uncorking the bottle
"Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon." - Sally Owens
Maybe it didn't last because it was only a spell I had cast and never dreamed would come true. I didn't even realize I had cast the spell until he appeared and was everything I ever wanted plus a few things I didn't know I wanted, or needed. I do know the past two and a half years have been amoung the hardest and most painful of my life. I have often felt that I was the walking dead. I've felt that my heart died and the blackness was slowly spreading through my body, creeping through my soul and eroding my spirit. These days I wonder if that heartbreak and loneliness is so pathological it manifested in the real world as this disease. Is my breast cancer a manifestation of a tattered spirit? A hole in my soul? A heart that just refuses to heal?
I've looked around lately and realized I am living in the home of a dead woman. If I died today, anyone who entered this house would find exactly what would be expected of someone who had been suffering from a long term illness. The place is a shambles and covered in dust, cobwebs and cat disasters. This place is the perfect example of the surroundings of someone who has spent too much time in bed with barely the will or desire to function.
I lost something Important that every single fiber of my being told me to fight for. It still tells me to fight for it but I haven't and I don't. Part of my refusal to fight for it has been the fact my life is too deeply rooted in magic and the cardinal rule is to NEVER try to impose your will upon another being. The other part of my refusal to fight for it has, quite simply, been fear. I was too afraid that fighting for it would actually push it further away. Having a little of something, like friendship, was better than having nothing at all. I wonder if having that little something was the seed of this disease or if fighting, losing and ending up with nothing would have been a quick death. Would a quick death have meant a rebirth from the ashes rather than the ashes becoming the dust and cobwebs scattered around my life and home?
I know that the heart wants what it wants. I know we have no control over who we love or how we love them. For me that begs the question, "How much control do we actually have over our lives?". When we make the decision to cut something from our lives and walk away, are we really in control and moving on or, are we bottling up a part of our soul's desire out of fear and trying to replace it with a cheap imitation while hoping the soul won't notice? This question is not just about love and the endless string of partners we can never quite commit to but about everything. It is about the singer who never auditions but goes to karaoke every weekend, the painter who never turns in a canvas but paints houses for a living, the writer who never submits a manuscript but pours out their soul in a blog and the film maker who never picks up a camera but works for a production company. Did all of my bottled emotions congeal into a tumor requiring surgery, chemo and radiation?
Sometimes I get so goddamned tired of this existance. Tired of not being truly seen. Tired of not being truly heard. Tired of being filtered through previous experience and preconceived notions. I have been hurt that so much of the communication between myself and another person was actually communication between them and the voices inside their head. I have been angry to have been told so many times that I cannot assume to know how someone thinks, feels or will react by a person who is assuming they know how I would think, feel or react. It is an unfair double standard of the human condition that makes me feel unheard, unseen and disregarded as unworthy or too stupid to understand.
All relationships between humans require work. The key is communication but that communication must actually be between TWO PEOPLE rather than an internal conversation of only one party. We all have those voices inside our heads. Some of us more than others and that is truly one of the things I adore about the human brain. Just keep in mind that none of the voices inside your head are mine. Some of them may sound like me but, in all reality, they have no idea what I want, how I feel or what my reaction might be. By listening to the voice in your head that you think sounds like me..... you are taking away my free will, removing my right to participate and stealing my opportunity to decide for myself.
Stop recreating the mythology of me based on an alternate reality. All it does is breed a misery and unhappiness that did not live in the real world but came to exist as a manifestation of your fear, confusion and self doubt. There have been so many times I listened without responding because I didn't think I would be heard. There have been so many times I let it go because I got the impression the exchange was being viewed as an argument that did not exist for me. I felt like all my words were viewed as an attack and the very aura of the other person was defensive when, in my eyes, there was nothing to defend against. I stand by my original promise to never judge, condemn or censor any human emotion that could possibly be felt. I have never had any intention of trickery, manipulation or winning. It was, is, and always will be only love and pure acceptance. That means acceptance for all of a person. No matter how high, how low, how frustrated, how confused or how dark the demons might be.
Sometimes I feel like a victim of his fear of success. Sometimes I feel that my desire to see him happy and support his success was the death of something I still find Important, beautiful, worthwhile and worth fighting for. There are times I believe I lost it all, not because I lost faith in him but because he lost faith in my ability to love and accept him after having been hurt and disappointed too many times before. I fully realize I made mistakes in handling some things and I very nearly became that recreation of the mythology of me through sheer panic, fear and devastation.
I don't know what the future holds and will not even hazard a guess. I do know my sense of loss never seems to dwindle. I do know that I still feel a love as real and worthy as the day I first recognized it. I juggle a myriad of feelings but none of them are directed at him. They are just the natural emotions created by the chemicals in the brain of a simple human who may never be enlightened enough to fully answer, or maybe even understand, the question of whether it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
He did Bring Me to Life and sometimes I catch myself still holding my breath.
