Saturated. That is exactly what I am. Saturated with my love for you. It has bloated and puckered my skin, like I have been sitting in a bathtub filled with perfectly heated water for far too long. Lethargic, I stay here, half suspended, half sinking my eyes rolling back as I think of your face, of your voice. I am loving your memory back to life one instant at a time. Can I tell you, for just a moment, how much I love you? I know, you probably don't want to hear this, this is the last thing you are probably expecting from me at this point. But right now, in this moment, I am brimming with pure love and gratitude for you. I just have to share it with you because I don't think I have done that often enough as I should have.
There are so many things about you, about us, that I am missing now. It sounds completely melodramatic, but I don't want to live without them after having had them in my heart. I owe that to you, you have changed me, and I'm surprised myself. At first, I thought I just humored these things for you, but now I see, some of your passions have become mine. Some of your essence has imprinted itself on my soul and I filled with the light of it. Even in this darkness, it is leading me through it, it is calming me in this tremulous time of doubt. You'll never believe me either - I'm sure you will think I'm full of shit - just moved to this expression because of my grief. You might even think I'm just being manipulative. Wrong. I am changed, by you. You have left your mark forever - 1,000 times more meaningful than any of the tattoos buried in my skin have ever been.
Would you like to know some of the changes that have happened in my heart because of you? Can I still tell you all my secrets? Because in my heart, you are still my deepest love and my best friend. This is the first one, the one that happened after only the first months I was with you, you changed my mind about therapy. I know, you thought that up to the end I was still so resistant to it. I suppose that's my fault because I kept the front up, or I didn't tell you how much I really LOVED those sessions. How by the end of it all I was kind of jonesing that you would take me in with you, because I LOVE discovering more about you, and I LOVE that he could help me see more of myself in a healthy way, so that I could conspire to be healthier for everyone involved.
CUT OFF IN PROGRESS...Electricity was out for hours...COMPLETED BELOW.
You showed me that through that kind of self work, amazing change CAN be wrought. You showed me that it was beneficial, and that wonder of wonders, I even liked it. I started saving up for it months and months ago. I don't know why I didn't tell you...Maybe it was my pride. Maybe I thought you would think less of me...Maybe I thought, you wouldn't understand. I don't know why I kept it from you all that time. Such a silly thing to keep from you, "oh by the way, you helped me see, I've changed my mind, I want to be in therapy, I want to heal and grow and get better." Right, I don't know why I couldn't tell you that...couldn't tell you "I was wrong." Maybe in spite of my happiness to embark on this journey of self discovery, I was still afraid to admit it to myself.
Maybe I was secretly jealous that I was going to have to go through this process of screening doctors till I found the right one, that I was going to be turbulent for a while yet while they helped me go through all my baggage and to help me guide myself to paths of growth, and you had this already set in motion, steady, and going for so long. Maybe I was jealous that you had such a great therapist and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find one of my own that would stack up, so I kept it to myself. I know, part of it was that it became painfully aware to me in this regard you are BETTER than me. You are so much more mature than I am about your mental health and its maintenance and I was so ashamed that I was not as present to myself as you are.
Your continual path to growth and self discovery, to emotional responsibility showed me all my flawed ways of thinking....it exposed the pointless thickened skin I sported, the walls I put up all around me, the bad bad habits I engaged in to keep people away from me- to stop them from hurting me. You made me realize: I was punishing myself unnecessarily. I deserve to love myself and be loved and allow people in and not isolate myself. You made me see that it's not really that I am not a social person but that I am afraid of people. Because to be honest, I am so scared of myself. There's a lot of pressure going on in my head on a moment to moment basis to be perfect, to be right, to be impervious, and independent. My brain thinks that I need to isolate myself from others, that they'll see my flaws, or take advantage of me, that everyone will see me fail and be eternal witnesses to this decline I fear is closing in all around me.
But you know, its a tragic way to think about myself. I understand what you meant in the car that day when you told me two years ago you wanted me to get into regular therapy to learn to love myself more. You were right. I can't ever hope for health and happiness if I can't love myself. I want to change that now, I want to discover, embrace and integrate all the pieces of myself and feel comfortable with who I am, to dare to dream that one day, I could look at myself and say "You are a GOOD PERSON" and mean it without reservations.
For a few weeks now, I have been getting everything set up since I saved the money I needed. I still don't know how I'm going to afford it entirely, but I know this now: I CANNOT AFFORD NOT TO DO THIS ANY LONGER. I need this, not just now in this time of strife and heartbreak, but continuously. This is part of my support network, part of the process of grounding myself and managing my mental illness, never mind my numeral neurosis. I've been negotiating with the insurance company and my employer to have the maximum benefit from this resource, setting up my parody benefits, helping me understand the difference between a PHD and a MA therapist, discussing the possibility of short term use of Rx drugs, discussing the benefits of behavioral vs psychoanalytical approach to mental health care, or finding a hybrid of the two to help me.
Ironically, each new doctor I think could be a potential partner in my health stirs up all these questions again...because one might offer one treatment option that seems to fit and then I realize that something as simple as the type of degree they have could influence their ability to really help me in all the ways I need. Or, on paper they might have the degree that would offer the depth of care I really need, but they lack years of experience. Or, they don't have training to deal with people who have ADHD, Bipolarism, are LGBT, have had substance abuse issues, have PTSD, and also need a integral element to be able to counsel not only myself, but also see my family with me from time to time. Then it's back to the drawing board all over again. Each time one of them doesn't seem like a right fit it has hurt so so much.
Again, I think this is part of why I wasn't telling you about it....it is so disappointing and disheartening to finally come to this space of embracing and respecting my mental health and have this be a difficult, slow, protracted process of making the right decision. I can't just jump into like I want, I have to honor it. I have to really treat this with the thought and care it deserves to show I am committed to it in the right ways.
For at least 2 weeks now, I have been screening potential doctors. I have been checking them out online and researching their experience. Slowly I have started to call a few, a small few I have spoken to, most I am still waiting back to hear from many of them. Each day I find a few more prospects and research them. I call to make appointments to screen them. It is so HARD to be patient about this. I am still waiting for the right one to surface that I can build a relationship with and start this healing process for myself. It is painfully slow, and I find my impatience wanting me to be impulsive and just see ANYONE. But I know that I need to do this, and do this the right way for my growth to really be something real and meaningful in the long term. I know that I need to honor what I need out of a therapist on an emotional level AND one who possesses a treatment style that speaks to me. I cannot just go to anyone, and I need to find someone that is qualified to take on all these issues with me and work towards continual growth the way I want to. Since my primary goal is self evolution and learning health from the inside out and I know this will be a lifelong process, I need someone who will be my teammate in this endeavor. This is someone I need as a champion for me in my corner. I cannot settle on this. On this, I cannot be unyielding.
In spite of how complicated and involved this process is, I am still so excited to start it. I am still so encouraged that soon, very soon, I will have this resource and I will be able to work on myself and benefit from that hard work. I am passionate about my health in a way that I just never was able to be before.
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME SEE THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR ME AND CAN WORK!! THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME IT IS NOT MERELY A HOPELESS STRUGGLE!
You are so wonderful, so giving, so thoughtful, so open and loving. I adore these things about you. You have had so much foresight in areas that I was just closed off to. You never pushed me too hard, you never forced me into growth. I realize now ALL the many wonderful things you have taught me, all the great lessons about myself I have come to know just in knowing you. Just in seeing you, and the way your go about your days, the way you have changed yourself, I have been made to realize that change for the better, even for a person as human and flawed as I am IS possible, and more than that is something I desire deeply.
Thank you for bringing me to the therapy sessions you did. Thank you for showing me that a patient and a doctor could have that kind of relationship. Thank you for showing me that through this work so much could be accomplished, so much addressed. Thank you for showing me that some families out there do this together and that it helps them to continue to stay close, to move closer. That things might need to be addressed, and addressed again, and addressed again, and that does not mean growth is not taking place...it is the ability to keep addressing these things that makes it a total process of growth, of transformation. I am simply shocked at how many defenses I had up before, how resistant I was to move forward and really be happy, until I met you. Until I met you and saw through your example that people can change, grow, become more whole and aware of themselves, of others and that all these things are good things to have in my life.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Four 02.16.10
I'm pathetic today; just filled to overflowing with a beautifully haunting kind of sorrow.
In spite of this, I'm being a complete masochist. I am re-reading all your letters to me, all the cards you ever gave me, any scrap or semblance of you. I am collecting them all, the little bits and pulling them around me like a security blanket. I am trying to inhale memories of you so I can feel full despite this stabbing emptiness. I'll admit though, it feels good to look back at the words and see how much you cared for me, in your uniquely winsome way; even if it was only for an instant. I could have seen this coming, I think I did all along- but I wanted to delay it with your presence a while longer. I think I always knew to be with you was going to involve the ultimate test of my heart, will, character, and love: Being able to let you go. Being able to stand here and watch you walk away - even gently, lovingly, painfully guide you away from me until we were both are truly ready to return. Someone asked me if I thought we really needed to do this, if we could work it out another way. Do you want to know what I told them with no doubts or fears in my heart?
I don't think this is the end. I think this IS how we are working out. I don't see myself honestly ever being capable of not being in love with you heart and soul. I think that's why you scared me so much when I met you...You're all I've ever wanted and some things I forgot to mention that make you painfully breath taking to my soul. I will continue to move forward to growth, but I cannot abandon my love for you. I have to take it with me - where it belongs: in my heart. I have to keeping loving you. I don't want to let go of it yet. And, could you blame me? How could you, when loving you brings all my best qualities to the surface, and has made me brave enough to finally confront and conquer my lesser qualities?
