On when to quit
Leaving a community that I wish I could have kept
Earlier this month, I had to make a terrifically difficult decision. I left a community that has been life changing for me.
Here’s an allegory you may have heard.
If a frog jumps in boiling water, they’ll immediately sense the danger and jump out.
But if that frog jumps into cool water that is brought to boil, the change in temperature will be too slow to notice, and they will find themselves scalded or worse.
This is what we have been experiencing in the group. One person, who has a huge effect on its tone, has been going through a hard time. A hard time that I deeply understand. When we are hurting, it is easy to take that hurt out on the people around us, especially the people we love. As they say, hurt people hurt people.
I’ve been that person. As I’ve written about before, I have gone through incredibly difficult times. My hurt came out in yelling at loved ones and finding myself unable to contribute to my household. It has taken me years and effort and community to climb out of that.
Indeed, this group that I just left has been incredibly important in that recovery. It was my first queer space, and we met weekly to sing.
Singing soothes our bodies. We feel in connected in a way that can’t be achieved through talking. Our bodies vibrate with our own voices and the voices around us, stimulating and soothing our vagus nerve, which activates our body’s parasympathetic nervous system, and we feel safe.
I also got to be in a queer space weekly, surrounded by people who are like me even in their differences from me. Thanks to the broader community I’ve built over the years, I have never felt unsafe in sharing my newly realized queer identity. The people I love believe that everyone should be able to love who they love.
But being in community with queer people helped me to further accept and value my newfound identity. I could feel that I was not alone—more than I had when I intellectually knew that I was not alone.
So I stayed in the water as it warmed.
Unlike our allegorical frog, I was aware of it. I’ve been in emotionally unsafe (and even abusive) relationships and environments, and I know how it feels.
At first, being there was healing—to be exposed to occasional unkindness and to notice that the people around me were, at least outwardly, unaffected by it, helped me to realize that I could choose not to be affected, too. Being in a musical environment, I was specifically facing the discomfort and shame that I had experienced in high school concert and marching band.
I kept hoping the water would cool, and some weeks it did. I kept hoping the person with power would seek and find the love and support they needed, so they could once again become their best self—charming and caring and patient—and sometimes they were. Each week, I reevaluated the water temperature. Yet, it was hard to predict which way it would change.
And then, I witnessed a moment where I felt the water temperature skyrocket. I had already decided to leave rehearsal early, because my experience of the warmup had left me shaken so much—thanks to its similarity to my high school band trauma—that I was singing and learning poorly. But just as I had gathered my courage to leave, something else happened. It happened to people other than me, but I still felt it deeply.
It was one of those ah-ha moments that we sometimes have. Like when your coworker is promoted over you, so you seek another job, or when you’ve realized that a novel isn’t bringing you the satisfaction you seek, and so it gets put in your DNF (did not finish) pile. These ah-has happen for small and large needs to quit. They give the jump in temperature to realize that the water is too hot, and probably won’t be cooling down soon enough for you.
After ah-has like these, I have left jobs, volunteer positions, and yes, stopped reading books.
Working through tough times to complete a goal can be worthwhile. Pursuing a goal to fulfillment, whatever the challenges, is a kind of integrity. I have seen and have experienced the self-acceptance and pride it can bring.
But too many times, I have found myself, as Paul Simon has written:
Believing I had supernatural powers I slammed into a brick wall
Sometimes, instead, who you are and what you need is to leave. Being true to your needs and quitting is another kind of integrity. It, too, can bring self-acceptance and pride. You jump out of the water; you find a way around the brick wall.
The emotions we feel tell us our values. Anger and sadness tell us that we want things to be different. Joy and pride tell us that we want things to stay the same. I believe that no one ever decides to quit suddenly, even when the person quitting may feel that way. We may quit while we are still feeling rage or betrayal from an ah-ha incident, but those emotions are built upon the emotions we have felt before.
When the water has been warming, and we feel emotions that tell us it’s time for things to be different, we can choose to act. We might be able to try to cool the water, or we might have to leave it entirely.
Either way, when our values tell us it’s time to go, it’s time to go.
Mentioned in this issue: The frog in boiling water; the vagus nerve and parasympathetic system; “Did Not Finish” (DNF) pile; and “Gumboots” by Paul Simon.
A note: If you live in St. Louis and are concerned that you may be or may want to be involved in the group, feel free to get in touch. But in this public essay, I’ve tried to keep things anonymous. I’m not writing to expose the member of the group; my purpose is to talk about the hard decisions we must sometimes make, from my perspective.