Confession

I have a confession to make:

I've been silent for far too long.

You see, I started this blog, and the others to chronicle a journey - my journey, and when the road got really, really tough, I stopped writing about it. The point of writing in the first place is to help me process, to show me where I'm headed, to keep me from losing my way. The second point of writing is that, for some strange reason there always seems to be someone asking me for advice... about loving more than one, about embracing your own darkness, about relationships and journeys in general. I don't know why god or the universe, or fate brings people to me with questions. I don't think it's because I know all that much. I rather think it's because there are so many questions, and I am usually transparent enough to say I'm stumbling my way through my life with questions galore.

At any rate, when I lost my way, and got caught in a downward spiral, I stopped sharing my journey.

I wish I hadn't.

I don't want to spend too much time on the negative, but if you're reading here, I don't want you to think my life, and the road I've chosen is always wonderful. I don't float through my world chasing lovers and getting all the kinky play and sex I can handle without ever screwing things up, or getting lost, hurt, taken advantage of, or being misunderstood. I don't do everything right, and I certainly don't fail to deal out a fair share of pain and frustration to others, though I wish I never hurt anyone.

In the past nine months, I've fallen in love, given my heart, trusted.
I've been wounded, depressed, despondent.
I've been welcomed, accepted and loved.
I've been childish, afraid, and repentant.

I've risked greatly by opening my heart and life to women who are loved by the men I love. At times that has been so frightening I felt backed into a corner, fighting like a cat, with claws and terror.... and the result is I've hurt some of the women, and in turn, the men I love most. My insecurity has been a bitch, and I have spent several weeks looking hard in the mirror, taking responsibility for the pain and depression and frustration I've been living, and causing for others.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a martyr complex. But the bottom line is that my happiness is my responsibility.

In terms of the women... three of five have proven to be human. Real. Strong. Amazing. Giving and accepting of my fucked-up attempts to keep my footing. It's strange to realize just now that those three, are all loved by my Shepherd. I think it says something about him, that they are so amazing. It may well say something about me, too. For I have no doubt that I am loved by him, and by these three women as well. I am grateful to be counted in such company.

As for the two who have proven otherwise, each simply decided she could not face me, and could not share. One did so honestly, and is now no longer in a relationship with Husband. I am sorry about that, but bear her no real ill-will. She has to seek what makes her happy. I am watching to make sure she does so in a way that honors Husband.

The remaining woman, I trusted too much. When I began to uncover her lies to me, to Poet and to others, it was too late, the damage was done. I stopped trying to figure out what were truths and what were lies with her, weeks ago, and simply limped away.

I am more guarded than ever with women now. I hope I am not always, though.

In terms of the men... I find my circle of lovers smaller today than it was six months ago. In addition, I carry the scars of those who chose to leave. I have lost a play partner perhaps due to something as simple as scheduling issues. I have lost my young Poet because he chose to stop communicating with me, with no explanation as to why.

I do not stop loving, just because someone decides their life is too full, too complicated, too unhappy for me. I admit freely, that I am still mourning. I especially miss the passion we shared for language, verse, beauty and romance. I believed in him. I still do. I still love him, and probably always will. And yet, today, I accept that he has made the only choice he could. Perhaps someday he might trust me as a friend. Perhaps that door is forever closed. But I cannot continue to lie on the floor outside of that door, waiting. I must live.

I stand in front of the mirror today, and I can still see the scars.
Someday even the scars will be beautiful, and perhaps they already are.
I know at least that I am alive, healing, and stronger.
And I am loved.
Wanted.

Yes, today has been about confessing that I am weak, and messy and have recently been extremely fucked up.

But there is more:

I am strong.
I am beautiful in my brokenness and in my strength.
I am imperfect.
I am willing to be transparent, in case someone else is looking to me for direction.
I don't know the answers, but I do know that this life I've chosen is the one I want.

I only hope I earn the good I've gained so far.

