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.

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.

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.

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.

You miss me, do you?
{but wait a minute, not all of me}
Not the rainbow bits, you’re cool without those
You want the girl you knew before
That tiny sliver of me that was safe to show

Come back into your life, please?
{but don’t rock your boat, thankyouverymuch}
It’s not about a debate, you say
We’ll just wear our rose colored glasses
Special ones that erase all you prefer not to see

The answer is no
{no, we can’t.  no, I won’t.  no, this is not negotiable}
Because it’s all or nothing now, darlin’
Time is limited and life is a gift
And to get either you’ve got to celebrate me with all you’ve got

You really want this?
{think carefully now}
Because I’m going to push you
Far outside your pretty white heterosexual christian fundamentalist bubble
Past sunday school and rationalized prejudice and safe fences built to keep others out

And you need to know
{you really do}
I’m still soft as anything on the inside
But outside I’ve got an edge
And it might cut if you close in at the wrong angle

Because before I had no idea
{not a freaking clue}
What it would be to live a life
Where the random people who stand behind me in the grocery line
Are given the right to cast vote against the quality of my soul

It makes you fierce, somewhere inside
{When you gain a history like this, and this and this}
It makes you ferocious and solid and strong
And tender and gentle and broken and built anew
And you emerge quiet and careful and centered on exactly who you are.

So if you want to open your heart
{and your eyes and mind and the depths of your spirit}
Take my hand and walk into my whole life
Not just a slice of your choosing
Because I’m not leaving anything at home to make you more comfortable

So yes, we can do lunch
{and go shoe shopping and chat about the kids}
But let’s wait till you’re really ready to take me as I am
Because the cost of anything else is far too high
And sweetie, your benevolent tolerance just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

So think about it for a bit
{and I’m sorry if this seems harsh}
But baby, it’s gotta be this way
This is who I am
Take it or leave it.

No, you were never going to be my forever, but you were exactly what I needed you to be, when I needed it.  And I think I was the same for you.  Some of it was shitty, and some of it was blissful, and all of it took me places I’d never been.

Our lives crossed at pivotal moments, times that brought us both face to face with the darkness and light within, nights where we encountered strength we didn’t know we had, and weakness we didn’t want to claim as our own.  As crazy and mixed up and painful as it sometimes was, for that brief period of time there was a purpose to us – to what we were and were not to each other.

What you give to the world is such a small part of what you are. You hide your heart under layers of bravado and attitude and edge.  It protects you, keeps you safe.  I know that, because I know you.   But I also know – from the times I saw you cracked open – that underneath that facade there is gentleness, and kindness and loyalty.   Your truth does not always lie in your words, your body language or your actions, but it is always there in your eyes.  I promise you that I will always remember to look there first, and to trust in what I see.

When I hugged you tonight, I wanted to cling a little longer to the moment.  We have seen each other so infrequently over the past year and a half that I didn’t anticipate it being difficult, but I was overcome by a fierce tenderness that took me by surprise.   Somehow, saying goodbye to you felt like saying goodbye to that time, to the months that carried me from that life to this one.  It was harder than I expected.

I wish you only goodness and love and growth in your new life far away.  Face your fears, stand up tall and take that city by storm, in the way that only you can.

Only good things, little one, the very best of good, good things.

You were important, and I will never forget you.

~ Benjamin Button

~~~

He always told me that the freckles scattered across my legs and arms were worm holes, and I believed him.  After all, they did look suspiciously like the dark spots on the crab apples littering the ground beneath the trees in the lower field.  I worried about this, about when the worms got in, and how on earth they would ever get out. He teased me mercilessly on my summer visits, nabbing me as I ran through the room and trapping me between his legs – in what he called a bear trap – tickling me until I gasped for breath.

He was a woodsman, like his father before him.  I remember the softness of his worn flannel work shirts, the way the scent of the forest clung to his skin, and how his fingers seemed permanently stained with dirt and tractor grease.

He was somehow different from the rest of our noisy crew. He mostly held himself outside the fray, observing the chaos with quiet amusement, chewing on a bit of wheat or a tall piece of field grass plucked outside.  I had a sense, even as a young child, that he was far more comfortable in a quiet stand of trees than he would ever be in the midst of his highly social family.

Today word came, traveling as it does amongst family, from aunt to aunt to mother and finally to me.

You know how your uncle feels about gays and lesbians? He doesn’t think it is right at all.  Your aunt says it would be best if you didn’t come up to visit.

I’m still for a moment, blinking back surprise and sudden tears.  My throat is tight and I summon a bit of bravado that I don’t really feel.

Fine.  His loss.

Yes. My mother agrees quietly.

~~~

On my last visit home this was all just beginning to make its slow, painful ascent to the surface.  After six weeks of idyllic vacation I returned to the desert and within days the foundation gave way beneath my feet, beginning a free fall that lasted for almost two years.  I was nervous about coming home, about finding the courage to present myself to those who have known me since birth, and to stand without apology before them.

I’ve been here for two weeks, and it’s been so uneventful so far as to be anticlimactic.  I had an idea that my differences – that sense of otherness that has been my companion often on this journey - would be more profound here.  Instead it’s been elusive, so much so that I have to remind myself that anything has changed at all.

At home now, amongst the green and the water and the earth that seems infinitely more solid beneath my feet, I’m reduced to my essence.  All the rest swirls out of my grasp and all that’s left is me.

It’s a lesson in layers, in all that I carry with me by choice, all that I hold on to, to protect and comfort and make fierce.  All of that belongs in the desert, it seems.  It has no footing here by the sea.

Without all those labels and identities and protective spells wound tight around me, I am open and simplified.  My breaths are drawn deeper and I can allow the moments to steal over me and make me still. The drive to go-go-go eases up, and all that is left is to be.

From the nomadic childhood existence of a preacher’s daughter, I drew comfort in the eternal sameness of my summer home in the country, nestled along a rutted country road in a protected curve of the Bay of Fundy. No matter what happened elsewhere during the year, this place remained untouched.  It is only now, having changed more than I ever thought possible, that I realize the root of that comfort lies in the knowledge that I haven’t really changed at all.

The crashing waves and the green grass and the ancient trees will greet me and accept me as they always have.  The air, electric with the buzzing of thousands of insects, will touch my face and find that I am no different than I was before.  And when I raise my eyes upward at night in the darkness only found deep in the country, the thick blanket of stars will not wonder who I am. They’ve known me forever already.

Nothing changes, really.  Like the rocks on the beach, we are broken down, carried places, placed in new formations, but always, at the heart of it, exactly the same as we began.  Even if we don’t at first recognize ourselves, we still belong, still exist, are still a part of the same infinite whole.

~~~

His loss?

Not really.  Our loss.  All of us.  His and mine and theirs and yours.

Don’t you see? I want to scream. Don’t you understand? I’m the same girl I was then.

Worm holes and all.