You're being merciful with my heart and not changing the scenery too drastically, no relationship status updates, no cutting me off completely. I cannot thank you enough for that infinite measure of kindness you are extending, probably despite your better judgment. Every time I log on, when I see that phrase "in a relationship with" next to your name I feel a sweet ease come over me. Silent pleading from my eyes is asking you not to change it, because we both want to be back together someday, honor both of our hearts. Do you feel it too then, I wonder, that I am still in this relationship with more of my heart and soul than ever? I am still loving you with my absence, still sparing you from pain, still trying so hard to grow up too. This is the frightening part now, really realizing what I need to do to mature. I've left these things unaddressed for so long now, it seems almost improbable. But your courage has inspired me once again. I will not run away, I will not abandon ship, I will not self destruct. I will do the hard work that has been laid before me, I will face my fears and learn what you have been trying to teach me about all along.
You are teaching me the ultimate lesson in faith. I feel it, coursing through me, I know sooner or later, you'll return to me and we will be together once more. This time we'll love each other stronger, healthier, better for the temporary absence. I look into my future and I see you, not just because I want you there, but because I know you are in it. I have my moments of overwhelming bottomless sadness at the loss of you, I have my moments where everything seems like I should tell myself to stop loving you and give up. But I can't do it. I have to work this karma cycle of devotion for you, because you are the only one I have ever seen who is worth it.
But don't even doubt it, I am still so brokenhearted. I am still pathetic. When I rolled over this morning, I found some of your hairs in my bed. I have kept them, put them away in a safe place, they are sacred treasure to me now. It's only too bad that they don't carry your scent anymore, for that's something I really miss. Speaking of that...Shall I just tell you how pathetic I've become?? How miserably still in love with you I am and longing for you to come back to me? I bought your perfume. I couldn't bare to think of never smelling it again, never knowing all those memories that come rushing back so easily each time I inhale that scent could vanish and I would forget them. I need to remember that sweet smell and the way it curled into my consciousness the first time I met you and bewitched me.
I'm wretched with my love sickness for you, but I don't want the cure. I noticed this from the moment I drove away from your house after dropping you off, every time I drive by the exit on the freeway my hands start to shake. I can feel the anxiety in my rising as I approach it. I have to practically mentally sedate myself to keep from turning the wheel, tugging it violently so that I can swerve and make the exit. Alright, I can never keep anything from you and this is probably my undoing, but I'll admit it...I've driven by your house. I know....I'm fucking sad, sue me. Don't worry, I'm not going to go totally crazy. And contrary to popular belief I can respect your need for space and give you my merciful absence. But you'll excuse the strange comfort I got from driving down that street, from just seeing your place as I slid by in the dark. You have to understand, I just wanted to know you were still here, that I can encounter your memory, your presence, and feel my love for you radiate ever outwards and that that was ok.
Don't worry, I'm not going totally crazy. It's just this longing to be near you when I feel my love drawing me to you that I have to control. But hey control for once could work in my favor, right? I'm not sorry that I can't control my emotions, but I can say I can only control my actions. And since I'm committed to seeing this through, I'll get healthy while I wait for signs of your return. I don't want you to feel pressure. Please do what you need to do. I want you to take all the time you need, tell me if you need me to stop, to go away entirely, tell me if you need me to just pack up and leave and I'll do it. Whatever you need, I'm waiting. Yes, I said waiting...I know...I know...I said the other night I wasn't going to wait for you, but I was weak in that moment. When I think about my love for you it gives me strength. And you, what we have together, it's WORTH waiting for. I couldn't not wait...my heart had other plans. Like you said "you can't rationalize your heart. Love doesn't work like that." I agree.
But it's not really waiting...This is more of an act of devotion, a demonstration of faith. That is the lesson you are teaching me, to be gentle, thoughtful, optimistic. You are teaching me to have Faith when it seems hope is lost. I have it now, I am giving that hope your name. And everyone we know, including you, can call me crazy for it. But like I said in Gasoline- I will weather this lonely ragged time to be with you. In fact, I will do better and use this time to transcend. I'll repair my busted broken bits that I was protecting myself from with out knowing it.
I am listening to your mixes over and over. I'm listening to the 4 mix CDs I have made for you since you left a thousand times in a single day. I'll continue in this way, it's the only way I know how..dabbing my pillows with your scent and every similar act of remembrance I will preform to keep you with me somehow. I'm not going to promise I won't break down from time to time and leave signs for you that I am still here. I already know I will, I won't even try to deny it. But it's not going to be me invading your space any more than my weak heart will let me get away with. It's merely a way to leave you a sign - so that you know I am still out there loving you- even if we can't be together right now. They are just some simple ways to show you I have faith we will be together again someday. Please don't be afraid of my messages, I beg you. It's just that I know, I know like you do also, we are meant to be.
In spite of this, I'm being a complete masochist. I am re-reading all your letters to me, all the cards you ever gave me, any scrap or semblance of you. I am collecting them all, the little bits and pulling them around me like a security blanket. I am trying to inhale memories of you so I can feel full despite this stabbing emptiness. I'll admit though, it feels good to look back at the words and see how much you cared for me, in your uniquely winsome way; even if it was only for an instant. I could have seen this coming, I think I did all along- but I wanted to delay it with your presence a while longer. I think I always knew to be with you was going to involve the ultimate test of my heart, will, character, and love: Being able to let you go. Being able to stand here and watch you walk away - even gently, lovingly, painfully guide you away from me until we were both are truly ready to return. Someone asked me if I thought we really needed to do this, if we could work it out another way. Do you want to know what I told them with no doubts or fears in my heart?
I don't think this is the end. I think this IS how we are working out. I don't see myself honestly ever being capable of not being in love with you heart and soul. I think that's why you scared me so much when I met you...You're all I've ever wanted and some things I forgot to mention that make you painfully breath taking to my soul. I will continue to move forward to growth, but I cannot abandon my love for you. I have to take it with me - where it belongs: in my heart. I have to keeping loving you. I don't want to let go of it yet. And, could you blame me? How could you, when loving you brings all my best qualities to the surface, and has made me brave enough to finally confront and conquer my lesser qualities?
You're being merciful with my heart and not changing the scenery too drastically, no relationship status updates, no cutting me off completely. I cannot thank you enough for that infinite measure of kindness you are extending, probably despite your better judgment. Every time I log on, when I see that phrase "in a relationship with" next to your name I feel a sweet ease come over me. Silent pleading from my eyes is asking you not to change it, because we both want to be back together someday, honor both of our hearts. Do you feel it too then, I wonder, that I am still in this relationship with more of my heart and soul than ever? I am still loving you with my absence, still sparing you from pain, still trying so hard to grow up too. This is the frightening part now, really realizing what I need to do to mature. I've left these things unaddressed for so long now, it seems almost improbable. But your courage has inspired me once again. I will not run away, I will not abandon ship, I will not self destruct. I will do the hard work that has been laid before me, I will face my fears and learn what you have been trying to teach me about all along.
You are teaching me the ultimate lesson in faith. I feel it, coursing through me, I know sooner or later, you'll return to me and we will be together once more. This time we'll love each other stronger, healthier, better for the temporary absence. I look into my future and I see you, not just because I want you there, but because I know you are in it. I have my moments of overwhelming bottomless sadness at the loss of you, I have my moments where everything seems like I should tell myself to stop loving you and give up. But I can't do it. I have to work this karma cycle of devotion for you, because you are the only one I have ever seen who is worth it.
But don't even doubt it, I am still so brokenhearted. I am still pathetic. When I rolled over this morning, I found some of your hairs in my bed. I have kept them, put them away in a safe place, they are sacred treasure to me now. It's only too bad that they don't carry your scent anymore, for that's something I really miss. Speaking of that...Shall I just tell you how pathetic I've become?? How miserably still in love with you I am and longing for you to come back to me? I bought your perfume. I couldn't bare to think of never smelling it again, never knowing all those memories that come rushing back so easily each time I inhale that scent could vanish and I would forget them. I need to remember that sweet smell and the way it curled into my consciousness the first time I met you and bewitched me.
I'm wretched with my love sickness for you, but I don't want the cure. I noticed this from the moment I drove away from your house after dropping you off, every time I drive by the exit on the freeway my hands start to shake. I can feel the anxiety in my rising as I approach it. I have to practically mentally sedate myself to keep from turning the wheel, tugging it violently so that I can swerve and make the exit. Alright, I can never keep anything from you and this is probably my undoing, but I'll admit it...I've driven by your house. I know....I'm fucking sad, sue me. Don't worry, I'm not going to go totally crazy. And contrary to popular belief I can respect your need for space and give you my merciful absence. But you'll excuse the strange comfort I got from driving down that street, from just seeing your place as I slid by in the dark. You have to understand, I just wanted to know you were still here, that I can encounter your memory, your presence, and feel my love for you radiate ever outwards and that that was ok.