This is a cross post on the Kink and Poly blogs.

Letter to Self - Two

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
-Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Alice in Wonderland.


"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
-John Lennon, Imagine


"I have a dream."
Martin Luther King, Jr.


"Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.""But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness."
"Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
-Max Ehrmann


"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."
-Anaïs Nin

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There are those in my life who encourage this "letters-to-self" idea. They remind me to be who I am, and to be gentle with myself as I keep growing. They don't let me get away with childishness, but they acknowledge my child-likeness. They are good people, good friends. I write this letter in response to their encouragement.

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Dear Self,

So, you’ve started, just a little, to believe in yourself again, haven’t you? I can tell, because you look different in the mirror -- more at peace with who you are. I know there are still unresolved issues and things you wrestle with and worry over. I know you still feel not quite normal, and a little ‘too much’. I see that too, when you look in the mirror. It hides around your eyes.

I want to remind you that the best way to find yourself loved and accepted is to be that awkward, romantic, creative and child-like person that you are. You cannot assume, or try to fit the imagined expectations of others. If you do not embrace being your true self, others will find you fake and insincere.

And, baby girl, you should never hide who you really are.

Others may find you naive, an idealistic dreamer, passionate, intense and child-like. I know that makes you want to focus on the negatives, because you remember being labeled a handful, and too much, and you know what it’s like to be left behind because being in a relationship with you took too much energy.

I want you to think about it from another angle though. I want you to imagine that the things others have said -- others who love you very, very much -- are all quite true. You are unique, amazing, growing, changing, passionate, loving, intense, creative, gifted, intelligent, beautiful, child-like, poetic, and loved for being all these things and more.

Your creativity has inspired those you love to be loving to others in little sentimental ways, and so they have been given a part of who you are by someone who loves you very much. You have been influential, and you have marked the hearts and lives of others in ways both memorable and good.

Yes, you are messy.
You are rough around the edges.
You don’t have it all together.

Remember, I told you I refuse to let you polish away everything until you are all perfect and boring? I meant that. You are not ‘normal’. You never have been. Since you were a very small child, you have been who you are. You are growing, changing, blooming, learning. But you have always been who you are on the inside.

That little girl desperately needs you to be true to her.
The men you love - and who love you - want you to be that girl.

So you keep growing, you keep learning. You deal with your insecurities, and you figure out new ways to belong to a family, and to make your relationships stronger. And when you fall, when you are scraped up and bruised because you were awkward and clumsy, you trust that those who have accepted you did so, knowing just who that little girl in you is. They accepted you, all of you, when you opened your heart to them.

Look again, into that mirror.

Keep your naive sense of wonder, and hold to your ideals - imagine, as Alice, five impossible things before breakfast!

Dream - as John Lennon dreamed, as Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed - and make those dreams a vibrant part of your reality.

Feed your passion and intensity - as Anais Nin was passionate and intense, so that others who share your world can do so joyfully.

Face each new day, each challenge and celebration like a child. “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars -- you have a right to be here.” Dance, sing, laugh and love with the freedom of a child.

See that girl, staring back at you?

She loves you.
I love you.

-Me.

A Love Letter

He has been a sounding board.  He has listened as I cried, offered reassurance, told me I am not alone.  He has the heart of a knight, and somehow I have found in him, a dear friend.  He asked me yesterday to do him a favor, to write a love letter to myself.  I laughed.  Then I sobered.  I was not sure I wanted this task.  But I agreed.  I figured I could at least tell myself to hang in there, and I’d get through the stress and pain on my own,  Positive speak.  I sat looking at the blank page for a while last night, and then just began by asking myself what I wanted to hear.  By the time I got to the fourth paragraph, I knew I could not write everything I needed to.  I was emotionally drained, and could not see past my own tears.  I will be visiting this assignment again.  I don’t know how he knew what I needed.  But as I read the letter aloud to him last night, I finally cried out some of that emotion that’s been threatening to drown me.  It is a deep river in me, and I know I’ve only skimmed the surface, but it is a beginning.  Thank you, to my knight friend, for caring enough to walk this road with me a while.  Your gift yesterday was priceless.


