awakenings

Dear Bee,

I’ve been sitting near your questions for a few days now, aware of them waiting, each an invitation for me to move into a space of remembering the long, agonizing moment that I couldn’t believe at the time would ever live in the realm of memory. I sit here in a dark, cozy lounge, drinking a Cosmo. Wondering where to begin. Knowing that whatever responses I’m able to offer may give you comfort, a sense of not being alone, and knowing how that counts for so, so much. And also that you will move through this in your own days, your own way, finding your own places of what you are able or choose to tolerate, where you are able or willing or unwilling to negotiate with yourself or someone else, your own places of learning that you cannot break another human being, that choosing your own presence and wholeness will bring only more love into the world.

But I know the fear. More like terror. Sheer terror. And later the guilt, the body-curling loss. The disbelief mingled with the laser-sharp clarity.

How did I find the strength to tell the truth?

I’m not sure I did, as much as it was the truth that kept telling me. It was unrelenting, visceral, fierce, raging, refusing to be pushed back just as a river cannot be made to flow upstream. Once I knew–and I knew in an instant, a song, a moment of my eyes catching hers for that extra beat. I knew that the beautiful life I had built stood on a fault line bigger than the San Andreas, I knew without a word, without thought, shuddering, violent, feeling-knowing.

I did not let go easily. I told the truth within a few days of that experience–sat on the couch one night and said, “I have something to tell you.” That was the kind of marriage we had. The kind where we told each other things. His initial reaction was shock, and then to flee, to bail, to say, “This is not what I signed up for.” In the months that followed–and I am condensing a lot here–I feared he would hang himself in the garage. I feared that I had “snapped him down the middle.” I fought with my knowing, or tried to. “How could I leave, how could I leave”–this was a constant question that plagued me. My body was on overdrive for months; I’d wake up at dawn with my heart pounding as if I’d been running. There was deceit. I felt a total rejection of him to my core, cried every single time we made love, or tried, despite my attempts to stay open to him. My body said “NO.” It roared. It raged. It railed against him. All I wanted was to go to her bed, surrender. I read Adrienne Rich and wept. I feared for our kids.

It was tormenting. Torturous. I consulted friends and family. My mother insisted that I turn my attention back to the sacred commitment of marriage. I raged some more. I lost fifteen pounds from an already small frame.

I see the difference here, or part of it at least from what I understand of your story, which is that you are suffering in silence. He may be in denial, but the communication between you is buried. I don’t think one is easier than the other; one of the wrenching things about my process was that he went back and forth between raging, hurt, rejected, terrified husband (and little boy whose father died), and amazing, seeing, loving friend who understood that I needed to come out.

I could no longer cover his pain or take care of the family system. The toll this took on me during the few years leading up to this moment with increasing intensity just exploded, no longer containable. I remember blurting out to a therapist, “I DON’T WANT TO BE MARRIED.” But, you see, I was married, for a decade or more, to a man who loved me beautifully, unconditionally. He used to say he hit the jackpot with me. And we had babies. Magic. And yet. And yet. My other refrain. And yet.

Was there relief?

Yes, in bursts. Fits and starts. Moments of searing freedom, exhilaration, letting go, sexual pleasure and hunger beyond anything I had ever, ever experienced. And there was grief, so crushing I thought I would die. And rage, a lifetime, that poured out over the course of many months. And confusion, and doubt, and longing to go back, to go home again, and enough drama to make up for decades of avoiding drama. So many pictures of each of these in my mind. And yet–you will have your own story, your own pictures, your own moment of moving through the thing that still lies before you, that feels insurmountable, the thing that consumes you, robs you of sleep and presence and appetite.

Finally one day, we stood in the woods. There was no one else to consult, no more time to take to see if “things would shift.” We stood under a tree, summer sunlight streaming down through the fullness of the leaves. And we called it. We surrendered. I told him that this life force was flowing so powerfully through me, from my vagina through my core, up and out of my mouth, a flow that could not, WOULD NOT, be reversed.It was a quiet moment, followed by many harsh moments and deep, illuminating conversations and shutting down and sorting out years of projection.

How could I face myself?

Every single day, I have had no choice to but to keep going. To face myself in the mirror, sometimes looking destroyed, sometimes sexier than I ever imagined, sometimes depleted and aged, sometimes bleak, sometimes hopeless and scared, sometimes shaking with resentment or shuddering with guilt. But never once has the mirror cracked.

How do you gather the strength it takes to snap another human being right down the middle?

He did snap. He broke. Bereft. Angry. Hurt. Alone. Lost. Abandoned. But slowly what became so, so clear was that he was already broken. I did not break him. I did not abandon him. His father did that, when he was a small boy. For many years, I protected him. And being with him protected me from myself, too, the raw power I knew was there was did not know how or was afraid to access and let out.

I saw that he was broken the day I met him when he spoke of his childhood. There he was, exposed without my comfort, faced with his own survival. And I could not bear responsibility any longer.

I will close for tonight.

Send me your next questions, and I will share what I can.

Please, Bee: be good and gentle and patient and forgiving with yourself. Feel you way. Trust what you feel. Take your time. Everyone, so many people, told me, “You’ll know.” Oh, how I doubted this. “But HOW will I know?” I wailed. “WHEN will I know?” And then I did. I just did. Not that that was that, but those moments do come, and you can’t force or rush or push them. I hope you can rest a little there.

With so much love,

Moonchild