Don't worry, I'm not going totally crazy. It's just this longing to be near you when I feel my love drawing me to you that I have to control. But hey control for once could work in my favor, right? I'm not sorry that I can't control my emotions, but I can say I can only control my actions. And since I'm committed to seeing this through, I'll get healthy while I wait for signs of your return. I don't want you to feel pressure. Please do what you need to do. I want you to take all the time you need, tell me if you need me to stop, to go away entirely, tell me if you need me to just pack up and leave and I'll do it. Whatever you need, I'm waiting. Yes, I said waiting...I know...I know...I said the other night I wasn't going to wait for you, but I was weak in that moment. When I think about my love for you it gives me strength. And you, what we have together, it's WORTH waiting for. I couldn't not wait...my heart had other plans. Like you said "you can't rationalize your heart. Love doesn't work like that." I agree.
But it's not really waiting...This is more of an act of devotion, a demonstration of faith. That is the lesson you are teaching me, to be gentle, thoughtful, optimistic. You are teaching me to have Faith when it seems hope is lost. I have it now, I am giving that hope your name. And everyone we know, including you, can call me crazy for it. But like I said in Gasoline- I will weather this lonely ragged time to be with you. In fact, I will do better and use this time to transcend. I'll repair my busted broken bits that I was protecting myself from with out knowing it.
I am listening to your mixes over and over. I'm listening to the 4 mix CDs I have made for you since you left a thousand times in a single day. I'll continue in this way, it's the only way I know how..dabbing my pillows with your scent and every similar act of remembrance I will preform to keep you with me somehow. I'm not going to promise I won't break down from time to time and leave signs for you that I am still here. I already know I will, I won't even try to deny it. But it's not going to be me invading your space any more than my weak heart will let me get away with. It's merely a way to leave you a sign - so that you know I am still out there loving you- even if we can't be together right now. They are just some simple ways to show you I have faith we will be together again someday. Please don't be afraid of my messages, I beg you. It's just that I know, I know like you do also, we are meant to be.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Three 02.15.10
The staccato of my heartbeat is suddenly alarming. I can feel all of my veins constricting, shrinking against the pounding of my hysterical heart; it makes me instantly lightheaded. I feel the need to gasp for breath coming on, and I realize my breath is no longer coming in measured amounts, but rather intermittently in short random bursts that slam against each other. Shhhhh, I tell myself, trying to quell the nausea suddenly knocking at the back of my throat. Shhhhhhh, I try to imitate the soothing sound of my own blood flow but it is more of a terrific roar. I am panicking, I am panicking and it is welling up inside me, making my throat feel tight, making it feel the squeeze of a phantom hand. I try to swallow against it and that just seems to make it worse. I can literally feel the pound of my pulse in my neck and my skin starts to sweat. I'm hot and cold all over in the same instant. Don't tell me this is true; tell me it's an illusion, a fucking nightmare that I will wake up from in moments. You'll be there holding me won't you? You'll be there to soothe my brow and lay your gentle healing kisses against its clammy dampness won't you?
MY GOD. What have I done?
I went looking back; I wanted to see how far back this was going on, for how long was I blind to my delusions that I was ever good for you. Oh god, oh god what I see now is just heinous. How could you possibly ever love me when I've treated you like this? How could you possibly have stayed by my side for the last two years when I have been the very spirit of vile and spite? Oh god I'm such a pathetically undeserving asshole. Here I was the whole time pointing fingers at everyone else but myself; never really owning up to the abuse I was unleashing on you. Excusing it as justified, trying to explain it away with the modeling I got earlier in life. Bullshit house of cards excuses stacked up on top of each other until the tower was so huge it couldn't help but collapse under the weight of itself.
I'm so glad now you got rid of me. I am almost deliriously wishing now that you never come back to me. NEVER show yourself to me again, I am so undeserving with the way I have beaten you down. God, everything you said that night was true wasn't it? And I, in my desperate folly had the nerve to debate the point with you. No wonder you had to take it this far. I am so sick and unhealthy, I am so twisted and warped to think that was really love I was giving you wrapped up in razor blades and arsenic. Never mind that hidden inside each package was the smallest shred of care, just enough sweetness to mingle with the tinny thick texture of your own blood and make it seem worth swallowing.
WHY? I want to split myself in two so I can beat that part of me to death. Bash in its skull over and over until there's nothing left but a bloody, dangling, pulpy mass. I see all the things I said now, all the times I just took it way too far. I was way way beyond the limits of reason or decency. I am so so sorry I treated you like that. To think I called that "communication." PLEASE. That's not communication, that's verbally abusing someone past the point of reason. That's giving over to my mania and letting it ride me until I am frothing at the bit, whipping myself into a frenzy and pouring it all out on you.
You, whom I loved most of all....what an utter disappointment I am to myself, I've disgraced you. Jesus Christ. I am praying to a god I no longer believe to absolve me of these most egregious sins I have committed against you. I am begging that someone strikes me down for this. I deserve the penance fully. Let me never know love again for what I have done.
Let me never know comfort or rest or solace for the words I thrust into your heart and your head, hammering them home with a pointed pick axe into your softest most vulnerable spaces. I am choking on the bile as it rears like an unruly wave and streams from my lips noxious chartreuse syrup. I have barely eaten in the last three days, but it doesn't matter, I don't have any appetite anymore. I am SICK. SICK.
I am searching for the antidote and I am frantically clawing about the medicine cabinet of my memories for some small cure. Something I can swallow that will stay down, that will ease this illness back to a less terminal place. I am maddeningly digging through my drawers for a scalpel, here, I'll do it myself, I'll cut it out. My fingers are scrambling and clenching as my pulse races to 152, I need a doctor, call someone quick. Next month isn't soon enough, I get the print outs from my health care pages I printed out several weeks ago and tear through them again. Scanning the names I have circled, I am trying to calm myself down before I start dialing wildly. Today, tomorrow, this week, this has to happen now. I can't wait any longer for this kind of help when I know what I did now.
I'm not going to stop until I find someone that can help me. If I have to exorcise this haint every fucking night the rest of my life myself I will. But so help me I am NEVER going back to that place. Curse you, curse you for doing this to her, to yourself, to everyone around you. My blinders are off; I can see that was NEVER healthy. That was never love, that was never care and comfort and communication. And the worst part is I love you with every atom of my soul completely, and I still did this to you. I am so weak and stupid to have done that...That is wrong, so wrong I can't think of enough words to hurl at it. All I know is this....
I have sinned. I have broken my vows. I have broken my word. And in doing so, I have broken not just my heart, but more importantly YOURS. Please, please forgive me. I don't deserve it, not at all, but if there ever was a goddess I could pray to for absolution that would grant it to this unworthy soul I know it would be you. I'll prove my devotion by lighting that part of me on fire and making sure it burns down to fine cinders and then a silty gray white ash. Then, I will rise, reborn, remade, born of the ashes of my former despicable self, now made beautiful because I will finally be able to honor the words health and communication and love.
I'm so sorry...I'm truly sorry for all that I have said...
MY GOD. What have I done?
I went looking back; I wanted to see how far back this was going on, for how long was I blind to my delusions that I was ever good for you. Oh god, oh god what I see now is just heinous. How could you possibly ever love me when I've treated you like this? How could you possibly have stayed by my side for the last two years when I have been the very spirit of vile and spite? Oh god I'm such a pathetically undeserving asshole. Here I was the whole time pointing fingers at everyone else but myself; never really owning up to the abuse I was unleashing on you. Excusing it as justified, trying to explain it away with the modeling I got earlier in life. Bullshit house of cards excuses stacked up on top of each other until the tower was so huge it couldn't help but collapse under the weight of itself.
I'm so glad now you got rid of me. I am almost deliriously wishing now that you never come back to me. NEVER show yourself to me again, I am so undeserving with the way I have beaten you down. God, everything you said that night was true wasn't it? And I, in my desperate folly had the nerve to debate the point with you. No wonder you had to take it this far. I am so sick and unhealthy, I am so twisted and warped to think that was really love I was giving you wrapped up in razor blades and arsenic. Never mind that hidden inside each package was the smallest shred of care, just enough sweetness to mingle with the tinny thick texture of your own blood and make it seem worth swallowing.
WHY? I want to split myself in two so I can beat that part of me to death. Bash in its skull over and over until there's nothing left but a bloody, dangling, pulpy mass. I see all the things I said now, all the times I just took it way too far. I was way way beyond the limits of reason or decency. I am so so sorry I treated you like that. To think I called that "communication." PLEASE. That's not communication, that's verbally abusing someone past the point of reason. That's giving over to my mania and letting it ride me until I am frothing at the bit, whipping myself into a frenzy and pouring it all out on you.
You, whom I loved most of all....what an utter disappointment I am to myself, I've disgraced you. Jesus Christ. I am praying to a god I no longer believe to absolve me of these most egregious sins I have committed against you. I am begging that someone strikes me down for this. I deserve the penance fully. Let me never know love again for what I have done.
Let me never know comfort or rest or solace for the words I thrust into your heart and your head, hammering them home with a pointed pick axe into your softest most vulnerable spaces. I am choking on the bile as it rears like an unruly wave and streams from my lips noxious chartreuse syrup. I have barely eaten in the last three days, but it doesn't matter, I don't have any appetite anymore. I am SICK. SICK.
I am searching for the antidote and I am frantically clawing about the medicine cabinet of my memories for some small cure. Something I can swallow that will stay down, that will ease this illness back to a less terminal place. I am maddeningly digging through my drawers for a scalpel, here, I'll do it myself, I'll cut it out. My fingers are scrambling and clenching as my pulse races to 152, I need a doctor, call someone quick. Next month isn't soon enough, I get the print outs from my health care pages I printed out several weeks ago and tear through them again. Scanning the names I have circled, I am trying to calm myself down before I start dialing wildly. Today, tomorrow, this week, this has to happen now. I can't wait any longer for this kind of help when I know what I did now.
I'm not going to stop until I find someone that can help me. If I have to exorcise this haint every fucking night the rest of my life myself I will. But so help me I am NEVER going back to that place. Curse you, curse you for doing this to her, to yourself, to everyone around you. My blinders are off; I can see that was NEVER healthy. That was never love, that was never care and comfort and communication. And the worst part is I love you with every atom of my soul completely, and I still did this to you. I am so weak and stupid to have done that...That is wrong, so wrong I can't think of enough words to hurl at it. All I know is this....
I have sinned. I have broken my vows. I have broken my word. And in doing so, I have broken not just my heart, but more importantly YOURS. Please, please forgive me. I don't deserve it, not at all, but if there ever was a goddess I could pray to for absolution that would grant it to this unworthy soul I know it would be you. I'll prove my devotion by lighting that part of me on fire and making sure it burns down to fine cinders and then a silty gray white ash. Then, I will rise, reborn, remade, born of the ashes of my former despicable self, now made beautiful because I will finally be able to honor the words health and communication and love.
I'm so sorry...I'm truly sorry for all that I have said...
Two 02.14.10
My eyes twitch open violently as if someone just whispered into my slumbering ear "FIRE!" I start awake, flopping violently like a choking fish out of water. Disoriented for a moment I am not sure where I am. My awareness comes rushing in on the back of a frenzied heartbeat. You are no longer with me. I am lost. This has been my life the last three days and it will be yet for, I fear, quite some time.
I am crying before I know it, the tears spring from my wide awake eyes. I attempt to sigh, but it comes out more of a choked shudder. I roll onto my side, pressing my swollen eyes into the pillow trying to will myself back to sleep. But sleep is a merciful bitch that will not come and cloak me in its deep black embrace. No, try as I might to fall back asleep I am awake, although reason for it escapes me as I have also gone to bed the last three days at 4:30 AM. This seems to be the time my body finally runs out of power and the ability to do anything but carry my thoughts through my head on an eternal loop like matchbox race cars on amphetamines.
Suddenly I reach for my phone, nearly diving out of my bed grasping for it. I flip it open and stuck in a breath....no word from you. Not one. I know that is all I have now - words. Words that never fully portray the way I feel for you no matter how hard I try to bend them to my will. Just words. These become nothing more than silly meaningless words when they are viewed side by side to my feelings for you. I stare blankly at the ceiling through clouded watery vision. The salt is staining my lips, the fat tears roll down endless tracts until I can no longer feel the burn and sting of my eyelids swelling nearly shut.
I wrestle with myself. "Don't do it, leave her alone" I have to keep repeating to myself. "You said you wanted to respect her need for space and time, let her have that gift from you at least, don't be so selfish" I chastise myself. I look over at the time. An hour has passed already? Soon, it will be 10 AM. The birds outside sing lightly, unobtrusively, as if they are being sensitive to my needs. Bless them. I text a few friends, I attempt to call my sister in vain. My dog snores loudly on the bed, she is crushing my foot, sending pins and needles tingles up my calf. No matter. I'd just as soon not wake her up, I've grown so sad each time the door bell rings and she looks up expectantly. She will miss you terribly. She will not understand your absence. There is no way for me to explain this to a simple dog.
My forehead knits together sharply in the fissure of my brows. Pain, this is pain like I have not felt. Hollow bones, aching panicky skin that almost itches with tension, and a paradoxical feeling of terrifying weightlessness mixed with a heavy sagging feeling. "Fuck it. It's god damn Valentine's day" I spit out as I flip open my phone and scroll down to your name, a name I have now added a pre-fix to "DO NOT CALL." It's not like I don't want to; I want to with every heart beat, with every swallow, with every inhalation of air into my lungs. But I know, that for this to work out well in the end for you, for me, for both of us, we are going to need that space respected at least as much as I can possibly muster. Before I know what I have started I've composed a 5 message series to you.
It says NOTHING and everything I need to at the same time:
"I am not trying to hurt you, I just want you to know since it is Valentine's day you are in my heart and in my soul. I am letting you go so we can both grow now. I will honor what you have taught me about love by carrying those emotions with me while I grow towards being more present and healthy for myself and others. I wish you adventure, joy, and just bliss baby. Always always always. I will stop bothering you now and be strong enough to respect your space and journey. I could never hate you, not ever. I respect you so much for doing what I could not. If you ever decide you want to or are ready to come back and see that we can love each other and be healthy for each other - I will ALWAYS keep a door in my heart unlocked for you. I love you. So long for now."
I send it before I know what I am doing...I mourn the fact that I will not receive a response soon enough to ease my trapeze artist heart. I roll out of bed and pull on clothing slowly. The rest of the day is a blur. A maze of experiences a mixture of unspeakable beauty and the rest get more difficult than the last. I have learned SO much in just the last 48 hours about me and about us. Just keeping on the move has its benefits, it keeps me from doing stupid things like stopping to think if you are home right now and what you are doing. Instead I can't help dawning on new revelation after new revelation. I keep wanting to share them with you as much for their cathartic nature as for their interesting subtext.
I am starting to know what it was about everything that was scaring me shitless. I am starting to see the areas I really avoided. I am confronting them, getting up in their face, turning over ancient stones. I am slowly putting the odd puzzle pieces together. Everything is taking shape in a most peculiar way. Would you like an example? Ok.
Let's try just this one for now, the issue with my relationship with your parents. Or should I say, lack thereof. But for once, for once in my life, this lack of a relationship was not to blame on the parents. This time, the blame rested squarely on my shoulders. The sensation of the weight lifting with realization was enough to see how much I should have valued them more while I had the chance. I don't know if you read the Thank You card I left for them yesterday along with your house key, but I meant every word in that letter. There's no bullshit ass kissing contained in those lines of very badly written sentiment. Your parents deserve my gratitude. They are human yes, they make mistakes like the rest of us, and I don't always understand them, but they are great wonderful people and I love them for that. I started realizing today as I walked everywhere until my feet were throbbing and sore, you were right all along. What was my problem? How could I be so selfish, stupid, and immature??
The epiphany is just too great. Aside from just differing personalities (which is actually a good thing) the thing that caused me to withdraw the most from your parents was the way they treated me. My whole life I have wanted certain things from my own parents. Certain kinds of attention, of affection, of acceptance. But those things are given out in sparse doses for the most part within the dynamic of me and my parents. I have always wanted us to be friends as well as family. But my mother when I was younger said something to me I've never been able to forget. I told her I wanted her as my friend and she said point blankly, "I CAN'T be your friend. I can either be your friend or your mother. I can't be both, Blythe, and I am never going to stop being your mother." She isn't terrible for this admission, it's my task to accept her the way she is and mature past her benchmark as a person and a parent someday. Where neglect, perfectionism, and hypercritical focus replaced the friendship, nurturing, and affection I desperately wanted from my parents, they provided me with alternative values. They cared for my health and groomed me in a hard but loving way. Whatever fears kept them from realizing the emotional connection I needed with them fully, they made up for in providing me with opportunities of independence, absences that caused me to learn to fend for myself, and an almost fanatical dedication to my health and well being.
Then I met you, and you brought me home. I wanted to impress your parents at first. I think I was surprised so much to see that it was really them that impressed me. We have totally different lives in this regard and you'll excuse the comparison here, but my experiences with being gay and interacting with parents are completely fucked up compared to yours. My own parents were really difficult with it, adding conflict to an already tumultuous relationship. Then there have been the parents of my partners. I can tell you now without a doubt, not of a one of them made it easy and enjoyable for me trying to get to know them and find my place in their family. If they weren't totally dysfunctional, they were just downright bigoted towards me. Despite my best efforts to woo them and connect, they wanted nothing to do with me, and wanted me to have nothing to do with their daughter. When I was younger, I tried really hard to win them over, and one family in particular really came to mean something to me. When the relationship ended I mourned not only the loss of my ex girlfriend, but also the loss of her family as I was finally making some headway in connecting....I thought.
After that I walled up, the pain was really awful, I felt like I had lost a second family that was nothing like mine in all the ways I found interesting and gratifying. I shut down further attempts in the future to connect with my partner's parents. If I did interact with them, it wasn't anything that would have made the ground swell: polite appearances, authentic expressions of my character, and a completely aloof attitude towards them otherwise. It made sense to me when I met your parents, to keep up this set of tactics. Especially because in the beginning, I did not intend to go falling in love with you and discovering you're all I've ever wanted. They were merely the gatekeepers I needed to get past if I wanted to continue to see you and indulge in my growing addiction to you.
I tried at first, like I said, to impress them. Then I think I starting a growing gnawing habit of needing to assert myself with them more and more. To put more distance between us. And marvel of marvels, the more I pulled away the more they reached out to include me. It infuriated me. How dare they invade my privacy and personal space! But that's not why it was bothering me in truth, that was just the shell I put up to solidify and justify my insolent ridiculous behavioral outbursts. No, I wasn't adverse to their attention entirely. They both seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me, really know me, and the way they practically married me off to you from the get go made my palms sweat and my throat constrict. What the hell was going on here? These are the kinds of parents I'm used to....How do I do this now?? Oh right, guards up, don't let them get you by the balls, then they'll walk all over you. In hindsight, I don't know what the FUCK my problem was, and I know exactly what it was. I think the breaking point for me was really when they took me with you guys on that family trip to San Francisco for the holidays.
