For the first time in almost two years, I finally am beginning to feel like I have a foot underneath me. Not quite both feet yet, but one is better than none.
After my brief epiphany last week (see “I’m an idiot” blog), the mind committee seems to have take a sabbatical and are unusually quiet. I think because for the first time that I can remember, I’m not trying to figure out what I have to be in order to be happy. I am beginning to understand that just me is fine.
I don’t know where this idea came from that I have to totally change myself to make people like me. Maybe my first ex-husband. He hated that I danced. He was threatened because I was told I was talented and I could probably go as far as I could in Winnipeg – run my own studio, maybe have a small troupe to perform locally. But he couldn’t deal with that. And I found myself trying to be his mother and his nurturer and his caretaker while he wanted a girlfriend, a lover, a mistress, someone to party with, someone to play with. I was so caught up in being what I thought he wanted that I never got a chance to see what he really needed.
I was on my own for a couple of years after he and I split up but I didn’t look at things too closely. We don’t do that in my family, look at things too closely. We tend to put them away and peek at them every now and then to see if they’re still there. If they are, we close the door and ignore the scratching noises coming from the other side of it.
I should have opened that door while I was on my own because I hadn’t looked at any of it by the time I met my second husband. He seemed so much different, so together, so focused, so ready to be there for me. And he was, for the most part. Until the end. But again, I twisted and turned and bent myself into whatever shape I thought he wanted. I gave up things, without him asking mostly, because I didn’t think the fit into what he wanted, never thinking about how they fit what I wanted. And the scratching at the door grew louder but I continued to ignore it.
I think things started to turn about six years ago, when I gave up a project partly because of circumstance and partly because he didn’t want to pursue it. Too difficult, too challenging, not worth seeing it through. Everything in my being screamed, “Do it, do it, do it, do it. Here’s your chance, here’s your opportunity. So it’s hard. So what?” But I closed the door and ignored it and dropped it because that’s what he wanted. Not his fault. I chose to not listen to myself, how could I expect him to hear me if I couldn’t?
The hardest thing I have ever done was to tell him that I was not happy and that I wanted to leave. A large part of me still loves him, the man he was, the man he could be. That’s the part that hurts. That’s the part that kept me there far longer than I should have stayed. But even then, he still didn’t hear me because I was still trying to be what he wanted me to be, to end this the way he would want it ended. But the way he ended it hurt very badly and made me realize that I couldn’t go out the way I went in. From now on, it has to be on my terms, not his. And my terms are pretty strict.
So my Charlotte Russe revelation, while it may seem trivial from the outside, made me hear the scratching at the door and crack that door open a little bit to see what’s behind it. And what’s behind it is very scary. Allowing others to see the real me, warts and tears and broken pieces and all, that’s the most frightening thing on earth. To not cover up the hurt and the pain and the sorrow and the ugly, scary feelings all the time is so foreign. But I realize that they creep out and escape no matter how hard I try to keep them behind that door. Eventually, they find a way to tunnel their way out and then it’s much more frightening because they’re not on a leash and they go wherever they want to.
But as I go into this third phase of my life, I’m finding more and more that those creatures I’ve kept locked up are not so scary. And the people who matter in my life want to see those creatures, do see those creatures, no matter how hard I try to keep them hidden. These people look into my eyes and see past the cover-up and patiently wait while I try to get a leash on these creatures. And they don’t run away when one or two escape. They help me corral them back up and get a handle on them without shutting them up behind the door.
It makes me ever grateful for those people. I’ve lost a lot of people who I thought were my friends through this, people I’ve known for as long as I’ve known my ex. These are not the people who are there for me now. I don’t know or understand why but it’s the way it is. However, God or the universe or whoever you believe is in charge has provided me with incredible replacements. My best friend, my four guys, one of whom has become incredibly important in my life, my beautiful, zany roommate, my extended family at the Ark, my karaoke support group. I would not have survived these past four months and the months preceding that without you guys. I don’t know that you all can understand what you mean to me and I hope some day you realize how important you all are to me. And I only hope that some day, I can repay the favor.
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