to simply be in Paris. At the end of each day, I asked myself, “was I in Paris today?” If the answer was yes, Animal Ellen could sleep well, and Cosmic Ellen could dream. Society Ellen tried to bully me a couple of times, riddling me with questions like, “what are you doing here?” and “what’s your plan, Stan?” But I gave her the hand because she wasn’t even really supposed to be there.

I will be mulling over what my time in France meant to me for a good while, but for now, it feels supremely important to realize just how much time, attention, and energy I had been giving Society Ellen before the trip, and how I’d deemed Animal Ellen a nuisance and Cosmic Ellen a luxury. After all, Society Ellen adds value, Animal Ellen is an inconvenient fact, and Cosmic Ellen adds and subtracts nothing. Post-France, however, I can see that Society Ellen is expendable, Animal Ellen is an unthinkable gift, and Cosmic Ellen is eternal.

I can see that you’re getting worried again. Let me clarify that, when I say expendable, I do not mean disposable. I mean it in the following sense, the Oxford’s English sense: of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned.