I will remember to let go of my fear as I am writing this. I will remember the joy and excitement I feel when I am near him. Date#16 came over and we decided to go surfing. It had been almost a week since I had seen him last and living within the mystery, not knowing where we were headed, was a package still waiting to be opened. I had not worried all week about our next move until the last few hours before I saw him. Not knowing how to act when we first see each other is a predictable unpredictability. It was a hot day and nothing in the world sounded better than pulling on a wetsuit and navigating the ocean with him. We drove over to Cowells beach, where I learned to surf, where I worked my first summer job in Santa Cruz and where I feel at home. We suited up, took our boards under our arms and walked toward the stairs. I followed closely behind him. My toes were like antennae, informing my foot when I could flatten my heel. Carefully I stepped around the the green and black moss covering the stairs that lead down into the ocean. There was a clearing at the bottom, but rocks can suddenly appear, depending on the tide. I didn’t want to fall in front of him. The tide was low enough where we could see a path when the water was drawn out. The waves were practically were nonexistent. The moment my feet hit the water I become aware of the danger zones. Entering and exiting the powerful ocean, a force of energy where unpredictable things happen, is all about timing. I needed to find the opening. Being aware of the space can mean the difference of feeling safe or working hard to stay above water, depending on the day. I still get nervous until I get out past the break. I have always liked the feeling of smooth sailing once I am happily balanced on my board. My world is split into two parts, what’s above and whats below the surface of the water. I loved being out there with him on the same level alone. The last time we were in the water together was a week after we met and he was heartbroken, it felt like years ago. This time it felt like we had a history that had not yet established the first time. The water was cool and fresh, I was on crappy foam board that my friend had given to me and he was on a 9 foot fiberglass long board. I was struggling to keep up with his pace, as I am out of practice and my board was not efficient. He slowed down and asked if I wanted me to trade boards with him. I told him “It’s ok, I’ll just wait until I get tired”, so he went on paddling. I looked at his feet getting further away and he was gaining speed. I began paddling faster and faster but after only moments, both of my arms flopped at my sides, my hands feeling like ten pound weights. I couldn’t keep up. I yelled “ You know what? The lesson of you if nothing else, is deflating my pride and ego.”
“That doesn’t sound good”, he said,
“Oh yes it is”, I replied.
He stilled and let me catch up. I abashedly paddled next to him and eventually my embarrassment subsided. I remember telling him last time we went surfing, it always felt good to go out surfing. But I then remembered there were times where I would go out by myself and I would be so self conscious of my ability, I would feel shame and it would leave me feeling like I didn’t want to try anymore, eventually I didn’t. I wanted to keep surfing but I couldn’t shake the feeling of people judging me. It kept me out of the water for over a decade. It wasn't until I met date#16 that I even realized how much I missed surfing and remembered how fun it once was.
We floated close to each other and found a stillness, he laid on his back and I laid on my stomach, each on our respective boards. I rested my head on my arm and our hands floated toward each other. We closed our eyes and locked pinkie fingers so we wouldn't drift apart. I noticed the silence and the comfort. We laid there for a few minutes, bobbing up and down and drifting closer and then further apart. I imagined the sensations out of context. With my eyes closed I imagined that we were no longer in the ocean and our bodies were somehow just magically seemingly weightless, bouncing through space. We sat back up and traded boards. We spotted a mama otter with her baby on her tummy. I made my way closer to them to get a better look. All of a sudden I was compelled to paddle straight off toward the horizon. It was nearing dusk and the water beneath me was clear, then faded into a deep green. With each stroke I glided over the surface of metallic blue, the water was so calm it looked like a sheet of mercury. The horizon was a deep black line and the sky was light blue edging into lighter purples and pinks. I loved knowing that I could break away from him, knowing I didn't have to hold back. I let my arms take me as fast as they could and sounds of the board lapping at the nose, and water coming off my fingers were the only sounds I heard. I stopped to check and see how far behind I had left him, he was on his way over to me. We followed the otter and her pup back toward shore, oooing and ahhing over their cuteness. I liked the way he revered the mother/baby relationship. On some level it created a sensation of safety in me. Without saying so we paddled back toward the stairs and he caught two waves, which makes my heart sink just thinking about it, truly exhibiting his expertise. We made it up he stairs unscathed.
We got in his van and once we were on the road (after nearly leaving our boards there) I asked timidly, where things stood with his girlfriend. I was so nervous. I had been trying to stay neutral about what his week would reveal to him and there it was, the moment where we could either mover closer together or further apart. He told me he had a realization that his preoccupation with being with her was more about her and other people, and not about his relationship with her. He said that sometimes they would get along but inevitably they would end up fighting and then he would be left wondering what he was doing. He said that controlling what she did didn’t seem appealing. He wanted to be free to do what he wanted to as well. I was ecstatic. “I’m so happy” I said, I really was. I sat the in that moving vehicle knowing that my patience had allowed space for him to flourish and take care of himself. It felt amazing. We drove to the grocery store, and I was on top of the world. We pulled in to the parking space and he was taking his time putting his shoes. I walked around to his side and reached my arm around him, he had the greatest smile on his face. Happiness, pure happiness.
We came back to my place and made perogis listened to Frank Zappa and shared stories of gentle debauchery. Being in a secure healthy relationship seems unreal to me. Granted my friendships have been improving over the last year or so but put against a background of 30 years of dysfunctional and unhealthy relationships, I feel a little like I’m dreaming. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, yet really having confidence that this time is different. I have to, if I don’t want to sabotage this. I have never tried trusting before, I’m not inventing problems, care taking or falling into victim mode and it’s quite surreal. We were eating dinner and he commented on how he felt pretty out of it too, like he was dreaming. I’d like to think that his sensations are as a result of him being swept off his feet. My gut feeling was he was surprised by the ease and safety of our interaction as well. Our interactions seem to have a magic about them, a certain kind of kismet energy that is easy.
Recently my friend told me “Be careful who you get introduced to, you might end up marrying them”. I laughed, I think the deeper meaning of his statement was about letting go and letting the surprise stuff happen. I think it has to do with the power of perception. Sometimes I wonder had the timing of my meeting of date#16 meting been different, would this still be the way things would have unfolded with him. It makes me consider the romantic notion, How could it be that I have wandered the planet not knowing what I never knew I absolutely could not live without. When I’m around him I feel like he is a dream. When I reach out and touch him I can’t believe that he is reaching back.
I can feel it in my heart expanding, humility is washing over me like a solid wave of energy. Every time I think about becoming angry and possessive over him, I take a deep breath and let go. So much of my body wants to think that if he was the one for me that he would make me feel great all of the time, like a drug. But he is not a substance, he is a person, with his own life, his own beautiful qualities. This is a practice, a steady practice of letting him be. It will overflow into everything about him, I must trust him. When I think about why I have never been able to maintain a long term relationship (past 2 years), I know it is because I have left stomping my feet, angry that they didn’t comply with my demands. Most of the time it had something to do with the person of my affections finding it impossible to keep me on that infatuation high. I have looked at relationships as something that was ingested, and once the effects wore off then I moved on to the bigger better high. At this time in my life I must look at what I can replace that feeling of unrest with. Whether it is focusing on my own life and moving in a forward positive direction or congratulating myself for not running even though I am not feeling the effects of the endorphins. I must have faith in his ability to make good choices for himself. Perhaps the thing about an equal relationship that I have been missing all along, is not only about mutual affection and adoration, but also seeing him as a person who is equally capable of living his life in the way that he wants to. My relationship with him has nothing to do with her. He and I have something special, that no one can sever. The only way it can remain that way is if I trust his value of me and our friendship.
I don’t believe that I can be open only part of the time. I must be open all of the time in all aspects of life. That’s a pretty big statement. I must forgive, I must love this malleable state we call living. We can all change. We are all forever changing. Do I want to be happy? Yes I do. Do I want joy? Yes I do. I must treat every human like a precious, intricate piece of the universe and abandon my selfish motives of getting what I deserve and welcome what comes my way as the mystery and magic unfolds. Why? Because it feels better, it is sustainable. Having my feet underneath me really helps. I am transitioning from control into trust and forgiveness.
