Humans have been a study case to me since a very young age. What started as a big traumatizing event in my early childhood on my first day at kindergarten, turned out to be a repetitive life pattern. Anytime people outside of my small circle were involved, the events turned to be of an extreme nature. The contrast between the very peaceful inner world, and the outside hostile one was huge and very unsettling.
At my age now, and at this phase of my life, and after doing so many rounds of healing and integration, I can comfortably say without being triggered, that was I to have a mediator between both worlds, someone to help me through the initiations, these encounters and events would have been way less painful, affecting the way I turned out to be and live as an adult, easing the intensity, if anything at all. On the other hand, being in this now moment, and looking back at all of my life put together, I can see very clearly just how everything happened in exactly the way it was meant to, making me the person I am now, having overcome a load of heavy and painful milestones, learning the artful skill of self healing along the way. The mere ability to look back at these most sensitive timelines, and not feel like a helpless victim, or blame this parent of mine or that grown person in my family, means that I am at peace with it all. I can not emphasise enough on just how groundbreaking and liberating this is, it definitely wasn't always the case. Of course ego battles had to be fought, long and tiring ones. My heart however always found a way to win any inside or outside battle I ever fought. Despite all the pain it endured, physical and esoteric, it somehow managed to thrive, such humbling and grounding passage, bringing me home to a very calm center inside, and feeling soul connected, every single time.
Being a lone wolf, a home bird, and an introvert, also earning a living from home, means that I'm not exactly one to be up for random socializing or partying. It also means that even the littlest of human interaction can sometimes break havoc on my nervous system. Being in marriages has somehow worked for me though in this sense. I used to love the idea of having my one special person in my close company all year round, day in, day out. The mental connection shared, the physical chemistry, the love bond, the affection, the comforting, the support, the companionship, the understanding, the togetherness, the giving and receiving, the sharing of life's biggest and smallest moments, the depth of knowing that person and be known so intimately by him was sure to keep me content and feeling right at home.
Getting married at 19 years old, while my mother was dying, with a man I loved when I turned 18, after, through, and because of the sudden death of my dear father, had the potential of making it a very strong and solid bond. It didn't, it was such a delicate and fragile contract. He was the sweetest, most giving, most affectionate man, upbeat and full of life, a go getter, family oriented, and work driven. He was however very wounded. It didn't take long before it showed in our every interaction, but more loudly through the act of inflicting pain on me purposely and directly, without flinching. I haven't met anyone like him before, and I loved him, his very pain too. Being young, hopeful and full of love, I thought I could heal him through my abundant love, and constant presence. The truth of the matter is, people aren't exactly drawn to healing themselves. For that, you need to acknowledge that there's something wrong with you, or that something wrong happened to you, and the ego won't allow that to happen. In fact, the biggest lesson I learned about people through my first husband, was that ego can be a huge teacher, but also a life distructer. Not only that, but it can be so very good at it that the person won't even identify it as an intruder, an outsider, but rather a part of who the person is. So comes in socialising, the hussle and bussle of the outside world, the uncontrollable getting, the constant doing, and the seaseless acquiring. He was such an extroverted person, social, flamboyant, passionate, and such a lover of people, facilitating and achieving. The contrast of our characters would've worked perfectly well was he to be real and genuine. Sadly however, he was running on auto pilot. Everything he did, felt and said was an unconscious reaction to a volcano of pain and anger inside of him that often than not erupted.
The life I shared with my second husband was very different from my first marriage, for once he was a total introvert like myself, with a very small circle of friends and close people. He was reserved, composed, quiet, and very private. We shared our love for the arts in somewhat similar ways, and in depth. Our times spent together were very peaceful and harmonious. At a deeper and a different level however, there was similarity in the patterns concerning resisting and being oblivious to the growth needed. He used our love to numb his pain from the past, and fear from the future. Everything we did and said became a distraction from his inner wounds, when what I needed in a partner that I loved so dearly was simply presence. By no means I claim to be the perfect lover, but I was very clear about who I was as a person and a partner, and what I needed and wanted from him and our connection. We would totally agree and be on the same page when we discuss our plans for our future together, but then he would go on drifting away from me soon after, through his obsessive lists, and nerdy endeavors, into his world of total detachment and seperation.
My love was always active, it wanted nurturing, it went through places that needed attending to and healing. I would treat my partner same way I would treat myself, or my daughter, or anybody I care about; with fierce attention, and a huge desire to see, mend, and expand. I wanted to grow through love, with love, for love. I could never use it for other purposes, love was sacrosanct to me and was enough in and of itself.
