I'm feeling a bit...ok A LOT!!!!!!!...spastic tonight. For some reason, I decided to find a bunch of family members on facebook and add them as friends. What possessed me to do this, I do not know.
What is this obsession with family? I am absolutely TERRIFIED that they will all reject me. Of course, I'm terrified that they'll reject me on principle (just because I'm me, and I have always been "defective"), but now they must also contend with the fact that I'm a (GASP!) lesbian! (Cue scary music)
Just waiting for rejection...whimper! Why do I do this to myself? Why do I keep trying to find this connection with people who share my DNA? Do I really think they'll ever accept me? Some of them have...but have they really accepted me, or are they merely tolerating me because I don't push them to define their feelings toward me? And why - WHYYYYYYY????????? - do I care?
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Unconditional Love
I don't know how to write this post. There are so many pieces of this that there are no words for. My humanity is incredibly humbling in the face of this new information I'm hoping to impart to you...somehow.
I am loved. Unconditionally. I have never understood the concept of this before. I have never been loved unconditionally before. I have never believed it possible before. But it is...both possible, and happening.
About a week and a half ago, I had a terrible insight into my life...one which comes up from time to time. I have no people. "My" people - the ones I'm biologically related to - don't want me. I'm "the bad one" (i.e. the one who didn't keep her mouth shut). There have been others who have loved me...for a time. But I have no connection to them, and they all eventually leave, for one reason or another. Often, it's just time for them to move on...or time for me to move on. Nothing personal, just life. Of course, it always adds to the proof that I'm not good enough to be loved forever, even when I recognize that this is not really the reason they're leaving (or I'm leaving). It's just programmed in - I'm not good enough.
Now, there is ONE exception to this. My best friend. She has been around for 23 years now. I'm pretty sure she's not going anywhere. But still, her love is not unconditional. We have ended our friendship before, and we both know that we can end it again. It would suck. A LOT. It would be terribly painful to go down that road again, and is therefore unlikely that we will ever do so. But we COULD. Because it's conditional. As long as we both behave ourselves, and treat each other with respect and dignity, and avoid subjects like religion...we'll be friends for life. Not forever. Just this lifetime. And that's ok. Good enough. I'll take it.
So again, we're back at square one. I have no people. My people don't want me, and the only person who has ever stuck around long enough to know who I truly am, will stick around as long as we avoid our differences. I've lost other people (more than a few) who insisted that they loved me "unconditionally". It was never true. Again...I just never believed it to be possible. What does unconditional mean, anyway? It's ALWAYS conditional...right?
I fell into a deep, black hole for a few days. I tried discussing this with my Love. She couldn't comprehend, and was so deep in her own grief (brought on by her first holiday season without two loved ones...too much to lose in one year, if you ask me) that she was not able to comprehend mine. So, we went our separate ways, emotionally, for awhile. I tried to mask it, ignore it, find a way to be happy in spite of it...nothing worked. I was devastated (as I always am when I acknowledge this reality...I can pretend for so long, and then it always comes back to me...it is simply a fact of my life that I have no people, that I do not belong anywhere).
I need to skip over some of the events of this week-long ordeal, or this post will be long enough to fill a book. So, one night, we began to dip our toes into the possibility of discussing what was going on with each of us. It was TERRIFYING after a week of being absolutely CERTAIN that I do not belong in this family - or any other. I was poised for rejection, after having felt so rejected (which had little to do with my Love...everything she did felt like rejection, but she had no way of knowing this, and no way of preventing it, either). It was a difficult conversation, filled with fits and starts, aches, incomplete thoughts, misunderstanding, and immense awfulness.
Finally, we both went to bed. Even as terrified as I was, I braved the potential rejection that I knew could come from physical contact. I touched her hip. It was not enough. I needed to touch her skin. NEEDED to touch her skin. I moved her shirt aside, and cupped the curve of her hip in my palm. I felt her. My love. And I understood. I missed her. And I told her so. We both sobbed our relief at having found that bond again, having connected again.
And it grew. The understanding of what our bond actually MEANS, and exactly how deep and complete it is, took some time to understand. I began to talk, in messy, weird, probably incomprehensible fits of wild epiphanies. Of COURSE I belong. She is my soulmate. I am positive of this, as is she. We have known each other before, and we will know each other again. We have loved before, and we will love again. We belong together as neither of us has ever Belonged ANYWHERE before, or ever will again (except with each other). Even if we completely fuck up this relationship and never speak to each other again during this lifetime...we will find each other again. In the next world. In our next lives. In the Summerland. Somehow, some way, somewhere, some time, we will find each other again.