Can I tell you, that was the first time that any family of any girl I have ever dated has invited me anywhere like that? It was always the girlfriend convincing, or fighting the family in the past to include me. It was always a suggestion on her part, NEVER on theirs. Your family was welcoming me in, pulling me into their embrace and it was too difficult for me to process and feel comfortable with. When they came to that LGBTQI protest rally with us, I was blown. JUST BLOWN. I have been prodding and pushing my parents, ANY of my family for YEARS an entire 11 years to be exact, to come to a single Pride event or protest rally and not ONCE has any of them attended. They don't even say they would want to. It is something that deeply wounds me, because I want nothing more than for them to come and stand by my side and display their pride, support and love for me unconditionally in that extremely political and exhibitionist manner. It is a dream that I probably will never attain. And your parents, after only a short time, fulfilled that dream for me that day.
I was so confused. It couldn't keep being like this....the talks with your dad, the easy joking, the ability for me to debate him on various topics and not meet with blank silence but an active willing participant in the debate...not one that simply either threw up their hands at me and my weird viewpoints, not one that met me with blank expressionless apathy, and not one that didn't see me as adult enough to have the conversation in the first place. The punny jokes, gardening advice, the attempts to lend me books and music, to share with me his traveling experiences and learn mine. No this was something all too new and frightening. There had to be a catch. There had to be some boundary, otherwise I might become too close to them too, and if I lost you, I'd loose my second home....my second family. I immediately sought out or manufactured or inflated flaws within him to focus on. This was my walling up, guarding off, shutting down. But he kept coming and trying to reach out to me...just like your mother.
Ah man your mother...so much like my mother in some ways...the love of cooking and food, the way they both love to educate and share with people, the way they light up when they play hostess and fuss and fret over every little detail. But your mother, unlike mine, was vastly different in one very profound area. It was the way she loved you, and I suppose, loved everyone else around her I found so very threatening. Sufficed to say I am sure she would blush and frown at me for insinuating this but, she is the perfect Jewish mother I never had and never knew I wanted.
Your parents treated me the way I always wanted mine to. They wanted to be my friends, they wanted me close, they wanted to connect on a totally different level than mine have ever been able to. It was terrifying. Your mother wanted to cook with me and didn't criticize me for my contributions, even when that meant slicing off the tip of my finger into the chiffonade lettuce. She ALWAYS offered me food and never said anything negative about my weight, a stark contrast to my own parents whom have focused on my weight yo-yo tricks over the years enough to breed serious body image issues into me. She even kept things she knew I liked around the house for me...what was that?? WHY? I wondered...It's like she wants me around. She was always genuinely excited to see me, to hear me, to LISTEN. She asked me how things were with my mom, not to gossip and gawk like I mistakenly assumed, but to advise and attempt help me bridge the gap with my mother. And what's more, she accepted me the way I was. She LET ME be ME. She did more than that, she encouraged me. I found her excitement and wish to be close off putting because it is everything I have hungered for from my mother and never received in that same way. She wanted to be my friend, truly my friend, and I squandered it because I tried to view it as manipulative and invasive. Only an insecure Scorpio child like me could turn that into a threat. What a fool I have been. What a waste.
The irony of the situation is, I walled myself off and convinced myself I didn't need them , didn't want them, didn't like them to protect myself and spare the pain of loosing them too should we not work out. The reality is, I came to love them, because they were everything my parents were not. Instead of accepting my parents' limitations and embracing the fact that I got to receive what I always wanted in the friendship and intimacy of my connection with your parents I threw it away because I was so hurt that my parents couldn't be more like that. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Silly little arrogant child, how you cast your pearls before swine. My only real complaint....the health issues, the fear mongering there, the safe coddling attitude. The reason for that unrelenting criticism from me, when it is clear your parents are just trying to care and provide for you in the best most consistent way they know how?? Well...that's natural. Outstanding, over the top, overkill health care and a tenacious force of will to press me into independence and autonomy are two of the corner stone constants in my relationship with my parents.
Because it was these two things I got the most readily from them it was the thing that I learned to judge all families against, all parents held to that standard. Since this was the base function of my relationship with them, then all parents must meet this standard first and never waiver. Wrong, petty, ridiculous. How can I hold anyone else's parents to the standards of my parents? Automatically a loosing battle....Still, try as I might to get through to them about it, I used the wrong means to communicate. And when they did not follow up on my suggestions the way I wanted them to, and left your health hanging in the balance, it was the perfect scapegoat for me to hang all my fears and insecurities upon.
Truth is, they love you like I haven't really seen parents love a child. You're a walking gift so it makes total sense. But despite all their human flaws and imperfections they love you totally and completely, enough to welcome anyone you deem worthy into their hearts as if it wasn't even a question. Remarkable people you three, flawed, lovely awesome people who even though you don't always get along and your bonds have ebbed and flowed over the years, you ALL commit yourselves to change to be closer together. Something else I cannot understand, because it is another one of my deep unanswered needs from my own family. There is not bridging together for long extended periods of time, just individuals working independently to heal and grow and hope it works out with holidays and birthday parties to seal the deal.
That is why leaving my family for the holidays is a huge deal for me, its the ONLY time I get to see my family act like anything resembling the family I would like it to be. Each year is a new chance to connect, grow, change, love, bridge, build, foster. But even this year, when we lost one of our own, we still tore at each other and picked. Disappointed is how I feel now, desolate, and so very sad. I am mourning not only my loss of you sweet girl, but of the family I could have had and was too pussy to committ to for fear of being hurt. The truth suprising as it may be for you after all my rigamaroll: I do love them, just the way I love my own family. How else in the world could the irritate and confound me and cause me to protect myself with meaningless measures if I didn't care so deeply??
I keep wanting to reach out more to the two of them, not to get to you, but to let them know how much they rock. Their drive to improve, even if it's "slow" compared to my hyper-charged sense of urgency, dosen't make them villians. It makes them people. Just like me, I struggle to understand, embrace, and adopt change overnight. I don't know why I expected them to be any different. And, they don't have ot be perfect. They can just be them and I can accept that they provide me with certain things and not others. It's too bad I couldn't see this before but my own selfish pride and my deepest insecurities and hopes and dreams were caught up in the balance.
There was one more lesson that dawned on me today becuase of all this....I should not sacrafice the things I want and need because I am not getting them from exactly where i want them. Better that they come ot be at all than not. Now that I learned that lesson from them, I will honor it by not squandering human connections like the one they tried time and again to foster wtih me should i be lucky enought to recieve it. Amazing isn't it? The difference a little viewpoint change can give you? I'm sorry to say, I'm kind of looking forward to this....it's gonna hurt like hell but then again, combusting and rising from the ashes in a triumphant moment of rebirth is never truly all that comforatble I suppose. Lord knows I 've done it enough times to know. But honestly, I'm writing this with a smile on my face and in my heart, because no matter what happens to me, I know you three have each other and that is enough to help me get to sleep each night for a very, very long time.
I am crying before I know it, the tears spring from my wide awake eyes. I attempt to sigh, but it comes out more of a choked shudder. I roll onto my side, pressing my swollen eyes into the pillow trying to will myself back to sleep. But sleep is a merciful bitch that will not come and cloak me in its deep black embrace. No, try as I might to fall back asleep I am awake, although reason for it escapes me as I have also gone to bed the last three days at 4:30 AM. This seems to be the time my body finally runs out of power and the ability to do anything but carry my thoughts through my head on an eternal loop like matchbox race cars on amphetamines.
Suddenly I reach for my phone, nearly diving out of my bed grasping for it. I flip it open and stuck in a breath....no word from you. Not one. I know that is all I have now - words. Words that never fully portray the way I feel for you no matter how hard I try to bend them to my will. Just words. These become nothing more than silly meaningless words when they are viewed side by side to my feelings for you. I stare blankly at the ceiling through clouded watery vision. The salt is staining my lips, the fat tears roll down endless tracts until I can no longer feel the burn and sting of my eyelids swelling nearly shut.
I wrestle with myself. "Don't do it, leave her alone" I have to keep repeating to myself. "You said you wanted to respect her need for space and time, let her have that gift from you at least, don't be so selfish" I chastise myself. I look over at the time. An hour has passed already? Soon, it will be 10 AM. The birds outside sing lightly, unobtrusively, as if they are being sensitive to my needs. Bless them. I text a few friends, I attempt to call my sister in vain. My dog snores loudly on the bed, she is crushing my foot, sending pins and needles tingles up my calf. No matter. I'd just as soon not wake her up, I've grown so sad each time the door bell rings and she looks up expectantly. She will miss you terribly. She will not understand your absence. There is no way for me to explain this to a simple dog.
My forehead knits together sharply in the fissure of my brows. Pain, this is pain like I have not felt. Hollow bones, aching panicky skin that almost itches with tension, and a paradoxical feeling of terrifying weightlessness mixed with a heavy sagging feeling. "Fuck it. It's god damn Valentine's day" I spit out as I flip open my phone and scroll down to your name, a name I have now added a pre-fix to "DO NOT CALL." It's not like I don't want to; I want to with every heart beat, with every swallow, with every inhalation of air into my lungs. But I know, that for this to work out well in the end for you, for me, for both of us, we are going to need that space respected at least as much as I can possibly muster. Before I know what I have started I've composed a 5 message series to you.