 

Dear Me,

I know sometimes you feel two steps behind, like you can’t get your footing, no matter how hard you work.  I’ve heard you complain about feeling too deeply, too intensely, being too complicated. I have heard you, and I want you to know, I disagree.  I love you, and there are many reasons why.

You are emotional, it’s true.  You feel things deeply, and logic does not always win out with you.  This is something to celebrate, not suppress.  This emotion is what defines you.  It is your strength.  It is the passion that fuels your love, and your poetry.  I love your emotion.

You love deeply, and sometimes it hurts.  Love anyway. "Never regret love. No matter how blind, it improves your world view. No matter how foolish, it makes you wiser. And no matter how generous, it makes you more." If you can say you loved to your fullest extent, no matter if that lover leaves you, the love does not fail.  It hurts, but you are truly you when you love this way.  I love the way you love so deeply.  
You are generous, and sometimes people take that for granted.  Give anyway.  There is in you a gift, a skill of giving, of making others feel safe to be vulnerable.  You are generous with your weaknesses, your struggles, as well as your revelations and your joys.  You give.  Keep giving, and do not worry how people take or do not take.  You make room for good to come to you by giving,  I love your generosity.

I want you to know that I see you.  When you are hurt and wounded, when you wish you had everything solved and did not feel weak, I see you.  I see the beauty in your brokenness, in your weakness, I love you as you are, especially your flaws.  I will not sit by and watch you kill them off one by one until you are boring and plain.  


Love,

Yourself

The Writer and the Broken Hallelujah

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
-Hallelujah, Cohen (Buckley version.)


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Tu Es Partout

-Edith Piaf

Nous nous aimions bien tendrement
Comme s'aiment tous les amants
Et puis un jour tu m'as quittee
Depuis je suis desesperee
Je te vois partout dans le ciel
Je te vois partout sur la terre
Tu es ma joie et mon soleil
Ma nuit, mes jours, mes aubes claires

Tu es partout car tu es dans mon coeur
Tu es partout car tu es mon bonheur
Toutes les choses qui sont autour de moi
Meme la vie ne represente que toi
Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras
Et qu'a l'oreille tu me parles tout bas
Tu dis des choses qui font fermer les yeux
Et moi je trouve ca merveilleux

Peut-etre un jour tu reviendras
Je sais que mon coeur t'attendras
Tu ne pourras pas oublier
Les jours que nous avons passes
Mes yeux te cherchent sans arret
Ecoute bien mon coeur t'appelle
Nous pourrons si bien nous aimer
Tu verras la vie sera belle

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English Translation (in part)

We loved eachother tenderly
like we loved all lovers
Then one day you left me
ever since...
I see you everywhere in the sky
I see you everywhere on the earth...

You are everywhere because you are in my heart...

Sometimes I dream that I am in you arms
and you speak softly in my ears
You say things that make me close my eyes
and I find that marvelous

Maybe on day you will return...
...you can not forget
the past days we spent together

-

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritman/4589164223/sizes/m/in/photostream/)

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There was once a writer, a man, I'll call him Dorian, who taught me many things about loving more than one.  He gave himself to me, without expectation.  He loved me, and he showed me how to trust myself, how to love honestly.  He was a man who didn't trust himself always, who dealt with his own demons.  The long and the short of the story is that after months of polyamory, he chose monogamy.  He chose someone else, and left me.

He promised that I was too important to him, to just walk away and not be friends.  Turns out, friendship was possibly too painful for him.  It was difficult, bloody, raw... the aftermath of our break-up.  I struggled to heal alone. It's been seven months, and I am finally happy again.  My life is full of love and I am proud of who I am, who I have become.