My parents are the final frontier. I have never had it in me to forgive either of them. I know I am miles away from forgiving my father in anything other than just in concept, as forgiveness must come from understanding and empathy and I am not there yet when it comes to him. So I put it in the box on the shelf and will work on it later. My mother is someone that I have been processing for as long as I can remember, at least the last 10 years. I am very familiar with our dance. In a lot of ways her love for me could be described as a scenario of drug induced highs and lows. Most of the interactions with my mother had to do with her trying to cram me into the fantasy of how I was to serve her. It came in the form of performing well to ensure she could take credit for my good doing, wanting an instantaneous love that was not built on anything sustainable, to being a receptacle for her rage and being made into the perpetrator so she could have a release of emotional pressure. It’s interesting how all of this sounds eerily familiar, behaviors that I have then displayed in my romantic relationships. For many years I have attempted to explain to her that the disconnect between us simply could not be resolved by just sweeping it under the rug and synthesizing the drug of love. I nicknamed this feeling Flove, the endorphin feeling of love, the manufactured version which is not sustainable because it is not produced within oneself, it is hijacked from a fantasy of the mind. It comes and goes in the blink of an eye depending on where one is in the story line of the fantasy. On the top, when one is feeling high, is the part where the person is rescued by their lover, cared for and provided for unconditionally, perhaps also in an overly passionate way. However the person craving this high is also afraid of intimacy so if the desire is actually reciprocated with consistency, it triggers a feeling of being suffocated. There is no build up in these relationships, it’s all or nothing. On the bottom end, the crash, is acknowledgment that the fantasy eventually comes to and end and the high simply can not be maintained.
I relate it to sustainable farming practices. When soil is over farmed, all of the nutrients have been sucked out of the soil. These relationships have no real sustainable form of replenishing what’s good and what’s true. Sustainable practices in relationship are slow moving, they don’t look like fire woks all of the time. In fact, some of them are outright painful. The transition into even and equal exchanges of realistic and maintainable building blocks of a healthy relationship, are only attained by exposing some of my inner demons and my flaws and insecurities, in a healthy way. For example, by explaining why I feel a certain feelings and stating my fears and my anxiety in a non-blaming way. I also state that I really like him and let it be known that I have two feet in the relationship. I have to trust that he will like me anyway. What makes it all worth it is an exponential growing in my capacity for love. When I am secure in my relationship I feel happy. The security comes from understanding and sustainable emotional exchanges. This is exactly the kind of relationship that will never happen with my mother. I know she did the best she could. I know she is sick. I have empathy for her situation, but I have severe sadness too. I am being compelled to open up some more space in my heart. He inspires me to do so because I want more room for him.
Could I say that I forgive my mother in a letter and still not have direct contact with her? The wounds that were inflicted by her during my childhood are deep, they cause me to feel me panic and unsafe. My whole life I have looked at all people and relationships through this filter. On my hard days, I can’t wrap my mind around how relationships could be anything other than one-sided. But slowly I am seeing another way, Slowly I am learning how to let my guard down. I am shown that it is not about winning, but about opening.
I feel a strike of mistrust in my vulnerability, this is why I live 3000 miles away. I felt open and then close up like a clam. I simply can not go near her. I still have intense fear when I think about her. My stomach tenses. It is not safe but I don’t think that prevents me from forgiveness and I’m sure things like this are a process, that need to unfold and build upon each other. I will transform my hatred and anger that I have felt for my mother and redefine it as fear. She scared me, she hurt me, I was little, I was growing I was vulnerable all of the time. I could not escape. She abused me she took advantage of my love. I am hurt, I was hurt, I cried for so long. I spent years in my closet just trying to find a place where I could experience peace. I was shamed, it was proved to me that I was not safe in the world, she told me things and used her words simply to compete with my abuse, so that she could let herself off the hook and feel like a victim too. I could never be the victim because in her eyes that was her role. I have so much fear of her, I am scared of her. As long as I stay away from her I am safe.
