awakenings

A story is not real unless it is told.

Life gives rise to stories.  Stories demand words.  Words only answer to truth.

When truth is not given voice it folds itself into a ball and nestles into that small dark space that untold stories call home. It never has a chance to become real.

This writing space sits dormant, waiting for words and truths and stories that have not come.  The pages are empty of new content, yet filled to overflowing with stories that remain untold.

For some time I imagined it was only my stories that begged telling here.  This was my sacred space; haven for my fears and my crashing despair and every last shred of hope that remained in the aftermath.   That tumultuous time has passed, and so I thought had the time passed to tell the story that began this blog.

How hopelessly silly of me.  Our stories never end; not this one, not your own.  They just live inside us, waiting to be made real by the telling.

~~~

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”  ~ Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)

~~~

Even four years later the emails come.

Was it worth it?
How did you know?
I’m not strong enough for this.
I am breaking my family.
Please, please tell me it will all be okay.

This story continues to be found by those who seek it.  Women seeking a place where their pain is understood, their struggle validated, their story made real.  Somehow, despite being ignored, these words rise again and again, and I am reminded once more that our stories are never really our own.

I feel tremendous responsibility to the women who seek out my story, who write to gift me with pieces of their own. I am humbled and in awe of their power and strength.  I want to keep telling my story as a way of giving voice to all of their unspoken truths.

But I hesitate.  In linking words to name and face I chose to expose my most intimate story and the most vulnerable spaces in my heart.  I struggled to honor my story in truth, without betraying the trust and respect of those who were also exposed by my decision to step out from the shadows of anonymity.

And instead of figuring out a way to navigate this tricky situation, I took my story inward, where it remains.

~~~

Awakenings began as a space for my story, but the time has come to usher in a new phase.   I begin this week by welcoming a new writer – opening this space up to new words, fresh truth, a story waiting to be told and made real.

Words will flow here once more.  They will not all be my words, but they will contain bits and pieces of my story, and your story and all of our stories.  Our truths are intimately personal and entirely universal.  Grief understands grief.  Love welcomes love.  Heartache embraces heartache and invites it to lay down its burdens for just a moment.

This is what draws us to the words of others, which leads us to seek transformation in the courage and beauty of lives shared and truths revealed.  And in welcoming these truths into our hearts WE are made real and our stories find life – even if we are not yet able to tell them ourselves.

~~~

I opened my email this summer to find a letter from Bee, and read this line:

“I will tell you my story not because I think you need to read it, but because I think I need to write it.”

And so I invited her to write it here, to bring her truth to light and let it be made real.  She will introduce herself, and tell her story – just as I began to do almost four years ago.