It says NOTHING and everything I need to at the same time:
"I am not trying to hurt you, I just want you to know since it is Valentine's day you are in my heart and in my soul. I am letting you go so we can both grow now. I will honor what you have taught me about love by carrying those emotions with me while I grow towards being more present and healthy for myself and others. I wish you adventure, joy, and just bliss baby. Always always always. I will stop bothering you now and be strong enough to respect your space and journey. I could never hate you, not ever. I respect you so much for doing what I could not. If you ever decide you want to or are ready to come back and see that we can love each other and be healthy for each other - I will ALWAYS keep a door in my heart unlocked for you. I love you. So long for now."
I send it before I know what I am doing...I mourn the fact that I will not receive a response soon enough to ease my trapeze artist heart. I roll out of bed and pull on clothing slowly. The rest of the day is a blur. A maze of experiences a mixture of unspeakable beauty and the rest get more difficult than the last. I have learned SO much in just the last 48 hours about me and about us. Just keeping on the move has its benefits, it keeps me from doing stupid things like stopping to think if you are home right now and what you are doing. Instead I can't help dawning on new revelation after new revelation. I keep wanting to share them with you as much for their cathartic nature as for their interesting subtext.
I am starting to know what it was about everything that was scaring me shitless. I am starting to see the areas I really avoided. I am confronting them, getting up in their face, turning over ancient stones. I am slowly putting the odd puzzle pieces together. Everything is taking shape in a most peculiar way. Would you like an example? Ok.
Let's try just this one for now, the issue with my relationship with your parents. Or should I say, lack thereof. But for once, for once in my life, this lack of a relationship was not to blame on the parents. This time, the blame rested squarely on my shoulders. The sensation of the weight lifting with realization was enough to see how much I should have valued them more while I had the chance. I don't know if you read the Thank You card I left for them yesterday along with your house key, but I meant every word in that letter. There's no bullshit ass kissing contained in those lines of very badly written sentiment. Your parents deserve my gratitude. They are human yes, they make mistakes like the rest of us, and I don't always understand them, but they are great wonderful people and I love them for that. I started realizing today as I walked everywhere until my feet were throbbing and sore, you were right all along. What was my problem? How could I be so selfish, stupid, and immature??
The epiphany is just too great. Aside from just differing personalities (which is actually a good thing) the thing that caused me to withdraw the most from your parents was the way they treated me. My whole life I have wanted certain things from my own parents. Certain kinds of attention, of affection, of acceptance. But those things are given out in sparse doses for the most part within the dynamic of me and my parents. I have always wanted us to be friends as well as family. But my mother when I was younger said something to me I've never been able to forget. I told her I wanted her as my friend and she said point blankly, "I CAN'T be your friend. I can either be your friend or your mother. I can't be both, Blythe, and I am never going to stop being your mother." She isn't terrible for this admission, it's my task to accept her the way she is and mature past her benchmark as a person and a parent someday. Where neglect, perfectionism, and hypercritical focus replaced the friendship, nurturing, and affection I desperately wanted from my parents, they provided me with alternative values. They cared for my health and groomed me in a hard but loving way. Whatever fears kept them from realizing the emotional connection I needed with them fully, they made up for in providing me with opportunities of independence, absences that caused me to learn to fend for myself, and an almost fanatical dedication to my health and well being.
Then I met you, and you brought me home. I wanted to impress your parents at first. I think I was surprised so much to see that it was really them that impressed me. We have totally different lives in this regard and you'll excuse the comparison here, but my experiences with being gay and interacting with parents are completely fucked up compared to yours. My own parents were really difficult with it, adding conflict to an already tumultuous relationship. Then there have been the parents of my partners. I can tell you now without a doubt, not of a one of them made it easy and enjoyable for me trying to get to know them and find my place in their family. If they weren't totally dysfunctional, they were just downright bigoted towards me. Despite my best efforts to woo them and connect, they wanted nothing to do with me, and wanted me to have nothing to do with their daughter. When I was younger, I tried really hard to win them over, and one family in particular really came to mean something to me. When the relationship ended I mourned not only the loss of my ex girlfriend, but also the loss of her family as I was finally making some headway in connecting....I thought.
After that I walled up, the pain was really awful, I felt like I had lost a second family that was nothing like mine in all the ways I found interesting and gratifying. I shut down further attempts in the future to connect with my partner's parents. If I did interact with them, it wasn't anything that would have made the ground swell: polite appearances, authentic expressions of my character, and a completely aloof attitude towards them otherwise. It made sense to me when I met your parents, to keep up this set of tactics. Especially because in the beginning, I did not intend to go falling in love with you and discovering you're all I've ever wanted. They were merely the gatekeepers I needed to get past if I wanted to continue to see you and indulge in my growing addiction to you.
I tried at first, like I said, to impress them. Then I think I starting a growing gnawing habit of needing to assert myself with them more and more. To put more distance between us. And marvel of marvels, the more I pulled away the more they reached out to include me. It infuriated me. How dare they invade my privacy and personal space! But that's not why it was bothering me in truth, that was just the shell I put up to solidify and justify my insolent ridiculous behavioral outbursts. No, I wasn't adverse to their attention entirely. They both seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me, really know me, and the way they practically married me off to you from the get go made my palms sweat and my throat constrict. What the hell was going on here? These are the kinds of parents I'm used to....How do I do this now?? Oh right, guards up, don't let them get you by the balls, then they'll walk all over you. In hindsight, I don't know what the FUCK my problem was, and I know exactly what it was. I think the breaking point for me was really when they took me with you guys on that family trip to San Francisco for the holidays.
Can I tell you, that was the first time that any family of any girl I have ever dated has invited me anywhere like that? It was always the girlfriend convincing, or fighting the family in the past to include me. It was always a suggestion on her part, NEVER on theirs. Your family was welcoming me in, pulling me into their embrace and it was too difficult for me to process and feel comfortable with. When they came to that LGBTQI protest rally with us, I was blown. JUST BLOWN. I have been prodding and pushing my parents, ANY of my family for YEARS an entire 11 years to be exact, to come to a single Pride event or protest rally and not ONCE has any of them attended. They don't even say they would want to. It is something that deeply wounds me, because I want nothing more than for them to come and stand by my side and display their pride, support and love for me unconditionally in that extremely political and exhibitionist manner. It is a dream that I probably will never attain. And your parents, after only a short time, fulfilled that dream for me that day.
I was so confused. It couldn't keep being like this....the talks with your dad, the easy joking, the ability for me to debate him on various topics and not meet with blank silence but an active willing participant in the debate...not one that simply either threw up their hands at me and my weird viewpoints, not one that met me with blank expressionless apathy, and not one that didn't see me as adult enough to have the conversation in the first place. The punny jokes, gardening advice, the attempts to lend me books and music, to share with me his traveling experiences and learn mine. No this was something all too new and frightening. There had to be a catch. There had to be some boundary, otherwise I might become too close to them too, and if I lost you, I'd loose my second home....my second family. I immediately sought out or manufactured or inflated flaws within him to focus on. This was my walling up, guarding off, shutting down. But he kept coming and trying to reach out to me...just like your mother.
Ah man your mother...so much like my mother in some ways...the love of cooking and food, the way they both love to educate and share with people, the way they light up when they play hostess and fuss and fret over every little detail. But your mother, unlike mine, was vastly different in one very profound area. It was the way she loved you, and I suppose, loved everyone else around her I found so very threatening. Sufficed to say I am sure she would blush and frown at me for insinuating this but, she is the perfect Jewish mother I never had and never knew I wanted.
Your parents treated me the way I always wanted mine to. They wanted to be my friends, they wanted me close, they wanted to connect on a totally different level than mine have ever been able to. It was terrifying. Your mother wanted to cook with me and didn't criticize me for my contributions, even when that meant slicing off the tip of my finger into the chiffonade lettuce. She ALWAYS offered me food and never said anything negative about my weight, a stark contrast to my own parents whom have focused on my weight yo-yo tricks over the years enough to breed serious body image issues into me. She even kept things she knew I liked around the house for me...what was that?? WHY? I wondered...It's like she wants me around. She was always genuinely excited to see me, to hear me, to LISTEN. She asked me how things were with my mom, not to gossip and gawk like I mistakenly assumed, but to advise and attempt help me bridge the gap with my mother. And what's more, she accepted me the way I was. She LET ME be ME. She did more than that, she encouraged me. I found her excitement and wish to be close off putting because it is everything I have hungered for from my mother and never received in that same way. She wanted to be my friend, truly my friend, and I squandered it because I tried to view it as manipulative and invasive. Only an insecure Scorpio child like me could turn that into a threat. What a fool I have been. What a waste.
The irony of the situation is, I walled myself off and convinced myself I didn't need them , didn't want them, didn't like them to protect myself and spare the pain of loosing them too should we not work out. The reality is, I came to love them, because they were everything my parents were not. Instead of accepting my parents' limitations and embracing the fact that I got to receive what I always wanted in the friendship and intimacy of my connection with your parents I threw it away because I was so hurt that my parents couldn't be more like that. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Silly little arrogant child, how you cast your pearls before swine. My only real complaint....the health issues, the fear mongering there, the safe coddling attitude. The reason for that unrelenting criticism from me, when it is clear your parents are just trying to care and provide for you in the best most consistent way they know how?? Well...that's natural. Outstanding, over the top, overkill health care and a tenacious force of will to press me into independence and autonomy are two of the corner stone constants in my relationship with my parents.