Eventually, and after the seperation from my second husband almost 4 years ago, I gave myself ample of time to work on all the relationships in my life. I got closer to the family again, I brought friends even closer to me, I met new people and started new friendships and relationships, I also dated for a good while, which was totally new to me then. I ventured into new worlds of arts, socialized more freely and frequently, engrossed with the new lessons I was going to learn through close interactions with new people. Even at that though, I needed depth, my interactions with others could never be emtpy, they needed meaning. After all, I never needed company for the sake of company, I am naturally always happy alone inside my own world. I'm very passionate about connecting though, I usually need to go as deep and as far as my psyche allows me, to know more, feel more and be more open, conscious, and aware. Soon after the start of this expansive timeline, I realized that all people ever wanted to do, was more numbing, more forgetting, more disctraction and more dissociation. In fact, it was the main reason why they did relationships, it is why they hung out and got together, and that was certainly not my idea of socialising, or doing any kind of a relationship. This realization got to my heart eventually, slowly but surely. It drained me and sucked the life out of me. It pained me greatly, and eventually, I had to withdraw and come back to myself and my inner world again.
If you have been traumatised, most especially in childhood, then the last thing you want to do is be conscious and aware as an adult, the pain can be too much to face or handle - this I do get. Using addictions for numbing is very common too, I know from being a food addict myself most of my life, but also seeing the substance use in others. Still, the heavy weight of carrying old pains in our system, and going on through our adult life with such a massive weight, can be even harder than dealing with the pain face front. The freedom we have as adults can sometimes mean that we would use it in a distructive way, without outside interference, that's the double edge sword of being adult, and free. Doing modern day society means we do not have the community support that we need as humans at the very basic level, namely in acknowledging, handling, and getting support in the aspect that matters to most to us on a fundamental level: our heart and soul. An imprisoning freedom that makes the task of being an adult even harder can also often go unnoticed. The dance between wanting to be big, free and to soar, and wanting to shrink, regress, and be contained is a hard one to balance. My love for the people and humanity at large makes it so that I am forced to want to shake them, wake them up to the here and the now, sit with them while they heal, remind them, hold their hands, look into their eyes, feel their pain, honor their existence and their past, learn about their ambitions, and support their future plans.
Having made a fool of myself for endless times through connecting on such a deep level throughout those last 4 years with people who just wanted more numbing, made me realize that perhaps I'm not a people's person for a reason. It finally dawned at me that what I was doing was not exactly working, not in a relationship context, not with family members, and defnintely not with friends.
Solitude has always been my most loyal and favorite friend, and towards the end of this madness of myriad of social experimenting and attempts at connecting, I felt like I was fully ready to be on my own again, giving some of what I've been dispersing here and there to myself, because by then, I needed nurturing the most.
A friend told me not so long ago that I am motherly and accepting. He enphasised on the word accepting. I didn't ask questions, I knew this was a topic we'd come back to - as we were in the middle of another heated conversation - but I let it sink in, without understanding what he meant then and there. After that encounter I asked my daughter what does it mean to describe me as accepting, and if she sees me as a mother under that light. She agreed with the description, saying that most mothers are usually controlling, or put conditions to how the kids need to be, and that I was not like that. To that I answered it's love, is it not. She nodded, and I went silent. He put a word to something that I take in myself for granted, but the mere fact the word was accentuated, made me realize that accepting, which is the word for love, as in presence, is almost nonexistent in our society and ways of connecting. Still, when I pondered on the word later that day again, I was a little bit happy inside, thinking that he gets my love, and that perhaps others might feel it too, and that maybe not all is lost.
Perhaps in time I will be ready for my next partner, he would have done the work too, or at least some work, and would want to just be still with me. We would be accepting of each other, but also wanting to get up and do the work together, for ourselves, for each other, and for humanity. We would be open together, never scared or sheltered from each other, and most importantly, never ego shielded.
I have several different journals for different topics and categories, one of them is called the Book of Dreams and Prayers. I write on it when I feel a calling, a dream that stands out for messages or symbolism, a prayer that I feel drawn to write or say, sometimes related to the dream, other times simply stemming from my consciousness or desires and needs. I wrote a prayer a couple of months ago to those two most harshest teachers in the school I was in on my first day of kindergarten. Though back in the days the parents weren't allowed in with the children to help ease the transition into their new surrounding. I still thought that on a deeper, most humane level, and outside of what was the norm or not on a social and cultural level, and regardless of what the school policies allowed or prohibited, there could've been a lesser painful way to get me in class then pushing and pulling my 3 years old frail child body self from both my fully stretched arms, I while I was screaming and crying on the top of my lungs, scared and resisting with all of my might. I prayed for them because in a moment of meditation, I pondered on what could have went so awfully wrong to these two adults to treat such a helpless body and soul with such hostility and total detachement and seperation. I prayed for them and I hoped their pain was healed, and that there has been love restored inside their heart and being. Did they become mothers, are they grandmothers, are they sisters and friends, did they have mothers they cared for, how were they themselves handled as small children. I just hoped love found them and wrapped their spirit with empathy and compassion, because what are we really if we're functioning only just as machines for the big institutions, the big system, producing kids that are sure to be harmed and tainted for life.
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