And in reading, we will all move a little closer to our own truths, closer to finding our own voices, closer to making our stories real.

~~~

“The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed…The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning”. ~ Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter)

{When you spin in circles of writers and witches and wild women – souls who create with the same necessity as they breathe – you sometimes get to read pieces of your own story in the words of another.  My own dear one – the friend who has cradled my soul and dried my tears for six years now -  wrote this poem about the same night I chronicled in the Pivotal Moments post below.  Three years after it was written it still sends chills through my body.  Truth has a way of doing that}

Sometimes we don’t
sing our redemption songs
in temples or stadiums
sometimes we croon out
our saving grace
in dark parking lots
outside of dive bars
at 1 a.m.
and I am playing
her like a piano
I am striking the chord
she does not want to hear
and I know…
I know.
It is knowledge
born of experience
and while I’ve never been
much of a singer
I am holdng her notes
singing her song back
to her here in the dark
and she just keeps talking
and she won’t shut up
and she is babbling about
wishes and wasted chances
and regrets.
and she is not feeling
she is only thinking
and she thinks too much
when what she needs to be doing
if she is going to sing this song
is feel.
I am going to make her feel
that’s the plan, anyway
but how do you make someone feel?
is it ethical?
is it logical?
Is it even possible?
About to find out…
“I saw how you were
looking at her,” I whispered
and she looked like I had slapped her
“That,” I told her, “was longing”
and she stammered,
“I just wish I had a way of knowing
I just wish I had explored this before
I got married”
and I cut her off
I said, “I don’t think you need
to explore anything to have your answer
tell me, if he wasn’t in the picture
would there even be a question?”
ethical?
logical?
possible?
her face crumpled
and I folded her up in my arms
and her aria poured out of her soul
and onto my shirt
and I relived that hurt of knowing
that nothing would ever be the same again
and she shook her head back and forth
against my neck
and her shoulders felt frighteningly
frail
as they shook in my arms
and she shook loose the song
she had held so tight
and she found not only that
she had a voice in there after all
but that she had vast range
and was capable of hitting the
high notes

(there is not one moment, over the past two and a half years, that hasn’t in some way played a role in bringing me to where i am today. This, of course, is true of all of us, of all our lives.  But all of us, looking back, can see with clarity that some of those moments were game changers, deal breakers, where a seismic shift occurred and the terrain of our lives were forever changed.  This, for me, was one of those moments}

The night comes back to me in flashes….

Downtown restaurant. Trendy music pounding on overhead speakers.

Pomegranate martini, tart and strong, filled to almost overflowing. My eyes water on the first drink and a splash spills across my hand and on the table.  My fingers are sticky.

A shared plate, salad with field greens, chicken, cashews, berries, manchego cheese – layers of subtle flavor pleasing my mouth.

My dear one across from me, tightly sprung curls surrounding an angel face.

My questions echoed in her kind eyes.

She is tentative, guiding me towards truth. Saying what she sees with no pressure or expectation.

She knows this space.  She knows me.  Better than anyone.

Her words ‘it is like the ocean’ unleash a longing in me I do not think I will ever be able to answer.

~~~

Later – the parking lot of a gay bar, found via google:

I’m too afraid to go in.

Women enter and leave, I think outloud  ‘they don’t look like me.  I don’t look like them’.

My head is down.  I feel alone and uncertain.

I catalog my heels and makeup and all this fucking effort against them, the way they seemed to exist outside of a world that has always demanded my assimilation.

The way they move suggests to me that they know who they are.

I wish badly that I did.

Shaking my head, pulling out of the parking lot.

Not ready yet.

~~~

Later: another bar, some random dive across the street from the bar we were looking for but never found.

More drinks.  Something pink and sweet.

The bartender is transgender, or a cross-dresser, or a drag queen.  I don’t know which.  I am reminded how small my world is, how little I know.

Flashing LED light show on the dance floor. People watching.  Texting.  Giggling.

A girl.  Tall and thin, sleek short hair.  Skinny jeans.  Young and chic.

My eyes following her.  Laughter and teasing threaded with undercurrent of danger and boundaries that must not be crossed.

My dear one reminding me of what I already know.

My heart pounding and head spinning in a way that is beginning to feel familiar

~~~

Later: In her car

She pushes me.  She knows she has to. Makes me admit, makes me see.  Makes me speak.

Grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around and forces me to face this truth.

I can’t catch my breath.

Sobbing in her arms.  Wailing.  Fists pounding.  Fighting so hard against all of it.

I’M NOT READY. I DON’T WANT THIS. I’M NOT READY. I DON’T WANT THIS.

I can’t do this.

It hurts.  It fucking hurts.  I CANNOT breathe.

The ground collapses beneath my feet and I wonder how on earth I will take one more step forward.

It feels like hours that I cry.  Cry like I never have before.  My head hurts.  My heart implodes.

~~~

Later – home:

My head spins.  The drinks and my emotions combine.  Emotional Inebriation.  Dangerous.

Fuck…it’s all dangerous now.

I bang into the walls on the way down the hallway.

He is there.  He is always there. I always want him there.

I don’t remember what I say, just what I don’t say.

What remains unsaid always seems to be the most important part.

This is where the undoing begins….

It’s been whispering to me for some time now.  Only an idea, just a word really.  Teasing at my brain, turning around in my subconscious, compelling me to consider…

Transparency.

~~~

I first spoke my truth here.

