I’m going through a crisis of faith right now, it seems. Faith in everything. Faith in everyone, including myself. That’s the best way I can phrase it.
Faith in love/relationships is the first victim on my list. I seem to be struggling with the fact that my marriage of 14 years (16 years together) is over and I cannot stand to even look at the man who I spent more than half of my adult life with. I cannot stand to see his face, cannot bring myself to say more than hello to him when our paths do cross. This was the man who was supposed to be the rest of my life. This is the man who I thought hung the moon, to borrow an old expression. This is the man who was my teacher, my mentor, my guide, my life. Now, he has no place in that life. What did those years mean and do they mean anything now?
All that doubt and insecurity hang around and make it impossible for me to make any advancements in any other relationship. I question every feeling, every thought. I am panicked at the thought of giving even the tiniest piece of myself to someone else, let alone the one closest to me right now, who is closed off and just as frightened and just as wary as I am. No wonder I am standing here, stuck to the ground, unable to move, unable to think, unable to feel. Or to feel too much. I cannot climb over my own walls, never mind trying to scale the ones around him. I keep thinking I’m banging my head against his walls and I realized that it’s probably my own wall I’m banging against. My fingers are bleeding from trying to climb over it because I thought I was in another labyrinth, one created by him. I was startled to find the maze was of my own making and I seem to have lost the map for it. The minotaur of my last relationship hovers around the edges, breathing down my neck, just waiting for me to make a mistake, to fuck things up again. So I stand frozen, listening to the minotaur snort, trying to avoid him yet without moving. I’m not sure what is waiting for me at the end of the maze but I’m not sure I want to find out. And he’s standing over there, in his own labyrinth, his own minotaur snorting away, and neither of us can climb over the hedges and get past it. It’s stupid and it’s frustrating and it’s impossible. But again, I wonder what it all means and what does he mean and what do we mean together? Is there even a “we” other than the one I have made up in my mind? Is that composed of a compendium of what I wanted out of my old life, what I’ve glimpsed in him that makes him so incredibly special to me, what my empty, aching heart wants so badly that it’s created something out of nothing? Did you just hear my brain explode?
Then there’s a crisis of faith in myself. Losing two very important projects has knocked the wind out of me. Neither loss was the result of my lack of anything and mostly due to external issues, but it still makes me doubt myself. I’m not confident in my edit of the film, either, which freaks me out and makes me avoid any work on it. Intellectually, I know the cut is fine and it’ll get better as I work on it. But emotionally, with all the doubt about everything else in my life, doubt overflows and infects all aspects, leaving me crippled, unable to move on this front as well. I try to see what I’ve accomplished this year but am only able to see what I haven’t accomplished. This is the leftover of my marriage, the years of battery, the years of abuse. There’s a whole other blog coming about that but for now, just know that I understand where these doubts come from but that doesn’t help overcome them. I am talentless, the voices taunt, and everything he said was right. I aim too high, I try too hard, I do too much, I’m unfocused, I’m scattered, I’m undisciplined. The tape is on repeat right now and I can’t find the stop button. And, yes, I know it will stop and, yes, I know it’s bullshit. But that doesn’t stop it. And it brings me to, what did this year mean? I left a life behind for something I thought would be better but, right now, I don’t see the better side.
The crisis of faith in love is the hardest. Cupid seems to be finding everyone else – including my roomie, however briefly – yet his arrow has missed me. I’m not asking for the rest of my life. Three to six months would be nice. But right now, I don’t see it. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my fear, my hesitation, my wounded heart holding me back. But others who are wounded are finding a way to let their hearts out to play. But I’m not sure I’ll find someone to share my days with, for whatever short term. I’m not sure my Ikea bed will be occupied by anyone other than myself and my beautiful cat. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let myself trust someone again to not hurt me, to not wound me, to not make me the brunt of everything wrong with their life. The men in my life have gone a long way to teaching me that not all men are my ex, that not all men are cruel and mean and vicious when they’re unhappy. A.J., Peter, and of course, my dearest Chairman have been such incredible examples of what men can be. And I want to trust that I will find that gentleness, that care, that comfort in someone who won’t hurt me so badly again. But I’m not sure I can. So what does that mean and where does that leave me?
I know I have incredible people in my life, so you don’t need to remind me of that. I know I am loved by those around me. I feel it whenever I walk into a room with any of you all who embrace me and encourage me and love me. But you all don’t come home with me and hold me in the night, helping me feel that thins will be all right. These are questions about the faith I have to find in myself and the healing I have to find in myself. You’ve all given me the first aid kit and opened it and unsealed the bandages. Now I have to apply those and squeeze out the ointment and wince from the alcohol rubs. These are things and answers and wounds I must tend to myself. I’m not sure how, I guess, is the problem. I’ve talked your ears off, I’ve blogged your eyes off. Now I have to turn that inward again and see what I can find. It’s frightening and it’s terrifying. I only hope to find an answer or two when I rip the bandage off and that I can keep from picking at the scab.
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