Dear Mom,
I have fear that you won’t understand what I am saying. I fear that you will misinterpret this letter to believe that you were a perfect mother. Part of why I keep you at bay is because your actions when I was a child whether you were aware of it or not left me deeply wounded. I feel that in the past when I have tried to express this you have become defensive and became the victim and were unable to take responsibility for things that actually happened during my childhood as well as discount my feelings around my own experience because you think it reflects on you too badly. There were things about your mothering that I remember fondly, like you singing somewhere over the rainbow when I was falling asleep, I remember playing with your mouth and tapping on your teeth. I know you took me to the library. There are so many other memories I have of loneliness, sadness and trauma. I wish that you could have empathized with my process and experiences sooner in my adult life, instead I felt like you denied them because you believed they were a reflection of you. I find it hard to have a relationship with you because our perception of the first 18 years of my life are so radically different. The thing is, I want to forgive you, but I am scared that if I do you will take that to mean that I think I had a great childhood or that the hurt I felt as a child, which still comes up in my adult relationships, was fabricated or over exaggerated.
I am not ready for a close relationship with you. I need you to acknowledge that you understand how it must have felt like for me growing up in a house with you and my dad. I need you to take responsibility for the events that transpired when I was little and admit that you were the adult and I was a child. That it was your job to protect me. I don’t want you to feel guilty but I do want to feel understood. I want to connect with you I always have, but I have never felt heard by you. This is quite possibly the most vulnerable thing I have ever written. I am terrified of the repercussions of sending this. I fear that your response will be more of the same stuff about how you love me......that is not what I want. What I want is for you to express to me that you understand that my childhood was scary, damaging, hurtful, harmful and ask me about my experiences. I want to tell about my perception of what happened growing up and I want you to hear me and understand and acknowledge my pain and suffering, instead of deny it.
This is something I have been trying to do for years and to be honest I have very little confidence that you will be capable of doing this now. But I can tell you this, if you want to have contact with me it is a necessary part of the authentic relationship process for me. If you can’t I don’t know where to go from there. I know that you have survived by using this survival skill and maybe it’s out of your control and there’s no way you can do what I am asking, but I figured I would give it a try again. Please don’t call me. I’m not ready to talk yet. If you call I’ll take that as a sign as you disrespecting my boundaries and it will only move us further apart.
ME
What I just wrote still feels like the same story. I will not send that, I will send is this:
Dear Mom,
You are human. You have feelings and you do the best you can. I must accept this and move on. I forgive you. I forgive you for everything. But most of all I respect the fact that I am now responsible for my own life and my own joy. I know this is just the first step, but I release the tarp that has covered all of my resentment toward you in my heart and I will let the pieces of debris float off into space. I know it won’t happen all at once but, I have unlocked the cage that held my hatred and my deepest seeded fears. Thank you for being my mom. I wouldn’t be here without you.
ME
I want to stay here, the space where I can love, the space where I have joy, the space where I am met. It is a space of trust, it is mine for the taking.
I don’t know what to feel. I am confronted with the fact that I have to trust. If I forgive, I let go. I am so scared. I don’t want to be hurt let down, abandoned. How can I possibly trust her? After all this time after all this time, after so many years of resentment pain and anger. How can I possibly do this? Because I want to be open to loving him, because I am worth my happiness, because I deserve to be happy, because the lesson is in the trust, in the process, not in the result. He has burst my heart open and inspired me to be present to be in the moment. He has shown me how to say what I feel, how my vulnerability can never let me down, that with love all things are possible, that magical things happen if I just open my mind to the possibilities. There is such a huge part of me that wants to run away. But he has shown me the benefit of living honestly with an open heart. I practically can’t describe what I am feeling. I feel such an incredible sense of freedom around my fear and anxiety with him. I could act as if her responses and ways of being are not about me. I’ll tell you one thing is for sure, I want to tell him all about it. I want to share this experience with him. I wasn't to open up to him like I never have before. I want to take a flying leap toward him and let him catch me. I have no fear. I know he will be there. I am amazed at how everything is interwoven and connected in my consciousness. She triggered a fear, which lead to forgiveness of my mom, which lead to trust in him.
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