Awakenings sheltered me while I stretched my limbs, shed the bullshit, exposed my exquisitely tender heart and let it all pour out.  I wallowed in self-indulgence, curled myself into a ball in the corner, beat my chest and howled at the moon.  I got brave, I got clear, and I found dead calm and purpose.

Everyone needs a safe place.  A spot to be vulnerable, to exhale, to let it all down.  A space to just be.

This has been mine, and I am fiercely protective of it.

~~~

Two years ago I leapt.  Opened my eyes, threw off my lifeline and jumped at a million miles an hour.  I spent as much time crashing as I did soaring and here I am now, scarred and humbled but blissfully, painfully, brilliantly alive.

But still hiding.  Still compartmentalized.  This part here, that part there.  Neat little boxes for a life blown wide open.

It doesn’t make sense anymore.

~~~

Opportunities arise.  Doors appear in front of me, but the message is clear.  They only open if I give myself a name and a face.

Can I do it?

I’m not nearly as strong as you.  I can’t leave.

Oh darling.  My sweet, wonderful, intensely brave darling.  Sit down with me here, cross legged, face to face. Take a deep breath.  I want to lift your chin and look deep into your eyes and tell you some things.

It is not the leaving that makes you strong.  Endings do not mark you as brave.  Courage does not only lie in being the one who initiates destruction.

Yes, all of those things require strength.   And oh, if you have ever been the one to leave, or end or destruct, I want to cradle you in my arms and tell you I know your pain.  But the other choices- when the only thing to mark the difference between before and after is your own quiet resolve – those also require strength beyond comprehension.

We are all on a path.   Day by day we decide if we’ll follow that path, or forage a new one.  Sometimes the choices are not clear, and everything seems twisted and painful.  But moment by moment we choose, because we have to.  That’s how life goes.  The big bold stuff gets the attention.  The tearing down, the crashing and banging and wailing and starting anew.  And we all say ‘Isn’t she brave?  Isn’t she strong?  Isn’t she courageous?’

And she is.  Of course she is.  But you are too.

Oh how strong and brave and courageous you are.

Sometimes stillness takes far more strength than movement.  There are times when choosing to stay requires a level of fierce tenacity you wouldn’t need if you decided to leave.  Boldness does not always declare itself to the world and demand attention, but rather lives steady and small in the spaces we choose to continue inhabiting, even though we are called elsewhere.

There is no shame, no lack of strength inherent in your decision.  To rebuild instead of tearing down.  To recognize that perfection is not always found in novelty, and that all the answers lie within, not without.  To know that what you have is precious, and to not be willing to risk it.  To look it all in the eye and say “I choose this.  Not what might be, but what I have now”.   This is nothing to ever be ashamed of.  It is not the lesser choice.

It is not weak.  It is not cowardly.  It is not less authentic.  No less worthy of respect and admiration than my choice, or her choice or their choices.    We often measure our choices with words like good and bad, right and wrong, strong and weak.  And they are all of those things, and none of those things.  They just are.

No matter which road we choose, it will always require a profound and audacious level of guts.  It will be a testament to our spirit and our faith, and it will push us to our edges and pull us to our center.  It will be the embodiment of love and heart and soul and inspiring commitment.   And it will be brave, and strong and true.

Because living is courageous.  Every single moment of it.

{on my desk sits a black fabric journal.  it is a plain, ordinary, nondescript book. from the outside, it looks as if it could not possibly hold anything important.  only I know that it holds the most valuable thing I possess. my story.}

5.20.09

Ever since I read these words they have been swirling through my mind.  How I wish I had this one and a half years ago and could have sent it out into the cosmos to the people that mattered.

I would have taken those words and wrapped them in layers of my heart and dropped them like fairy dust over the houses of my loves.  I would have attached words of my own so my voice could have whispered through the wind and lodged in their hearts so they would know what I could not say.

I have to go away now, for a little bit. I wish I didn’t, but I have to.  This is a lonely journey, you see, and it is impossible for me to be lonely with you in my life.

Please understand (I would plead) Please don’t leave me, even though I am leaving you.  I could not bear it if you did.  I need you so much, especially right now, when I am not able to accept any of the loveliness you have to give.

