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Posts Tagged ‘Sadie Smythe’
Sadie Says … See Me.
“See Me” it read, once it was finished. I hated how it looked aesthetically so it later went in the garbage. The process had been the important part ….
It was a mixed media piece that I created Christmas Eve 2011, naked in the loft, candles burning a circle around me, canvas stretched out underneath my feet. Paint dripped down my leg and glue bits dotted my bangs. The cat pushed paws around ripped up pieces of printed photos – muted memories clinging to tomorrow.
I conjured up this particular desire, the desire to be seen as I worked on the painting. Not as a woman whose marriage was failing, whose Christmas Eve was the first she’d spent alone. Not as a blogger who had for years sought attention from whomever might pay it by divulging intimacies generally reserved for close friends. I wanted not to be seen for what a google search would turn up or a rushed conversation after a BedPost show might indicate about who I am … or who I am not. Perception is a squirrely area, a place within whose walls we hover with calculated trepidation. Social media asks us to present ourselves. And we do, while continuing to hide who we really are. We want to control those perceptions.
And as a woman who writes about sex, speaks about sex, produces a storytelling show about sex and sexuality, I understand that assumptions and perceptions don’t always match the person being perceived. And I have come to terms with this. Mostly. Until that Christmas Eve when the craving was white-hot and the need to be understood was deep as black night. It was so intense a desire that I mistook the advance of a lover the very next night as witness of the Sadie who is. I was certain that the many hours of sheet-swimming that had ensued meant my asking to be affirmed, seen, had been answered – and so quickly! But I was too mired in denial to be astonished at such a serendipitous Universal turnaround.
Goddamned denial.
Because, in truth, he hadn’t really seen me. No, not at all. He didn’t see the Sadie who feels so deeply that the pain often transcends the physical, leaving a cold quiet nothing in its place. Or the Sadie who cries often – because she has to – the release of it bordering on orgasmic. Or the Sadie who is still capable of feeling the sting of rejection just as she did when she was 13 and every last one of her friends ostracized her the entire summer. Or the Sadie who likes nothing more than to curl up on a comfy couch and watch really bad television with someone she loves, who likes to nap there, nuzzled in sweaty cotton and warmth. Or the Sadie who is quite afraid to go on a roller coaster but will do it anyway, just because her kid wants to. He didn’t see these pieces of me.
Because he wasn’t supposed to.
And, it seems, I didn’t know how to be seen. Until now.
Now …. I am being seen, bit by bit, piece by piece, by someone entirely new. By someone entirely different from (yet strikingly similar to) me.
By someone entirely awesome.
And even more importantly, I am seeing. Seeing him for who he is, seeing me for who I am, and seeing how we can fit together while remaining separate, individual pieces.
Because that is ultimately how we see people, isn’t it?
When we are just far enough apart to be able to look their way.
Sadie Says … Watch Me.
No, I really mean “watch me” … But only if ya wanna.
This is me reading a chapter from my book, Open All the Way at the last BedPost Confessions -
Sadie Asks … What Turns You Off?
So, dear reader … what turns you off?
I am discovering that my own ON/OFF switch operates much differently than it once did. Nowadays it takes a little more to turn me on – more eye contact, more philosophical conversation, more authenticity, more everything actually…. but it takes much less to turn me off than it once did. Meaning my switch flips rather quickly these days. And it doesn’t just go OFF, finishing with a gracious “Thankyouverymuchforbeinghere” but instead it goes OFF, and then exits the building, announcing tersely,
“HellfuckingNoThankYouIamJustFineGoAwayNow.”.
The thing that turns me off the most is the expectation of sex.
I can be attracted, enchanted and/or crushing hard on someone I don’t know very well and if that person lets me know, overtly or subtly, that they have an expectation that I will get naked with them, an expectation that I will happily consent to shedding my regal robes, providing them with direct and ample access to my own personal crown jewels, an expectation that we will fuck, either straight away or in the future … I will freeze right the hell up. Yep, if they let me know that screwing me is their expectation I turn into a block of ice. You might as well wrap me in cling film and throw me in the walk-in.
Actually, that sounds like it could be fun.
Am I becoming less sexual in my older age? I don’t think so. I just want someone to be with me because they like me as a person, not simply because I might be decent in bed. Who doesn’t, right? It’s that whole I want to be loved for me, not my ability to make you come thing. Is this me growing up or is it me growing into myself? I think it might be both, and my body flipping switches is simply its newly natural response to … sexpectation. And it’s annoyed, I suppose, my body. Because with that expectation comes a sense of entitlement. And that? That is the turn off.
