So, we've moved (not so gently past) the losing my shit part of the program and into the dealing part, and I'm breathing a deeply grateful sigh of relief that instead of spending 48 hours in a twisty knot of ohmyfuckinggodthisisawful, I only spent about ten hours in that unfortunate state.
Between the manfingy running me a rose scented bath and my friend of 12 years reminding me (in not so gentle, but much needed terms) that I am okay with her, that I am better than okay, my bad moment turned into a pretty good and deeply insightful day.
"You're owning your stuff." she said. "I hear a lot of how you are accountable for your experience" she said. And just in case you get the mistaken impression that she is all sweetness and light, she also said "Fuck them." and "People who see their shadow in you HATE you. That's ALWAYS been true. Get OVER it."
So, this is the truth as I see it. This is how I move in the world.
I like myself. I like how those I love always know where they stand. I like how I tell it like it is. I like how easily I let go of what isn't working for me. I like how freely I give of myself until I no longer feel like giving. I like that I say what I see. I like that I own my mistakes and do my best to fix them when given the opportunity, but I also like that I can move on from them. I like that I am adaptable. I like my strength. I like my fierceness.
I affirm that I'm not here to make anyone else comfortable. I'm doing my own work, processing my own shit, owning my own life.
Yes, I want to move with less thorn and more rose. I want to be a person of easy grace and forgiveness. I don't particularly like the fact that I attract more than my fair share of Teh Crazy ~ but I get that I probably attract it because I *am* my own fair share of Teh Crazy. It's also come to my attention that I mirror shadow for a lot of people. At first, that's attractive, but like any relationship, the honeymoon ends. They see shit in me they hate and so they hate me with a passion. We're not talking about the more healthy 'meh...not into her...moving on' type reaction that people without Teh Crazy practice with ease. We're talking *pure, unadulterated, vitrolic, bitter hate*.
It sucks sometimes.
I'm not a victim of it, though, and most days I'm not sorry about it. Those who love me *realllllly love me* so it makes sense that those who hate me hate me with equal vigour. Thankfully, they are not equal in numbers, though sometimes they make a helluva cacophonous lot of noise.
Here's where things get sticky for me: being blessed with my particular brand of neurosis, those who hate me with vigour and venom get a lot more of me than I'd like. I mean, I know (and the people that love me know) that they are projecting, and the bits of truth that swim in the public cess pools they produce are unrecognizable once they are done with the hyperbolic rhetoric.
But I can know that in my head, and still hurt. I can listen to cooler heads and still feel completely baffled and frustrated and pissed off.
I don't get this kind of hate, and I don't hate that way. I don't hate, actually. Either I love you and I'm cool with you, or I love you and I'm pissed at you, or I am passing curious about you, or I kind of like you, or I am completely over you.
I sure as hell had that kind of hate modeled for me, though.
See, those haters that I struggle with are pushing my original wound right in my face and because we're dealing with the original wound here I give a lot of weight to the hate. I keep trying to figure out why the hater hates instead of doing what a healthy human specimen does: turn the loved face toward the lover and loving back.
This is not me whining. This is me owning. That is my cross to bear, the proverbial thorn in my side. This is the curse I inherited from being despised by my mother. See, I mirrored her shadow, and she couldn't face it. Here was this angelic looking little girl (and I really was) who'd witnessed violence against her mother at the hands of her father, who had then been sexually abused by her mother's lover, who had then been emotionally abused by her mother's second husband, and my mother could not face that. She could not accept that her poor choices led to the gross violation of her child. If she'd ever asked, I would have forgiven her. She chose to project it all onto me, label me, and pretend to discard me while talking about me with family members and friends instead.
Kind of like my present haters do.
Calling bullshit comes easily to me, but the consquences are still difficult for me to deal with. (See above with regards to the original wound.) You are talking to a girl who sat her mother down and said to her face "You didn't protect me from him." I was met with "He was very good to us, and you were a very provocative child." I was six. I always tell the truth hoping for resolution, but secretly I am braced for another line like that one, another indictment, another 'well, that's your fault and here's why...'
And with those I love, that fear is completely unfounded. They receive my truth with (initial discomfort but eventual) grace and acceptance. Shit gets worked out. The sun shines once more.
But I have a magnet for those things that will help me heal my original wound, so sometimes, I throw my truth around like pearls before swine (and, no. I'm not calling my haters swine. I'm calling my throwing around of truth wasteful.) and the results are usually very painful.
Despite this and despite the brutal fucking travesty that was my childhood, adolescence, early (and even later) adulthood, despite the challenges I've faced, despite a brokenness many of you can't even possibly begin to imagine, I put myself back together. I faced my shit. I marched my ass to therapy. I owned my flawed humanity. I dared to write poetry. I dared to write at all. I faced my own failures. I made my amends (often, over and over again, because I fuck up a lot, as do we all). I lived through horrors and did not let it turn me into a messy pile of bitter victimhood. Okay, I had my moments (years) but I moved past them. I grew. I learned. I *thrived* and I continue to *thrive* and if I piss a few of you off along the way, well, sue me. No one is holding a gun to your head. If you like what I do, how I move through the world, great. If not, go find someone else to like.
This life? It's precious. I'm not being arrogant here. It weighs more than one life. My sister, who experienced many of the same horrors I did, did not survive. She took her own life. So, when I take the bull by the horns, I see her face before me. When I face adversity, I see her face before me. When I stare down some random, entitled, nasty person who thinks I owe them something, like carte blanche to behave badly in my life, or my ear when they are pouring nothing but poison, or my hard work when it gains me nothing, or a chance to sit at my hearth fire uninvited, I see her face. Through her death, I have faced my own mortality and I know how precious life is. I know how important it is that shit gets worked out. I know how valuable time is and that it is not to be wasted on social niceties or relationships that make you unhappy or work that sucks the life out of you or people that don't value you.
Because I'm living 'for two' in a sense, I live as honestly, as authentically, as boldly as I possibly can. And I inspire people to love me a lot. And I inspire people to despise me. And I'm coming to accept that neither is within my control. I give up. I'm going to be me. Lovers gonna love. Haters gonna hate. Some lovers will become haters. Some haters will (and have!) become lovers.
I'm in a 'business' where everyone talks with a honeyed tongue, and I am no different in the sense that until you give me reason otherwise, I am going to love on you. I am going to support you, encourage you, fiercely defend your right to practice your art. I am going to tell you what I like about what you've made. I'm going to empathize with you when you're having a bad day, and I'm going to cheer with you when you're having a good day. I'm not here as a life coach (tried that. hate it) or a counsellor or an expert. I'm here as someone who is doing her *own* work where you can watch. That is my vocation. That is my way of being in the world.
I'm going to respect your way of being in this world.
Even if you don't respect mine.
But I'm not going to sit in the lion's den with you and try to pull the thorn from your paw when you are screaming in my face that I put it there. I'm not going to agree with you that I put it there. I am not going to shrink so you can feel bigger. I am not going to go belly up so you can feel powerful. I'm not going to lie so you can feel comfortable.
My mother would love that. My sister would hate it.
Guess whose side I'm on?