I cannot take for granted that you will be here when I return.  I cannot be so arrogant as to assume that once tucked away on a shelf you’ll be willing to be brought back out on my timeline.  And oh, how that frightens me.

But, you see, I’m going to be doing things that I don’t want witnessed. Chasing and facing demons that are mine alone.  I’m going to be flying and lying and climbing and crashing and dismantling and I cannot bear your kind eyes on me while I do.  I cannot know you are watching while I bring forth self destruction and devastation in the name of survival.  I love you too much.

I am not strong enough to walk this any way but alone.  I need to know that I can walk it alone.

I will be back.  I pray I will be back.  All I can do is hope, with everything I have, that you will be here when I return.

~~~

The relationships I walked away from then, the most precious of my life, are still being rebuilt.  They are – in many spots – still tender, and tentative, and there is much trust to regain.  Every now and then something happens, and I realize how much I still have to make up for.  I hope that I can.

Sometimes, you know that hurt is coming, and you’ve got time to shore up your defenses and get yourself ready for the inevitable.  You can put on your big girl panties, get solid with yourself and say (in your best Kathleen Turner voice) “i’m ready when you are”.

More often, you get blindsided, wiped off your feet, taken by surprise.  And while life whirls on around you, you sit there on our ass, dazed and confused, shaking your head and wondering what the fuck you’re supposed to do with the brand new gaping hole in your chest.

It goes so well with all the other junk, you eventually realize.  I’ll just wrap it up a little (so it’s not so obvious) and tuck it away back here.  It will fit nicely somewhere between this ache, and that cynicism, and the exquisitely painful memory of the summer the ground gave way beneath your feet.

Then you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go back into the world – hoping to hell that the others won’t pay too close attention to the clusterfuck that once was your heart.

~~~

Tonight I sat in a trendy wine bar, across from a woman who I knew to be my friend.  Not an old friend, but already a dear one.  Our connection had been quick and easy from the start, and I felt a meaningful and deepening bond.

She sat there and talked to me, laughed with me, and looked me in the eye.  And then, after a half glass of wine to build her strength, she confessed.

“I like you as a friend.  I enjoy our time together.  But I’m seeing Sam”.

She could answer the when (around Thanksgiving) and the how (Facebook), but she didn’t even come close to answering why.  Why did he seek her out? Why did she let it start?  Why did they both decide to keep it a secret for two months?

So I walked out of the bar, leaving my Sauvignon Blanc on the round wooden table next to my friend, along with one more piece of my heart.

~~~

Karma is a bitch.

That’s what I’m thinking as I walk at a fast clip down the busy city street.  It is cold, and my tears are stinging my cheeks.  The air burns my lungs, and I want it to.  I want something else to hurt for a change. My heart needs a break.  I imagine them together in the home I helped design and build, in the bed we once shared.  My friend.  My husband.  It’s too much.  I’m being premature and irrational. I think my head is going to explode.

This is what I get, for what I did to him.  For my lack of integrity when it mattered, for my betrayal.

This is how it comes full circle.

But still, out of all the girls in this city, why did he have to choose her?

~~~

The loss of the night is hitting me on multiple levels, and I want to run fast and hard.  I feel like a fucking fool.  You don’t keep a secret for two months unless you know that you’re doing something you shouldn’t.  All of a sudden, his inability to meet my eyes when he picks up the girls seems much more understandable.  I’m vacillating between fury and heartache and I can’t decide which emotion to dive into.

My cell phone is vibrating inconstantly.  She is calling over and over again.  I push Reject. Reject. Reject. Reject. Reject….ten more times before the phone is silent.

I’m crying and raging and walking and walking and walking.  I think I could walk for hours tonight, feeling everything and nothing all at once.