Because it was these two things I got the most readily from them it was the thing that I learned to judge all families against, all parents held to that standard. Since this was the base function of my relationship with them, then all parents must meet this standard first and never waiver. Wrong, petty, ridiculous. How can I hold anyone else's parents to the standards of my parents? Automatically a loosing battle....Still, try as I might to get through to them about it, I used the wrong means to communicate. And when they did not follow up on my suggestions the way I wanted them to, and left your health hanging in the balance, it was the perfect scapegoat for me to hang all my fears and insecurities upon.
Truth is, they love you like I haven't really seen parents love a child. You're a walking gift so it makes total sense. But despite all their human flaws and imperfections they love you totally and completely, enough to welcome anyone you deem worthy into their hearts as if it wasn't even a question. Remarkable people you three, flawed, lovely awesome people who even though you don't always get along and your bonds have ebbed and flowed over the years, you ALL commit yourselves to change to be closer together. Something else I cannot understand, because it is another one of my deep unanswered needs from my own family. There is not bridging together for long extended periods of time, just individuals working independently to heal and grow and hope it works out with holidays and birthday parties to seal the deal.
That is why leaving my family for the holidays is a huge deal for me, its the ONLY time I get to see my family act like anything resembling the family I would like it to be. Each year is a new chance to connect, grow, change, love, bridge, build, foster. But even this year, when we lost one of our own, we still tore at each other and picked. Disappointed is how I feel now, desolate, and so very sad. I am mourning not only my loss of you sweet girl, but of the family I could have had and was too pussy to committ to for fear of being hurt. The truth suprising as it may be for you after all my rigamaroll: I do love them, just the way I love my own family. How else in the world could the irritate and confound me and cause me to protect myself with meaningless measures if I didn't care so deeply??
I keep wanting to reach out more to the two of them, not to get to you, but to let them know how much they rock. Their drive to improve, even if it's "slow" compared to my hyper-charged sense of urgency, dosen't make them villians. It makes them people. Just like me, I struggle to understand, embrace, and adopt change overnight. I don't know why I expected them to be any different. And, they don't have ot be perfect. They can just be them and I can accept that they provide me with certain things and not others. It's too bad I couldn't see this before but my own selfish pride and my deepest insecurities and hopes and dreams were caught up in the balance.
There was one more lesson that dawned on me today becuase of all this....I should not sacrafice the things I want and need because I am not getting them from exactly where i want them. Better that they come ot be at all than not. Now that I learned that lesson from them, I will honor it by not squandering human connections like the one they tried time and again to foster wtih me should i be lucky enought to recieve it. Amazing isn't it? The difference a little viewpoint change can give you? I'm sorry to say, I'm kind of looking forward to this....it's gonna hurt like hell but then again, combusting and rising from the ashes in a triumphant moment of rebirth is never truly all that comforatble I suppose. Lord knows I 've done it enough times to know. But honestly, I'm writing this with a smile on my face and in my heart, because no matter what happens to me, I know you three have each other and that is enough to help me get to sleep each night for a very, very long time.
One 02.13.10
Twenty Four Hours.
Twenty four hours is all it has taken for the last seven thousand, eight hundred, and forty eight hours of my life to fall apart completely like powered sugar through a flaming sieve. I hear you haven't slept since Wednesday. I long with a sick trembling ache to come and hold you tenderly in my arms until you fall asleep, the worried lines in your forehead eased, your mind quiet. Already, I miss so many things in just this first one three hundred and twenty seventh away from your side.
I love you.
As always, it pulses from me, spreading outward in concentric circles of glowing bands of sizzling lightening.
The true testament of my love has just begun. My work, my honest earnest toil, for me, for you, for us, has just been born. The last seven thousand, eight hundred and forty eight hours have been its gestation. The last twenty four hours have been my painful solemn labour, to bring this mewling babe to the world and hear its cries of protest. And now, holding our fragile infant love with all its future promise cradled to my breast, I know that I have what it will require to nurture, to grow, to evolve. Paramount are my goals now: health, happiness, the ability to communicate, to be able to learn what it means to be equal, to learn to embrace, and learn when not to embrace.
This time is my time not to embrace you.
Not with my arms which are shaky with weakness and the selfish impulse to hold you to me and never let you go again. Rather, I will show you- I value your independence as I do my own soul. Although I may nearly perish without your tender fierce kisses, and for a while yet I will waste with yearning for your constant fulfilling presence-I will grow strong again. I will rid myself of the toxins of doubt, fear, projected insecurities, stubborn unnecessary resistance, and negativity masquerading as self preservation. I will continue to mature, learn, and evolve so that I will honor what you have taught me about the worth of love. Even if you need to move on and never return to my heart, I will love you. I will spread the love I house for you in my heart in every direction along my aura's electric pulses. Until the day that I pass from this life to the next, I will strive with my every breath to make this world a better place for a love like ours to exist within.
I venerate myself at your memory. This is no eulogy. It is not as if you are dead to me, it is simply that you are the Essence Twin I wish to reflect with my soul's light once more.
Namaste my cherished one.
Namaste from my bowed third eye to my glowing emerald heart chakrah. It does not denote the unsophisticated meanings that simpletons would suggest boil down to "peace be with you" or "I bow to you." No. No for you it bears full meaning in every exact detail.
The light and beauty in my soul see the light and beauty in your soul and reflect that back to you.
In perpetuity I will adore you. You are a part of me now as always. I step into the world bathed in light and witness the first fruits of springtime's labour. I hold aloft our infant love to sun's rays and say with certainty: THRIVE.
Twenty four hours is all it has taken for the last seven thousand, eight hundred, and forty eight hours of my life to fall apart completely like powered sugar through a flaming sieve. I hear you haven't slept since Wednesday. I long with a sick trembling ache to come and hold you tenderly in my arms until you fall asleep, the worried lines in your forehead eased, your mind quiet. Already, I miss so many things in just this first one three hundred and twenty seventh away from your side.
I love you.
As always, it pulses from me, spreading outward in concentric circles of glowing bands of sizzling lightening.
The true testament of my love has just begun. My work, my honest earnest toil, for me, for you, for us, has just been born. The last seven thousand, eight hundred and forty eight hours have been its gestation. The last twenty four hours have been my painful solemn labour, to bring this mewling babe to the world and hear its cries of protest. And now, holding our fragile infant love with all its future promise cradled to my breast, I know that I have what it will require to nurture, to grow, to evolve. Paramount are my goals now: health, happiness, the ability to communicate, to be able to learn what it means to be equal, to learn to embrace, and learn when not to embrace.
This time is my time not to embrace you.
Not with my arms which are shaky with weakness and the selfish impulse to hold you to me and never let you go again. Rather, I will show you- I value your independence as I do my own soul. Although I may nearly perish without your tender fierce kisses, and for a while yet I will waste with yearning for your constant fulfilling presence-I will grow strong again. I will rid myself of the toxins of doubt, fear, projected insecurities, stubborn unnecessary resistance, and negativity masquerading as self preservation. I will continue to mature, learn, and evolve so that I will honor what you have taught me about the worth of love. Even if you need to move on and never return to my heart, I will love you. I will spread the love I house for you in my heart in every direction along my aura's electric pulses. Until the day that I pass from this life to the next, I will strive with my every breath to make this world a better place for a love like ours to exist within.
I venerate myself at your memory. This is no eulogy. It is not as if you are dead to me, it is simply that you are the Essence Twin I wish to reflect with my soul's light once more.
Namaste my cherished one.
Namaste from my bowed third eye to my glowing emerald heart chakrah. It does not denote the unsophisticated meanings that simpletons would suggest boil down to "peace be with you" or "I bow to you." No. No for you it bears full meaning in every exact detail.
The light and beauty in my soul see the light and beauty in your soul and reflect that back to you.
In perpetuity I will adore you. You are a part of me now as always. I step into the world bathed in light and witness the first fruits of springtime's labour. I hold aloft our infant love to sun's rays and say with certainty: THRIVE.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Gasoline
Gasoline fumes and bleeding gums, that is what I am made of tonight. You say I let their shadows tower over you, you say I invoke their name to hide in my fears. You say I cast you down and keep you there on the ground eating slop and shit like something beneath me. You don't know the half of it.
Have you ever seen footage of Buddhist monks that set themselves ablaze to protest something they think is unjust? You want to look away, you want to say you just can't comprehend it, it's too terrible. You want to look away, but you can't. You stay staring, pupils constricting in fear while their body is bathed in first brilliant yellow, then goldenrod, and finally blood orange flames. You watch down to the last moment, until the flames lap at nothing but an indistinguishable pile of burning; with plumes of putrid thick black smoke bellowing away from it. The ultimate sacrifice and service to others.
If that is what it would take to prove to you that I am not your enemy I would do it in a heartbeat.
I would sit calmly, looking you right in the eye as I lit the match and felt the oppressive heat spread all over me. I would sit there silently chanting YOUR name, the LAST NAME I would utter until I could no longer tap my consciousness. I want you to know, not a SINGLE name of theirs would cross my mind, only you, only ever you. And as my delicate ashes rose in the air with the smoke, I would send you every good blessing for love and happiness and warmth. Such is the depth of my devotion to you.
If there was a way to uncloud your vision and shock you awake I would do it. If there was a way for me to let you try on my vision for a day, to wear my skin, to feel what I feel, I would gladly do it, just so you would know that I NEVER saw you as beneath me. You are NOT my equal, NOT my better, NOT my pupil, NOT my savior. You are my comrade, but we are cut from different clothes. You are kismet, a reflection of pieces of my soul, but put together in a way so inexplicably beautiful I would never have had the foresight to put you together that way had I fashioned you myself.
