I contemplate, therefore I am
And it isn't a bad thing, the contemplation. Of course I could be putting the time to better use, like cleaning house, sleeping, writing fiction, something. Instead I am at the keyboard because thinking out loud, or at least in print, helps me focus and figure out where I am at and what is going on and all that sort of thing. In the aftermath of the Unfortunate Incident, much like in the aftermath of the house fire, or in the aftermath of my father's death, or in the aftermath of quitting college, all turning points of varying degrees of disruption but also demarcation lines in my life from which I mark Before and After. In the aftermath of that particular line in the sand of my past I wanted very much for a rewind. I wanted to erase that time. In the Before I was engaged to a young man, I was monogamous, I was confident, I was hopeful. In the After I was scared, angry, hopeless, all the appropriate emotions really, but still engaged. In fact, the young man in question was utterly supportive. He let me cry. A lot. He was patient with my new quirks. He put up with mood swings and crazy fears and comforted me no matter what. (He went to visit his parents a couple months later who told him that if he married a witch he would get cut off and since they had some money, they won. Not true love after all. That is not essential to this story though.*) I came out the other side of it jaded and cynical and utterly without trust. No trust of others, no trust in myself and no trust in the Universe as anything other than a cold hearted bastard.
I think I have been waiting all this time for the rewind. I have been waiting to wake up one Spring and find that I have suddenly become that hopeful confident girl again without recognizing that I am who I am as a result of that incident (and so many others, both good and bad and even more of indeterminate value) and am someone else entirely now, hoping for very different things, confident in very different abilities.
Where is the balance between Was and Is? What if all this anniversary crying has been not for the scared girl that it happened to or the fear of it happening again but for the girl I don't wake up as every year on that day? Holy Shit.
Fourteen years ago I woke up hoping to spend time with my fiance and looking forward to the class I was teaching and pleased that I had nailed the interview for a job I wanted very much.
This year I will wake up hoping to spend time with friends I love very much and pleased with the teaching I am doing again and looking forward to talking to someone I might love more than I am ready to admit.
And I will not cry for the girl I am not.
I might cry. But it will be for cleansing and healing and for starting fresh, not for what I can't change or what I shouldn't change. After all, I got here from there, and here is not bad. Not what I planned, but sometimes you have to go off the map to find your way.
*While R was no saint certainly, he did prove to me that he still loved me after having been raped, he put up with my suddenly bursting into tears in the middle of making love, he was patient when I needed to compulsively check locks on my doors, he allowed me to take my time becoming comfortable again with being touched by another person, he was amazingly patient. But I would no doubt have broken up with him eventually simply because I couldn't accept that anyone could love me in the fucked up state I was in, indeed that anyone would love me again ever, having been raped. I was less forgiving of myself than I was of the jackass that raped me, and I have never forgiven him, understood yes, forgiven, no. It may have been something of a relief when R left, I no longer felt like I had to try to be who I was before. I could explore instead who I was becoming.
I think I have been waiting all this time for the rewind. I have been waiting to wake up one Spring and find that I have suddenly become that hopeful confident girl again without recognizing that I am who I am as a result of that incident (and so many others, both good and bad and even more of indeterminate value) and am someone else entirely now, hoping for very different things, confident in very different abilities.
Where is the balance between Was and Is? What if all this anniversary crying has been not for the scared girl that it happened to or the fear of it happening again but for the girl I don't wake up as every year on that day? Holy Shit.
Fourteen years ago I woke up hoping to spend time with my fiance and looking forward to the class I was teaching and pleased that I had nailed the interview for a job I wanted very much.
This year I will wake up hoping to spend time with friends I love very much and pleased with the teaching I am doing again and looking forward to talking to someone I might love more than I am ready to admit.
And I will not cry for the girl I am not.
I might cry. But it will be for cleansing and healing and for starting fresh, not for what I can't change or what I shouldn't change. After all, I got here from there, and here is not bad. Not what I planned, but sometimes you have to go off the map to find your way.
*While R was no saint certainly, he did prove to me that he still loved me after having been raped, he put up with my suddenly bursting into tears in the middle of making love, he was patient when I needed to compulsively check locks on my doors, he allowed me to take my time becoming comfortable again with being touched by another person, he was amazingly patient. But I would no doubt have broken up with him eventually simply because I couldn't accept that anyone could love me in the fucked up state I was in, indeed that anyone would love me again ever, having been raped. I was less forgiving of myself than I was of the jackass that raped me, and I have never forgiven him, understood yes, forgiven, no. It may have been something of a relief when R left, I no longer felt like I had to try to be who I was before. I could explore instead who I was becoming.