Loving the Loser Within

What makes it so hard to lose? We are told that quitters never win, winners never lose, and that hard work has its own rewards. Whether it is relationships, our jobs, our friendships, even graduate school, we are supposed to take disappointments in stride, jump over the hurdles and make it across the finish line. Get that damn carrot, no pain, no gain. But sometimes it seems we never take the time to wonder who drew that line and whether it is worth crossing. But not crossing it means being relegated to loserdom and as Beck croons, "I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me."

Reading the headlines and following the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and the potentially volatile landscape of political relations with Iran and North Korea over nuclear capabilities, I think, who are the losers? Nearly three years later after beginning our war on Afghanistan and Iraq, we are no closer to stability in the region and in fact, we are forcing soldiers back onto the field even after they have completed their tours of duty. Even with this brief respite in violence in Lebanon, the Israeli government appears still committed to stamp out Hezbollah and Hamas and that winning would entail the extermination of these so-called terrorist organizations. Our leadership seems more concerned with “winning” especially after September 11th, than the lists of the dead and injured. Stamping out the terrorists, winning the battle against terror, we must win, win, win at all costs. If we let fear run our lives, then we have let the terrorists win. So quit your whining, hand over your toothpaste and other liquid items, and get on that plane with your bad breath, chapped lips and unquenchable thirst. Because if you don't, you are a loser and are letting THEM win.

I understand this need to be a winner at all costs, as silly and stupid as it seems, because you get caught up in the moment. When I was about 14, I went to a summer tennis camp where for a week, you ran around the green courts, chasing after little yellow balls and willingly allowed yourself to be targeted by this mad little tennis instructor who was inevitably blonde, skinny and way too perky not to be on some form of recreational drug or anti-depressant. For 6 hours a day, for seven straight days, I called this “fun” even as my skin peeled away from my body in angry red sunburns. In the afternoons, teams would play against each other and all I remember was that I wanted to win.

It was match point, potentially the last point of the game and my opponent had me trapped. She lured me into the net where she knew I was as helpless as George W. Bush in a spelling bee. The lob soared above my head as I simply watched. I scrambled back for it with no hope to get it, barring a spectacular lunge like a young Boris Becker. I watched it bounce well inside the baseline and then I lied. I called it out. The girl, her name was Summer, I never forgot it, asked whether I was sure. I said I was, even though the director of the camp and even Summer’s dad was sitting on the court. We kept playing out the set and I eventually won. Like a true winner, Summer walked to the net and shook my hand, saying, nice game. Though I was technically the winner, she and I both knew that I was not. Now nearly 15 years later, while Summer would probably not even remember the silly little game, but the memory of that still stings inside of me.

I think that there are times in which losing may be the only reasonable option to take and there is no shame in admitting that you are wrong. Yes, slap on the label that says, Hello, my name is Loser. Whether you are a powerful country like the U.S. or Israel engaged in misguided warfare, or a piddly little tennis camper, it takes more strength to own up to your mistakes and take responsibility for bad decisions than to keep pushing through the pain. It may be that once you cross the finish line, there will be no one there to cheer.

there's no "I" in co-dependent

Every night, it is a ménage a trois. There are the sprawling limbs, jockeying for space, overlapping of warm bodies, and the occasional biting and scratching. The problem with this potentially kinky situation is that it is about one person’s battle for limited space against two cats. Any cat owner would tell you that Manifest Destiny and the colonizing of the West is over… in today’s market, the hottest piece of real estate is the few square inches of bed space.

Cats are strange animals. They barely blink an eye at your arrival home. They don’t bring you the paper, they don’t greet you with a smile and a butt that wags ecstatically at the sound of your voice. Unfairly, cats are labeled as cold, calculating creatures and I have had many people tell me that my relationship to these little cats borders on the unhealthy. Frank dislike of my cats thinly disguised as “allergies” prevent them for coming to my home, sly references to them as evil spawn or the more honest attitude, in the words of my lovely but brutally blunt mother at the prospect of harboring my two cats during my year-long research leave, “I don’t give a fuck-shit about your cats”.

Co-dependency… it can be positive, no? For anyone who has friends who have disappeared into relationships, marriages, short-term or long-term flings, you recognize the signs. The comfort of being needed and needing someone, the inside jokes you share, you can finish each other’s sentences, spend hours in the company of this being who makes you feel just a little bit less lonely. My cats, Gabe and Riley, are this for me. While friends move away, relationships form and break away, and family members are usually best seen from a distance, Gabe and Riley are the Jack and Chrissy to my Janet.

Dependence can border on the unhealthy, you can lose yourself in these relationships too. Couples become the equivalent of TomKat or Brangelina, the conjoined twins who have little identity alone, the sum is greater than its parts. These relationships become excuses to avoid closeness in other areas of your life. I’m sorry, I’d stay over but I have to feed the cats in the morning. They miss me, they barf in my bed without me. And yes, they do, trust me.

In Korea, co-dependency reaches a new level in that there is little use of “my” or “I” when referencing relationships. It is “our” family, “our” father, “our” mother, “our” home, even “our” nation and “our” people. During my time there, I found that despite growing up in a somewhat traditional Korean household, the American “I” in me could not understand the Korean “we” around me. Co-dependency strands stretched from male to male so that people’s relationships to one another were referenced on men. For women, the “I” becomes I am this boy’s mother, this man’s wife, this man’s daughter. For single adult women, the “I” is problematic because relationships are grounded on the Y chromosome. For lack of dependents, have I defined my “I’ to my cats?

At what point does mutually dependent become co-dependent? Is there a point where you lose yourself in the “we” of co-dependency? Is it too much to sacrifice a full night’s sleep so that you can share your bed with your cats? I tell myself that this is OK. I need to feel the weight of their bodies on the bed before I can fall asleep. The surround sound of purring envelopes me as they knead my belly, my head, my arms as they lull themselves to sleep. I feel safe and needed in my furry cocoon, reminded of their presence by the irritatingly gentle flick of a tail in my eye.