I have walked these paths before you, in different shoes long cast away. This does not make me an expert, some monolithic dark god to be feared and obeyed. It makes me experienced, it makes me tired, worn, and busted. It makes me used, and world weary, and has sharpened some of my senses to dagger points. But make no mistake, I don't see you below me, and I don't see you behind me. Yours is own your own path. What you do with it is YOUR will alone. I cannot change you, to think otherwise is sheer madness. But more to the point, I wouldn't try, I wouldn't dare.
I love you because I love you, warts and all. I stay with you because I see in you the unspoken promise of knowing with a kind of calm certainty that you are the one I am meant to spend my nights and days with. I whether this lonely ragged time now, to benefit all the more from the exhilaration of the sharp sweetness of your return. I thought you knew, I love you, I love YOU, not them. I thought you knew, I want YOU, haven't I said that so MANY times? Haven't I begged and pleaded for this enough? Haven't I walked on hot coals and crawled across cut glass? Shall I give you another demonstration?
Where have my matches gone to now?
I was mistaken...Apparently I've just been using you all along to fulfill some twisted time traveling experiment. Apparently I'm just trying to heal my old scar tissue by inflicting some onto your skin. Apparently...
You take the helpful things I say and twist them into barb wire coated in acid, something caustic and painful; something you need protecting from. You take everything I ask of you and make it an impossible menial task. Every well meaning piece of advice is turned into a sharp criticism. And every honest critique is turned into an attack on your character. Don't you know by now? I tell you these things to help you. I'm trying to help you damn it. But I always get the bad apples as my bedfellows. Insecurities and fears are thrust into my apple cart, obscuring the site of me standing right there next to it, still ALWAYS trying to dig out the good ones and shine them to a brilliant slick for you.
It's a bittersweet affair being your loved one. I'm always the lousy flint eyed beast growling down your neck, always the tyrant demanding too many things from you, always burying you under the weight of some perfectionist ideal. If that is all I am, If that is all I have become then so be it. If that is what you need now, I'll be your villianess AGAIN.
But just ask yourself for a second, who are you rebelling against? Is it really ME you need to take a stand against? Is it really ME you need to assert your independence towards? How could I possibly be challenging your independence?? Me? Really???
Wasn't I the one who is always trying to help you get to that place of solvency? Aren't I the one who is always encouraging you to do more? With a steady firm certainty I have told you: I know you can do it. I know you can do ANYTHING you put your mind and heart to. Who told you to look inside yourself and stop doing only what was comfortable? Who showed up 2 years ago and starting rattling the rusted cage you kept yourself in, encouraging you to taste that long forbidden freedom running wild on your tongue? That wasn't me. I swear that wasn't me. When did I become what you needed to compete against? When did I stop being the person who came to your bedside when you were sick, who held you when you needed to cry, who helped you plant your feet firmly when the waves crashed harder against you standing there with you?
I am swilling the gasoline around in the can it makes a slight tinny sloshing sound. It is half full and heavy, so heavy. I am raising the can above me and pouring in a long bending line of pink tinted fluid gravity. It is running down my face as I hold my breath. No matter, the fumes make their way in through my ravaged nostrils and my eyes burn. My skin tingles and chafes violently. I shiver from the cold, but my teeth do not chatter, my jaw is firmly set. My clothes sag with the burden of this accelerant. Let it be painful, let it last forever, I am begging for it. I am folding myself into the lotus position and as I bend the matchbook over itself to strike and send myself up in flames, I think of you.
Only you.
Have you ever seen footage of Buddhist monks that set themselves ablaze to protest something they think is unjust? You want to look away, you want to say you just can't comprehend it, it's too terrible. You want to look away, but you can't. You stay staring, pupils constricting in fear while their body is bathed in first brilliant yellow, then goldenrod, and finally blood orange flames. You watch down to the last moment, until the flames lap at nothing but an indistinguishable pile of burning; with plumes of putrid thick black smoke bellowing away from it. The ultimate sacrifice and service to others.
If that is what it would take to prove to you that I am not your enemy I would do it in a heartbeat.
I would sit calmly, looking you right in the eye as I lit the match and felt the oppressive heat spread all over me. I would sit there silently chanting YOUR name, the LAST NAME I would utter until I could no longer tap my consciousness. I want you to know, not a SINGLE name of theirs would cross my mind, only you, only ever you. And as my delicate ashes rose in the air with the smoke, I would send you every good blessing for love and happiness and warmth. Such is the depth of my devotion to you.
If there was a way to uncloud your vision and shock you awake I would do it. If there was a way for me to let you try on my vision for a day, to wear my skin, to feel what I feel, I would gladly do it, just so you would know that I NEVER saw you as beneath me. You are NOT my equal, NOT my better, NOT my pupil, NOT my savior. You are my comrade, but we are cut from different clothes. You are kismet, a reflection of pieces of my soul, but put together in a way so inexplicably beautiful I would never have had the foresight to put you together that way had I fashioned you myself.
I have walked these paths before you, in different shoes long cast away. This does not make me an expert, some monolithic dark god to be feared and obeyed. It makes me experienced, it makes me tired, worn, and busted. It makes me used, and world weary, and has sharpened some of my senses to dagger points. But make no mistake, I don't see you below me, and I don't see you behind me. Yours is own your own path. What you do with it is YOUR will alone. I cannot change you, to think otherwise is sheer madness. But more to the point, I wouldn't try, I wouldn't dare.
I love you because I love you, warts and all. I stay with you because I see in you the unspoken promise of knowing with a kind of calm certainty that you are the one I am meant to spend my nights and days with. I whether this lonely ragged time now, to benefit all the more from the exhilaration of the sharp sweetness of your return. I thought you knew, I love you, I love YOU, not them. I thought you knew, I want YOU, haven't I said that so MANY times? Haven't I begged and pleaded for this enough? Haven't I walked on hot coals and crawled across cut glass? Shall I give you another demonstration?
Where have my matches gone to now?
I was mistaken...Apparently I've just been using you all along to fulfill some twisted time traveling experiment. Apparently I'm just trying to heal my old scar tissue by inflicting some onto your skin. Apparently...
You take the helpful things I say and twist them into barb wire coated in acid, something caustic and painful; something you need protecting from. You take everything I ask of you and make it an impossible menial task. Every well meaning piece of advice is turned into a sharp criticism. And every honest critique is turned into an attack on your character. Don't you know by now? I tell you these things to help you. I'm trying to help you damn it. But I always get the bad apples as my bedfellows. Insecurities and fears are thrust into my apple cart, obscuring the site of me standing right there next to it, still ALWAYS trying to dig out the good ones and shine them to a brilliant slick for you.
It's a bittersweet affair being your loved one. I'm always the lousy flint eyed beast growling down your neck, always the tyrant demanding too many things from you, always burying you under the weight of some perfectionist ideal. If that is all I am, If that is all I have become then so be it. If that is what you need now, I'll be your villianess AGAIN.
But just ask yourself for a second, who are you rebelling against? Is it really ME you need to take a stand against? Is it really ME you need to assert your independence towards? How could I possibly be challenging your independence?? Me? Really???
Wasn't I the one who is always trying to help you get to that place of solvency? Aren't I the one who is always encouraging you to do more? With a steady firm certainty I have told you: I know you can do it. I know you can do ANYTHING you put your mind and heart to. Who told you to look inside yourself and stop doing only what was comfortable? Who showed up 2 years ago and starting rattling the rusted cage you kept yourself in, encouraging you to taste that long forbidden freedom running wild on your tongue? That wasn't me. I swear that wasn't me. When did I become what you needed to compete against? When did I stop being the person who came to your bedside when you were sick, who held you when you needed to cry, who helped you plant your feet firmly when the waves crashed harder against you standing there with you?
I am swilling the gasoline around in the can it makes a slight tinny sloshing sound. It is half full and heavy, so heavy. I am raising the can above me and pouring in a long bending line of pink tinted fluid gravity. It is running down my face as I hold my breath. No matter, the fumes make their way in through my ravaged nostrils and my eyes burn. My skin tingles and chafes violently. I shiver from the cold, but my teeth do not chatter, my jaw is firmly set. My clothes sag with the burden of this accelerant. Let it be painful, let it last forever, I am begging for it. I am folding myself into the lotus position and as I bend the matchbook over itself to strike and send myself up in flames, I think of you.
Only you.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Rain 2009
Grey and white woolen clouds float across each other like lazy jellyfish. The cumulus mixes with the stratis like an orgy of silent rain filled sentinals. They are waiting, for the moment to be right, the electricity just so, to let fall their precious silver drops upon us. The barometor's lowering level bore down on us, like a sieve. My fingers curl impatiently around my steering wheel, as the wind attempts to whip my car into the lanes of traffic surrounding me. The kick back fog from the cars around and ahead of me is blinding. My windshield defroster is blasting full bore, but to no avail. I dampen my headlights back to parking lights and squint, soldiering on through the stinging downpour. I am hitting pockets of standing rain, hydroplaning slightly. The disorientation of momentary flight over water is startling. The thought occurs that this is the way a bird might feel when they take flight successfully for the first time. I grit my teeth and ease off the gas when I feel the tires seperate from the road, the tale tell whoosh sliding suddenly to a deaf glide. That would be the sound of impending skid, were I foolish enough to slam on my brakes.
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