Still I struggle with the holes he left behind, when he pulled himself out of my life.  I've been reluctant even to write about it. There's still a room in my heart that belongs to him.  It's empty, but it's still his.   Today I decided it was time to move on.  To let go.  So here are three journal entries, the whole of what I have written privately about the journey.  It's not nearly enough, but it's all I have.

He may never read it, and that's okay.  I needed to write it, anyway.  Especially the latest entry.

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July, 2010


How is it that our world can come crashing in, and it feels as though the oxygen is gone, the ground is crumbling beneath my feet, and every part of me hurts, and you can go on like everything is wonderful, and you are the happiest you've ever been. Did I leave no scars behind when you asked me to remove myself from your heart? Did you not bleed, as I am bleeding?


November, 2010


I walk on.
I make myself whole.
I find my bliss without you.


But there are parts of me
that I gave to you. Parts
that I cannot get back,
because they became part of you.


You took them when you left me.
I am both whole, and living
with the holes you left in me.


January 2011


Once My Partout,


I spent the night listening to songs about being left behind, crying as I sang along, wandering around the ghost-town places where I used to see you, and now only see shadows. It's been 218 days, and still there are dark, cold corners in me that ache for your smile, for your laugh. I know the lover in you has long since died... the one that loved me anyway. Still, I hurt so badly for the best friend that you were.


I confess that sometimes I look into the mirror, and see the woman you showed me there, and I wonder what happened that made it so easy for you to walk away. It's as though I became a misty figment of your imagination, and once the daylight broke through your cloudy sky, I evaporated. Simple and easy.


I wonder why I don't just take all the trinkets that represent our connection, and lock them away in a box, throwing away the key, and still, I find them, in boxes and bowls, in drawers and tucked into the pages of books. There's a ghost in my library, a book on my table, a watch in my drawer, there's a key, a scrap of cloth, a bottle of wine. I wonder why I hold onto the hope that you will someday wake up and decide you can  - even want to - live in a world where I still exist.


I know the answer, the reason why, is that you were no shadow for me. You were real, flesh and blood and bone. You gave me a reason to believe, and to give myself to someone without fear. You were once the man I trusted with every secret - not a phantom. I believed in you. I still do.


I tell myself that having me in your life became too painful. You had to choose, and choosing meant you couldn't deal with being friends. I don't blame you for choosing. I honestly want your new love to last. I want you to believe that you can be successfully monogamous, and that you're worth the time and effort. I want you to find your bliss, and be happy with the life you've chosen.


I guess it's too much to ask, to have all that, and stay connected too. I guess I can't expect to keep a friend who would be happy for me when I am happy, and cheer me on as I grow. It's who you used to be. Not any more. But I am. Happy. My life is amazing without you. I have so much to be thankful for, and I've worked hard to earn the loves I now have in my world. I wish you knew.


I won't lock away the mementos, the memories, because I'm proud of our past. I'm proud of who I was with you, and how I grew. Even the pain you left behind changed me, made me stronger, made me capable of finding my own joy and contentment. My happiness I earned with what I learned from you, from your love, and from your choice. I owe you a debt of gratitude; and I don't regret a single day I spent in your light or in your darkness.


Today I take a step down the road that leads me away from the emptiness you left behind. Today I accept that you are forever gone. My friend, my love, my past. You no longer exist. I will stop looking for you in corners where I used to see your face, or smell your scent. I will stop hoping that someday I'll pick up the phone and hear your voice, or glance up in a book store and find you looking at me over the shelf.


What we shared was beautiful and pure, and indescribable. It is also over. It was so intense that it burned away all chance at friendship after it died.  I know that now.  So, if by some chance, in some tomorrow to come, I meet you on the street, and you speak, I'll introduce myself. For you will not know the me I've grown to be. I am a distant relative to the woman you once loved. I'll smile and nod. I'll be thrilled at the happiness you've found . . . and that is as it should be.


Be well.


- Once Your Beloved


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