You see, despite the complete incongruity of tonight’s announcement, I knew.  It made no sense in the context of my knowledge or awareness, but I knew.  The instinct burned fire in my gut from the moment I got the text requesting an in-person audience.  I didn’t want to know.  But I knew.  And I still didn’t put on my big girl panties.

~~~

I yearn for blind optimism, for naiveté, for the belief that everything really will be all right.  Instead, I’m making friends once again with numbness, cynicism, and all the other skeptical emotions that love to stand in for unresolved hurt.

And it does hurt, you know.  Even when you are the one who walked away (sometimes, especially when you’re the one who walked away). When you love someone, give yourself to them; believe wholeheartedly in the forever you built – the absence of that reality always hurts.  It is a confusing thing, when you make decisions based on a dream of wholeness, to find yourself simply left with a new and different void.

Sometimes the only peace available must come from the acknowledgement that wholeness is a thing of the past. From understanding that regret is not always the domain of those who have made mistakes. From accepting that this patched up, knocked around, irreparably cracked and flawed soul of mine is what it is, and of it – the best must be made.

~~~

She holds me, once again tonight, as I cry.  Her heart has a seemingly limitless capacity for expansion.  She is completely present for me, even as I grieve this thing, colliding head on with all my unsettled emotions for him.

It has not been an easy year for us.  We spent more of it growing apart than we did growing together, but there has been a shift lately.  A reawakening of partnership, of shared purpose, of commitment to each other and our future.  This night reminds me again what I already know.

I love her.

With this scarred, mixed up, pulled in a million directions heart, I love her.  It’s not the simple, youthful love of one who has not done battle – it’s cynical, and skeptical and unfortunately rough and raw and hard in places.  But it is love.  It is real.  And it has space to become and grow and change.  It is both reality and potential, and more importantly, it is now.

Maezen says to hold your hands out in front of you, wiggle your fingers and remember that this space you can touch is all there is.  All of reality, all that exists, right here in the space around you.  I do that now and realize that from my computer I cannot reach her.

So, given all the lessons I’ve learned in this crazy life, I know that the only smart thing to do is turn off the computer, go to our bed, wrap myself in her arms and let the blessings of my reality lull me to sleep.

Okay, I’m still here.  I promise, the blog is not dead, just on hiatus.   I’m a writer with no time to write. – what a total cliche. But I still have so much more to stay here – so bear with me.  If you’re still here, still reading – I promise I  will come back eventually.

In the meantime, if you would like to share your story -  anonymously – here in this space, I would love to share it.  Please email me at awakenings@awakeningsblog.com

For now – a video.  Coming out is important.  Living out is important.

He comes to pick up the girls a few times each week, often arriving right at dinnertime.  I cannot seem to let go of the feeling that I am still responsible for feeding him, so I offer him some food.  Minestrone and crusty rosemary bread, pork and pineapple stir-fry with jasmine rice.  Food made for a family that is his, and isn’t is.  He always says no before he says yes.

Just a small bowl, he eventually agrees, and stands at the corner of the table to eat.  He never sits.  Somehow I think it would be too much for any of us to bear.

We talk about everything, and nothing, like it’s really all okay.  And it is okay.  Except that it isn’t, cannot be, not really.

And I am aware, in those moments, that there is no finite end to a breaking heart.

ten years today
and I love him.
truly
still
always
no less than I did then
really, I will love him
Forever

I didn’t know what that word meant
not really
until well after the end
now Forever has a context
that I can grasp

Forever is wedged
like an ache in my heart
between the memories
of his tears at the end
of the red carpeted aisle
and his tears the nights
our daughters were
born
and his tears the day
i choose to stay away
instead of coming when he called.

you know,  love has nothing to do
with gay or straight or
the number i select to represent myself
on some scientifically proposed
continuum of sexuality
or whether this is my definition of
intrinsically right
or someone else’s definition of
inherently wrong

because love lives in
an entirely different
place than dogma
and structure
and schemes of classification
and division
and it even lives in a place
beyond time

today i balance
the need to honor this love
for him
without dishonoring
her
because
both are a part of me
now

you see
regret is not always a synonym
for mistake
and it is true that
self-inflicted wounds
often take the longest
to heal

and so today
ten years later
there is no celebration
no sappy love cards
no declarations
but there is the memory
and those exquisitely beautiful girls
who are the reason for everything

and the love
there will always be the love
Forever.