Maybe it didn't last because it was only a spell I had cast and never dreamed would come true. I didn't even realize I had cast the spell until he appeared and was everything I ever wanted plus a few things I didn't know I wanted, or needed. I do know the past two and a half years have been amoung the hardest and most painful of my life. I have often felt that I was the walking dead. I've felt that my heart died and the blackness was slowly spreading through my body, creeping through my soul and eroding my spirit. These days I wonder if that heartbreak and loneliness is so pathological it manifested in the real world as this disease. Is my breast cancer a manifestation of a tattered spirit? A hole in my soul? A heart that just refuses to heal?
I've looked around lately and realized I am living in the home of a dead woman. If I died today, anyone who entered this house would find exactly what would be expected of someone who had been suffering from a long term illness. The place is a shambles and covered in dust, cobwebs and cat disasters. This place is the perfect example of the surroundings of someone who has spent too much time in bed with barely the will or desire to function.
I lost something Important that every single fiber of my being told me to fight for. It still tells me to fight for it but I haven't and I don't. Part of my refusal to fight for it has been the fact my life is too deeply rooted in magic and the cardinal rule is to NEVER try to impose your will upon another being. The other part of my refusal to fight for it has, quite simply, been fear. I was too afraid that fighting for it would actually push it further away. Having a little of something, like friendship, was better than having nothing at all. I wonder if having that little something was the seed of this disease or if fighting, losing and ending up with nothing would have been a quick death. Would a quick death have meant a rebirth from the ashes rather than the ashes becoming the dust and cobwebs scattered around my life and home?
I know that the heart wants what it wants. I know we have no control over who we love or how we love them. For me that begs the question, "How much control do we actually have over our lives?". When we make the decision to cut something from our lives and walk away, are we really in control and moving on or, are we bottling up a part of our soul's desire out of fear and trying to replace it with a cheap imitation while hoping the soul won't notice? This question is not just about love and the endless string of partners we can never quite commit to but about everything. It is about the singer who never auditions but goes to karaoke every weekend, the painter who never turns in a canvas but paints houses for a living, the writer who never submits a manuscript but pours out their soul in a blog and the film maker who never picks up a camera but works for a production company. Did all of my bottled emotions congeal into a tumor requiring surgery, chemo and radiation?
Sometimes I get so goddamned tired of this existance. Tired of not being truly seen. Tired of not being truly heard. Tired of being filtered through previous experience and preconceived notions. I have been hurt that so much of the communication between myself and another person was actually communication between them and the voices inside their head. I have been angry to have been told so many times that I cannot assume to know how someone thinks, feels or will react by a person who is assuming they know how I would think, feel or react. It is an unfair double standard of the human condition that makes me feel unheard, unseen and disregarded as unworthy or too stupid to understand.
All relationships between humans require work. The key is communication but that communication must actually be between TWO PEOPLE rather than an internal conversation of only one party. We all have those voices inside our heads. Some of us more than others and that is truly one of the things I adore about the human brain. Just keep in mind that none of the voices inside your head are mine. Some of them may sound like me but, in all reality, they have no idea what I want, how I feel or what my reaction might be. By listening to the voice in your head that you think sounds like me..... you are taking away my free will, removing my right to participate and stealing my opportunity to decide for myself.
Stop recreating the mythology of me based on an alternate reality. All it does is breed a misery and unhappiness that did not live in the real world but came to exist as a manifestation of your fear, confusion and self doubt. There have been so many times I listened without responding because I didn't think I would be heard. There have been so many times I let it go because I got the impression the exchange was being viewed as an argument that did not exist for me. I felt like all my words were viewed as an attack and the very aura of the other person was defensive when, in my eyes, there was nothing to defend against. I stand by my original promise to never judge, condemn or censor any human emotion that could possibly be felt. I have never had any intention of trickery, manipulation or winning. It was, is, and always will be only love and pure acceptance. That means acceptance for all of a person. No matter how high, how low, how frustrated, how confused or how dark the demons might be.
Sometimes I feel like a victim of his fear of success. Sometimes I feel that my desire to see him happy and support his success was the death of something I still find Important, beautiful, worthwhile and worth fighting for. There are times I believe I lost it all, not because I lost faith in him but because he lost faith in my ability to love and accept him after having been hurt and disappointed too many times before. I fully realize I made mistakes in handling some things and I very nearly became that recreation of the mythology of me through sheer panic, fear and devastation.
I don't know what the future holds and will not even hazard a guess. I do know my sense of loss never seems to dwindle. I do know that I still feel a love as real and worthy as the day I first recognized it. I juggle a myriad of feelings but none of them are directed at him. They are just the natural emotions created by the chemicals in the brain of a simple human who may never be enlightened enough to fully answer, or maybe even understand, the question of whether it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
He did Bring Me to Life and sometimes I catch myself still holding my breath.