Kill the Buddha, Find Myself

When I first read If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him, a book about one’s journey through psychotherapy, ironically, I had no idea how I would one day end up taking those words scarily out of context. Meeting the Buddha means you are seeking acceptance and guidance outside of yourself, allowing another person or force to hold the reins of your life. And you see, my Buddha, the Svengali of my eye, had been Lady Tremaine, publisher of all book publishers. She spouted ideas and practices I could only hope to emulate. Her rapid interpretation of new philosophies, ideas, and writing was, to me anyway, akin to a game of quick-fire. Her brilliance always astounded and awed me. So you can only imagine my elation when she asked me to work closely with her, shoulder-to-shoulder, on a journey to new epiphanies! Yes, how young and naïve I was.

My husband always tisk-tisked me about my adoration for Lady T. “You don’t need her. You are and can continue to be successful in your own right. You don’t need to work for her to make it. You just need to be you. All I’m saying is, be careful.”

“I know, I know. You’re right. Totally… But it doesn’t hurt to be associated with her – the Lady Tremaine.” That was, in a nutshell, my pat response.

He and I both knew I didn’t believe him. We both knew I was playing my own game of Follow the Leader. This grown up version, however, had new rules. Instead of commanding others to tap their heads while prancing around in line, a common command from my fearless leader was, “Get it done, perfectly, and by yesterday.” Well, that’s not true. She didn’t always explain herself that clearly.

Secretly, I was so happy to have found my Buddha. It meant she’d provide my next step—give me opportunities I had always hoped for. So what if I was blindly following her commands? She was my Buddha. How could I say no?

A few months down the pipeline in our work together and I was baring the brutal chill of her frigid moods and impossible demands while bunking at her upstate cottage. We stayed at her rustic abode in order to work through the day, be uber-productive, and remain cut off from all cell phone and Internet service. Fun! She would gulp down a pot of coffee, walk the dogs, inhale cereal and read through 100 or so pages of our manuscript all before I had come downstairs at 7:30. (I say “inhale” the cereal since there was no milk added and no spoon used, just her fingers scooping the Cheerios into her open jowls until she tossed the bowl into the sink.) Over the course of our time together that week, she would say things like, “Let me just stop you right there. From the moment you walked in here and started telling me about whatever it is you’re trying to explain, I’ve had no idea what you’re talking about!” And who could forget the classic line she delivered while I gnawed on the aglet of my sweatshirt, clammy and wane from my high BAC (blood anxiety count), wringing my hands and wrinkling my eyebrows. “You’re nervous. I see that—obviously. But just. Get. Over. It. This is no time for big emotions.” For a moment I actually thought she had cured me.

“Yes, that’s it! I’ll just stop being anxious. That’s the answer!” But obviously, those thoughtless and helpless words could not perform a task that a lifetime of therapy had yet to do. She yelled at me, told horrifying tales about raising her children, and laughed at the hardships of our colleagues. My Buddha was turning into my nightmare right before my eyes. That week went to sleep every night (while swatting mosquitoes, and making due with the pancake of a pillow) hoping for a brief respite from the crushing anxiety she conjured up inside me. With each birth control pill I popped into my mouth, I knew I’d survived one more day and had only a few more to endure. Curled up in bed, I’d pray for one of the lone kayakers on the lake, the lake we never had time to venture into, would rescue me and row me to a neighboring upstate cottage where the police could escort me home to Queens. And then, as if out of thin air, it occurred to me...

Drop two Ambiens in her cup of coffee—so simple yet brilliant! All I had to do was drop in two pills (since her hardy, German body could probably fight off the affects of one) and watch her eyelids start to flutter and her head begin to bob. I would actually fantasize sinking the sleeping pills into her ceramic mug with the flick of my wrist while preparing my breakfast of toast and cereal. All I needed were a few hours of peace, a few hours to silence the incessant criticism and settle the bar of anxiety pulsating up and down my chest. And two Ambien in her coffee would do it. It was a daydream, or as I like to call it, an option, that got me through the early days of our union. Truth be told, I never actually drugged her, but the urge is still there.

OK, so I had met my Buddha on the road and followed her so intently I might as well have baaed while I did her bidding. But all that time on the road together—with me baaing, and she steamrolling my self-esteem onto the pavement—had made me pretty homesick. What had happened to my spark, my joy, my je ne sais quoi? Where, oh where, had my confidence gone? Where, oh where, could it be? While developing a severe case of workaholism, my true self had withered away. I was tired. I was hurting.

That’s about the time my fantasies turned a morbid corner. Sleeping pills just weren’t strong enough. Homicide… Now that would do the trick. I’m not proud of the detailed tableaus I’ve mapped out, but the mind strays something gory while the body is trapped. One of my favorite musings was to imagine standing behind her at the top of the stairwell and giving her a little push. All I had to do was feign a little stumble and send her cascading down the cement flight of stairs. Sick. I know. The effect of repressing all her mockery and abuse conjured up a whole new side of me that I am not proud of. But the satisfaction the morose daydreams produced allowed me to retain whatever remained of my own power. I was taking If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him way too seriously, knife in hand. And in my defense, and to quote William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, “In feeling helpless, Sylvester started to feel hopeless.” I was helpless and definitely starting to feel hopeless.

On night, after jumping through yet another one of her fiery hoops and crashing down on the other side, I knocked something back into place. I started to see things very clearly. The “hoop” entailed printing out a 300-page document and Fed Exing it to her overnight, even though I had already printed it out earlier in the week and left on her desk. (It always amazed me that she was always unable to remember or care enough to bring the anything she needed with her.) She needed the package “by the crack of dawn.” Apparently she thought I needed more direction than "by morning." So I made it to a Fed Ex in time to hand over the package to the delivery man on the last shipment going out that night, which was Friday, Friday, at 7 p.m. When I came home, sweating through my button-down, trembling with fear that the sun would rise before the delivery truck pulled up to her front door, only to see an email from her that read: If the most recent copy is the one you printed out for me, then I have it. I assumed you had done massive work on it by tonight. Guess you haven’t. Call me. – Lady T

That was it. Yet upon reading those short, very harmless (compared to what I was used to) sentences I collapsed to the floor, curled up in a ball, and started to sob. My tears came from somewhere deep inside. The flood of emotion came from a part of me that had been silenced for too long and had nowhere left to go except up to the surface. I knew what I had to do.

I quit. I called her up and, and instead of indulging her in a conversation about my inadequacy and incompetence, I quit. She threw some more barbs my way—my favorites being when she said I was, and could never be, as “emotionally robust” as she is, and when she informed me that I had been "set-up" because I could never live up to her or come near to being her and in that way was set-up.

Ah yes, and there it was.

I never could and never would come close to being Lady Tremaine. She was absolutely spot-on. Being her would mean putting her work before her family, and cutting down others to feel is superior in every way. Yet most importantly, being her would mean losing me.

Unfortunately, burning bridges didn't mean I have walked away unscathed. In fact, I know she has stolen and erased a degree of my drive and dedication somewhere along our time together. I no longer want to go above and beyond. Why bother when everything-- above or not-- is wrong? At some point she also turned me into her own self-fulfilling prophecy; treating me as if I could barely photocopy or collage actually diminished my abilities and quality of work, giving me the Shit Touch. I ended up being the inept, worthless person she treated me like. I don’t know what will come next or where my invisible compass is leading me. And for the first time in my life I’m not afraid of the unknown. The open expanse ahead is for me to navigate. And who better to lead the way than me—my own Buddha.