Allowance (or Questions)

As always, words are on my mind. 

I have meandered through, picked apart and hashed out the meanings of some specific words on this blog- words like 'Obedience' or 'Responsibility;' words like 'Disease' or 'Disorder.'  I have taken time and language to figure out what 'Wilderness' means to me- a word that constantly grows in and attracts significance in my mind; a word that I like to use as my own.

Lately, though... lately I have wondered about 'allow', 'allowed', 'allowance.'  Allowance is a loaded word- one that has lost it's meaning for money.  But there are at least three working definitions for 'allow', so let us begin there.  Merriam Webster defines 'allow' as:

1) To permit (something): to regard or treat (something) as acceptable.

2) To permit (someone) to have or do something.

3) To permit (someone) to go or come, in, out, etc.

And those are the short ends of the definition stick.  Allowing someone to do something.  Allowing oneself to do something. Permitting, having, doing, accepting- coming and going.. all of these words are tied up in 'allow.'  And the longer I roll that word around my tongue, the longer I let it follow old grooves in my brain, the more complicated it gets, the more important it becomes.  Accepting the comings and goings; Permitting the having and wanting and doing.  The importance grows with the implication of personal allowance and permission (and we all know how I feel about permission).

Because 'allow' mutates into 'allowed'- which is when the questions begin. 'Am I allowed to care (and about who)?  'Am I allowed to love and feel concern (if so, how much)?'  'Are others allowed to be concerned for me? to love me? to care for me? (hell, am I allowed any of those for myself?)'  'Have I allowed them that privilege (and privilege here reads all that pain, all that responsibility, all that devastation)?'

'When am I allowed to go off-script, to break the rules, to ad-lib?' 'Am I allowed any say in any of this?' 'What am I allowed to want? What do I, can I allow myself to want?'

Who allows?

Who is allowed?

'Was I allowed to eat today?' 'Did I allow myself enough to eat, enough to sustain even a muted life?' 'Did the Beast allow me a moment of peace, an instant of relaxed hope? (and no, the Beast is not Henry). 'Was I allowed to shrug my shoulders, even for a heartbeat; just long enough to let some of the weight of this incessant burden I carry fall away?' 'Will I be allowed a second of relief today? Am I allowed to close my eyes for just a second, today, and feel lightness of being?'

And that's not even the half of it.  Because then 'allow' and 'allowed' move to the most frightening: 'allowance.'  Which, to me, has little to do with payment for chores or for good behavior.  

I think about allowance and it takes on much more potent implications and this sets off a totally different set of questions. I start to wonder, how many times I have cashed mine in, my allowance?  How much of my life allowance have I spent trying to buy myself more time, to buy off the Beast?  When I make bargains with myself and with others, am I using some reserve allowance of power that really isn't mine to use at all?  Am I borrowing against an allowance that is running out fast- that I cannot replenish because I really don't do enough life chores?

And what allowance is this life worth?  The half-lived life of the half-mad?

And from whom do I get permission for this?  From whom do I seek answers?  Who is allowed to tell me, give me, permit me, accept me, come and go with me, live and want with me?  Who allows me to be?

Who allows me?

Words.

And on that note, friends.  Don't Freak Out.