Because we are WE. Forever. No really. Forever actually MEANS something this time. Even if we fuck this up, we still belong together. And always will. Wow. I belong. And I know EXACTLY where I belong. This is unconditional precisely because IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO during this life...we will find each other again.
Now all we have to do is trust that. And we'll probably survive this life together just fine.
I am loved. Unconditionally. I have never understood the concept of this before. I have never been loved unconditionally before. I have never believed it possible before. But it is...both possible, and happening.
About a week and a half ago, I had a terrible insight into my life...one which comes up from time to time. I have no people. "My" people - the ones I'm biologically related to - don't want me. I'm "the bad one" (i.e. the one who didn't keep her mouth shut). There have been others who have loved me...for a time. But I have no connection to them, and they all eventually leave, for one reason or another. Often, it's just time for them to move on...or time for me to move on. Nothing personal, just life. Of course, it always adds to the proof that I'm not good enough to be loved forever, even when I recognize that this is not really the reason they're leaving (or I'm leaving). It's just programmed in - I'm not good enough.
Now, there is ONE exception to this. My best friend. She has been around for 23 years now. I'm pretty sure she's not going anywhere. But still, her love is not unconditional. We have ended our friendship before, and we both know that we can end it again. It would suck. A LOT. It would be terribly painful to go down that road again, and is therefore unlikely that we will ever do so. But we COULD. Because it's conditional. As long as we both behave ourselves, and treat each other with respect and dignity, and avoid subjects like religion...we'll be friends for life. Not forever. Just this lifetime. And that's ok. Good enough. I'll take it.
So again, we're back at square one. I have no people. My people don't want me, and the only person who has ever stuck around long enough to know who I truly am, will stick around as long as we avoid our differences. I've lost other people (more than a few) who insisted that they loved me "unconditionally". It was never true. Again...I just never believed it to be possible. What does unconditional mean, anyway? It's ALWAYS conditional...right?
I fell into a deep, black hole for a few days. I tried discussing this with my Love. She couldn't comprehend, and was so deep in her own grief (brought on by her first holiday season without two loved ones...too much to lose in one year, if you ask me) that she was not able to comprehend mine. So, we went our separate ways, emotionally, for awhile. I tried to mask it, ignore it, find a way to be happy in spite of it...nothing worked. I was devastated (as I always am when I acknowledge this reality...I can pretend for so long, and then it always comes back to me...it is simply a fact of my life that I have no people, that I do not belong anywhere).
I need to skip over some of the events of this week-long ordeal, or this post will be long enough to fill a book. So, one night, we began to dip our toes into the possibility of discussing what was going on with each of us. It was TERRIFYING after a week of being absolutely CERTAIN that I do not belong in this family - or any other. I was poised for rejection, after having felt so rejected (which had little to do with my Love...everything she did felt like rejection, but she had no way of knowing this, and no way of preventing it, either). It was a difficult conversation, filled with fits and starts, aches, incomplete thoughts, misunderstanding, and immense awfulness.
Finally, we both went to bed. Even as terrified as I was, I braved the potential rejection that I knew could come from physical contact. I touched her hip. It was not enough. I needed to touch her skin. NEEDED to touch her skin. I moved her shirt aside, and cupped the curve of her hip in my palm. I felt her. My love. And I understood. I missed her. And I told her so. We both sobbed our relief at having found that bond again, having connected again.
And it grew. The understanding of what our bond actually MEANS, and exactly how deep and complete it is, took some time to understand. I began to talk, in messy, weird, probably incomprehensible fits of wild epiphanies. Of COURSE I belong. She is my soulmate. I am positive of this, as is she. We have known each other before, and we will know each other again. We have loved before, and we will love again. We belong together as neither of us has ever Belonged ANYWHERE before, or ever will again (except with each other). Even if we completely fuck up this relationship and never speak to each other again during this lifetime...we will find each other again. In the next world. In our next lives. In the Summerland. Somehow, some way, somewhere, some time, we will find each other again.
Because we are WE. Forever. No really. Forever actually MEANS something this time. Even if we fuck this up, we still belong together. And always will. Wow. I belong. And I know EXACTLY where I belong. This is unconditional precisely because IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO during this life...we will find each other again.
Now all we have to do is trust that. And we'll probably survive this life together just fine.
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