I used to wonder if the expectation of sex exists because of what I do. I am a sex writer and a producer of a sex storytelling show after all. I am all about sex, aren’t I? I recently tested this in conversations with a potential FWB I had met online (and yes, I get that it sounds like there is expectation in that sentence itself, but the thing is that I never expect anything to work out a certain way, I only lay the foundation for the possibility of it.)
Anyway …. I didn’t tell him anything about what I did. All he knew is that I was 44 years old and that I had a “progressive attitude” about sex. It wasn’t long until he was asking me to provide him with masturbatory material in the form of pics and texts and dialogue about what we might do together once we met on person. I had yet to actually meet him and therefore I wasn’t really a person to him yet. Perhaps I was just an ethereal vagina. Am I surprised by this? Of course not
But I was definitely turned off.
HellfuckingNoThankYouIamJustFineGoAwayNow.
And I should be clear that I am not simply requiring this … respect. I am also reciprocating as well. I am all about taking it slow these days. I have certainly done plenty of objectifying of others in the past. The “he is hot and I want to fuck him … tonight” conversation is not one that is foreign to me, by any stretch. But what I am finding, I guess, is that I am just not in that space any longer. Being single has softened me a little bit I think. And I guess that is because I know now –perhaps because I was married for so long and learned what works and what doesn’t– exactly what I want in (and from) my next long or short term partner(s).
And really? I have had enough casual sex to last a lifetime.
I guess what I am saying is that if am going to get turned on, it will be for (and with) someone without expectations, entitlements, or the need for it to happen.
Because neediness? Yeah. Another big ‘ol turn off.
So, what turns you off?
Sadie Says … Test
I know better than to make rules for myself, rules such as: No more men for a while, Sadie, while you figure out not only what you have to give, but what you need in return.
I know better than to create such restrictions. Why? Because doing so only invites a test.
And I suck at tests.
It wasn’t an hour, perhaps two at the most, that I had agreed to commit to this No More Men resolution before such a test had indeed presented itself. The test subject was cute in that approachable way, although I likely would not have even noticed him had he not noticed me. I had quietly erected blinders in order to keep any possibility at bay – effectively cock-blocking my own self. My mind had decided on going on this man-diet and my body was following dutifully along. But wouldn’t you know? It was only moments before I had begun the ardent task of removing them. All it took was a smiling voice from behind me, asking what I was drinking.
See? I really suck at tests.
But how could I resist his interest, especially given the timing? How could I resist the enthusiasm of a sweet stranger wanting to know the stories of me? How could I resist quiet contemplation? What about compliments and long stares and shared philosophies? How could I resist a lack of pretense and an eager curiosity? Or the beautiful vulnerability of really being heard?
Being seen?
Being understood?
I could not resist. So I did not resist, even though I tried. Okay, I lied. I did not try very hard; just enough to assuage any future guilt. Just enough to reconcile my desire against my need to be true to my own word.
But, ultimately I failed the test.
Two naked bodies, one bed and zero expectations. We failed that test together, happily. Easily. Without care of the outcome. We were two people, strangers no more, pursuing the simple pleasures of the self while soothing the crooked, jagged lines of loneliness.
And since I was capable of giving that to him, and he to me, needs were met… all the way around.
Which means that maybe I passed the test after all.
Sadie Says… Quiet.
I lie in the tub, the cool air teases my nipples as they peek out of the water. The grey tabby sits on the edge, batting at the surface, lavender-scented drops move from paw to tongue. My daughter appears, sits next to me, softly recites poetry she wrote in class. I relax further into the tub. I am steeped in slippery warmth and closeness, and boundless gratitude for the simplicity I had craved for so very long.
These beautiful, stark moments of quiet I relish completely. Short days filled with tasks of my choosing, organized so that it is I who presides over its delegation. Long nights of documentaries and hot tea, an over-sized bed, alone but for the whiskered beasts that laze beside me – purring reminders that such decadence is necessary; ensures vitality. Occasional evenings with friends, where conversations are dwellings of understanding, where I discover who I am.
Today at least.
Morning workouts with no agenda.
Afternoon strolls along the blue water, remembering my youth.
A midnight guest, come for a moonlight swim in the crisp white sheets of my bed.
Work.
School runs.
Homework.
Dinner.
Dishes.
Reveling in the ordinary. Because I am tethered only to my own ordinary. It is mine to make.
As is everything else.
Sadie Says … Love Forever.
My daughter and I were watching a program recently where one of the characters pledged to love the current object of her affection, her partner, forever. My daughter inexplicably paused the television and turned to me to ask, “But you can’t commit to an emotion for the rest of your life, can you? I mean, it’s an emotion. You can’t control your emotions like that, can you?”
She’s not quite twelve and the girl is already questioning the dynamics of love, the language surrounding it and the meanings that such language creates. And I have to say that I adore her for her capacity to challenge such established notions.
The characters on TV -who were perhaps 20ish- symbolize the cultural narrative (in which monogamy is the prevailing precept, which is, I dare say, subtly inferred inside the statement I will love you forever,) and their love-pledge illustrates the concept of everlasting love and the assumption that it exists for most, regardless of the level of its participants’ emotional intelligence, which I think informs the possibility of everlasting love. Emotional intelligence is grown, acquired, through relationship experience, and by questioning relationship dynamics and learning various ways of operating inside of them. I also believe that acknowledging the very real truth that most relationships end or at the very least change/shift/morph into something else is part and parcel of acquiring it. One learns through experience exactly what love means inside of long-term relationships – in all of their beauty; tinged with adversity, jealousy, longing, tension and communication mishaps that are sure to make even the most passionate of us ask, What is all of this love business for, anyway? But that is the nature of love, isn’t it? It makes us question who we are. What we want. Provokes us to procure a value system with this particular notion firmly embedded - I truly believe I will love you forever. Therefore I will.
But on some level she’s right, my daughter. We cannot know with absolute, unfettered certainty who we will love tomorrow, just as we cannot now with certainty that Magic Mike will do well at the box office. My guess is that it will, simply because the opportunity for women to objectify men in such blatant regard doesn’t present itself often enough – and we ladies, yes, we have sex drives too – we wouldn’t dare miss the opportunity to objectify a hot guy in our patriarchal society. Especially when the simple observance of Channing Tatum’s abs is the equivalent of eating two pints of Cookies and Cream, but without those pesky calories. Deliciousness.
I digress.
But she’s also not quite correct. Because the truth is that we do have the capacity for long-term love. I hope anyway. I posed this question the other day on Facebook and was inundated with many thought-provoking responses. My question was this,
Do you believe one can sincerely, authentically commit, in real-world application, not metaphor, to loving someone else for the rest of their lives? Is futuristic love predictable? Or is the phrase “I will love you forever,” simply a symbolic statement we use to convey the emotional weight that we feel presently?
I entered into the conversation with an admittedly cynical attitude. I know, personally, that my own emotions are, or at least can be, fleeting feelings. They are part of my body’s machine, integral to its mechanical process, but not something that has to drive me. I possess them, endure them if I have to, revel in them when I feel so inclined, and perhaps I occasionally avoid them. But can I commit to the emotion I feel at any given time? Can I predict its occurrence? Can I say, I am going to be mad as hell next Thursday at 1:15. Whoooo, My ass is going to be chapped right then.
No, of course not. So can I say with certainty, I will love you next Thursday at 1:15 ?
Of course it’s not quite so black and white. Generally, anger requires provocation in order to manifest. But what about love? Does it need to be cultivated? I thought it did. But I learned -or was perhaps reminded- through my interaction with my Facebook friends … that love is different that way.
Love is a choice.
And it is inside of that choice that makes love have a power, a power that other emotions do not possess, and never will. Love is acceptance, in every sense of the word. It does not require reciprocity, nor does it need to be redacted as an act of vengeance or ego-preservation. Like choosing to love, taking love away is a choice made by the person who has offered it. It is my choice to love someone. And within that space of loving, truly and honestly loving someone without ego or expectation … I am given a gift.
Sounds new-agey, I know.
Because really? Love? That is a power that resides in me. It’s free, it doesn’t cost a thing – not my self-respect, not my self-worth, nor my vitality, well-being, satisfaction, fulfillment or by ability to self-express. In it, with love, I sacrifice nothing. It is unlimited. And it gives back immeasurably. Fills me up, nourishes my spirit. Reminds me that I am not alone in this world. To give love is to get it in return. Even if the object of my love does not grant his or her love back to me, I will still get it in return – from someone else. I believe that.
I have to believe that.
I tell my daughter I will love her forever, and I am certain that I will. I cannot imagine not loving her, you see, and this is where the idea of loving forever, and the sentiment attached to it, might very well originate. The sheer unfathomable-ness of such a scenario is so weighted, so impossible to construe, that I avoid even contemplating it. I see that this is where the power lies – in loves ineffable nature.
This is how big love is.
So big that we don’t ever want it to stop.
I certainly would never say to my daughter, I think I will love you forever, although don’t quote me on that, because I don’t know how I will feel in the future. That would just be mean. And inaccurate. And it would do nothing to help her cultivate the emotional intelligence I know she has the capacity for, and it would leave her muddled to the possibilities that loving can create.
We want to be loved. We need to be loved.
And we need to love.
So, to my daughter I say this – “No, Babygirl, you can’t predict your emotions or where and how they will show up down the line. But love? Love is different, which I guess is why it is so very special. And I promise you, I PROMISE you, my darling love, that love is something you can count on me for …
Forever.”
