The Day I Met Myself

I am terrified to write this piece. When I write my blogs, they come from a place of trance. Unless otherwise stated, my blogs are unedited streams of consciousness as my capital S self works around my ego in an attempt to awaken me to something. Never has that been more true than in this moment. I can feel what is arriving and it scares me because it is so tender. I feel soft and in need of swaddling but instead I am red in the face screaming out my truth for the world to hear because damn it, I've been swaddled long enough.  

In therapy this week, I teased out an old nagging splinter. Feelings of inferiority and more aptly, worthlessness colored the sky in my world. And I never made the correlation that it wasn't just beholden to the horizon. It was in the petals of my dahlias. It was in the currents of my streams. It was in the pebbles and mountainsides of my landscape. It was in everything, this deep-seeded belief that who I am, as I am was not enough. I breathed the air of this story for so long my hair flowed down my back with it. My nails tapped on desks, long talons of devotion to this so-called truth. Until I removed the hurt.  

My therapist got me to admit out loud that I was punishing P2AD in an attempt to make him feel less than. Why? Because I didn't want him to discover the ugly truth that I wasn't good enough for him. I said it and the words felt foreign in my mouth. Yet, they also felt strangely familiar. Like thoughts I'd tasted before. The ones that said I'd be happy with the stereotypical American Dream. The ones that even told me educational achievement was worth it for the social capital. It was all the same poison.  

Its not that the choices I made were wrong. It was that the consciousness which worked to strategize my actions and behaviors bring into fruition those choices, was askew. It was on its head. It was a version of reality I internalized that wasn't the best version of reality for my soul and spiritual well being. So I decided to change it. 

Once I had said it out loud to my therapist, I said it to him. Not looking for affirmation but more so looking for an opportunity to speak my truth again. Yes! I had believed I was not good enough for you. When I say it out loud I can hear how silly it sounds. That's why secrets fertilize faulty thinking. There is tremendous power in speaking your truth often and in such a way that honors you.  

That guy...he's my soul mate. I had a psychic say that to me once. Twice. He is the one with whom my soul uses to evolve. Our relationship reveals things to me that no other relationship has, or ever could. I see the truth of my self in him. Not the cocksure braggadociois yet charismatic character that others have come to associate with me. No, with him I see how I feel. And when I don't like how I feel with him, I know there is work to do. Liz Gilbert said  

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. 

She would go on to note the pain associated with close proximity to a soul mate in a lifetime. I think he would agree we have hurt each other more than enough for one lifetime. And I am also pretty sure that we are not yet done. But this isn't about me and him. Not like that, this is about the part of me that I was able to recover with him.  

A part of me that knows I am enough. A part of me that craves long bouts of collective silence. The part of me that speaks music as a first language. A part of me who uses fashion as her caption for the day. A part of me that wants to be seen and revered. A part of me that wants wild success professionally and quiet certainty in my home. A part of me that wants a wedding. A part of me that wants to live a rich bohemian life of trying things and failing through to success. A part that still desperately needs to learn guitar. 

She was all there. Waiting to be claimed. Waiting to be picked up and comforted. Welcomed home. Cooked her favorite meal and nuzzled on a sofa for a long night of catching up. She obliged and fell into my arms. I wanted to tell him thank you, but I wasn't sure he knew what he'd done. A quick flurry of neurosis worrying about what he might think was diminished quickly by her certainty that again, it was not about his approval. It was about another opportunity to speak my truth. You don't need his approval. She comforted me. And I believed her immediately.  

How are you going to change the world with your words if you're not even willing to speak them? If you're too concerned with the photo to put on the outfit and attend the event. If you keep allowing fear to dictate the parameters around your life, how small will you become just to feel safe?  

How small had I become ? Wasn't this why I cut my hair off? Because I was ready to be seen? Yet here I was already in the process of growing it back and wearing wigs and running full speed back to the comfort and safety of other people's approval.  

I didn't want to do that anymore. It felt like I had finally arrived at my destination and where was that? Right back to myself who was waiting with open arms. My five year old self who believed so boldly in the arts she consumed herself with them. My thirteen year old self who learned how to survive on her own rules. My eighteen year old self who wanted to run but was afraid of where it would take her. My twenty one year old self who was still on her mark. My twenty six year old self who lost a baby with the first man she had ever been intimate with. She in particular was so happy to be here standing in the sunshine at my arrival. My thirty year old self who learned just how much I could endure without breaking. My thirty one year old self who broke. My thirty two year old self who was still struggling to put the pieces Back together when she broke again. And me now. Rebuilding, but not without a home. I had found home in myself. 

I had found peace around who I was and who I was pretending to be. I was ready to let the charade cease. I was ready to be how I felt unedited and without explanation. I was ready to be congruent. I was ready to be as fully in the present that I could be.  I was ready to live the life I'd been dreaming of. A life that had nothing to do with tenure or organizational charts. With 401Ks or living in one home for twenty years. I don't want the ordinary things. I want to live a life I'm DREAMING. And I was ready to bet on myself to get there.