“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.” ~E.M Forster
Sadie Says … the D. Word and Youthful Spiritedness.
She says I migrate towards younger men because I have a “youthful spirit”. I think it’s because -on some subconscious level that is beginning to beckon my recognition- I desire to re-live the days when I was younger; impetuous and insatiable … in all things.
Good therapists, like mine, will oblige us these affirmations, won’t they? The truth is though, that I honestly don’t feel 43, whatever 43 is meant to feel like, anyway. I remember feeling much older back when I was in my 20’s, and I hear my younger friends echo that sentiment regularly – I am only 25 and I feel like an old woman/man. Well, that’s because twenties are the gateway to adulthood, darlin’, and all that such passage entails – supporting oneself financially and emotionally for perhaps the first time ever, negotiating intense relationships that have the potential to be long-term, and finally coming to the deep understanding that life is hard – its difficulty existing on that vast and overwhelming continuum. Learning to operate within the knowledge of that is damned exhausting. I was tired all the time back then. Now I know that being knocked down just means I have to get my ass back up again. And I know that relationships won’t last forever like we think they will.
My divorce was final last Wednesday, and if you follow my Facebook news feed you might have seen my posts regarding it. I surprised myself by publicizing it the way I did, I tend to keep such personal announcements personal – well, until here, of course, where I might air grievances and personal narratives like cool-crisp, lily-white sheets on a breezy spring afternoon. Seeing just what my friends had for breakfast never really trips even the quiet recesses of my brain’s pleasure center, but one of my most recent posts is of a pic of a cup of fucking coffee. I am certain that the number of “likes” I receive at my divorce status updates have little to do with the fact that my friends are happy for the shift in my relationship’s status as it is a reflection of whose offering a show of support for me and my situation. Which is pretty cool to know.
The ex and I had been sitting in the courtroom for a little less than an hour last Wednesday. It was hot and muggy in there, our knees were touching. I was texting with a cute (young) guy from Houston who was coming in that evening and wondered if I was available. I happened to be. We made plans for his arrival – he with a mere 26 years behind him and I with my youthful spirit.
Periodically the ex and I would speak to each other as we sat and waited. The mood was jovial considering the circumstances and at one point he asked me in a whisper if I thought the judge would mind if he read the declaration – the standard announcement of a divorce hearing, about the marriage being irreconcilable and whatnot – in a deep-woods Southern accent. I thought it would be funny. And apt. The ex’s strongest suit is his wit, and was what connected us even in our most vast instances of disconnect. When it was our turn to approach the bench, second to last as it turned out, he began to do just that, beginning with “Your honor, this marriage…” and continuing into unrecognizable sentences until the two of us were hunched over in laughter. “I usually see people crying in front of me” she said with a sideways grin, “How refreshing this is.” And it was. Truly. Not only for her but for us, too. Well, for me at least.
And when we were done, we had celebratory drinks at a local coffee shop near my house, and afterwards I went to the gym and worked all the sadness out of my bones, poured it like liquid concrete; a psychic cast of past. And then that night I had my date with the 26 year-old.
And it is true I have a youthful spirit, yes. And yes, the idea of beginning my life after divorce in bed with a man the age I was before I got married rings very reminiscent of someone attempting to re-live her past. But I am fairly certain, as certain as one can be in such instances, that my past will remain just that, and that whatever the rest of my life holds for me will be relished with the wisdom of a woman of my years and the energy and enthusiasm of … someone younger.
But not too.
I’m off to a good start …
Sadie Says … A-Train, A-Play.
Sometimes I glimpse my mother inside of myself; I might see her face in mine when I round the corner into the bathroom, my lips fixed just so. Sometimes I’ll hear her in my voice, inside the very timbre of my words, and marvel at how they echo the sentiments I once considered fatalistic – those cars are driving way too fast down this street, the music is awfully aggressive, isn’t it? do you really want to wear that out to dinner, honey?
Mothers have a way of turning into their mothers in at least one way, if not another.
My mother might offer advice to strangers, even; if she happens to have first-hand knowledge of a sort that they appear to lack. Mothers enjoy being helpful after all. It’s one of the things they do best. Nurturing spirits long not only to provide care.. but to educate.
But my mother would not have poked her nose into the business of four teenage girls riding the Express A train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. At least not the four teenage girls that this mother (that would be me) encountered last week. No, I am pretty sure Mom would have been a tad bit mortified by their conversation, or at the very least bemused. And surely she’d have kept her mouth shut (if it weren’t hanging wide open, that is) — the certainty with which I say this has its basis in the assumption that their conversation’s topic is not in her area of expertise.
But it is in mine.
I couldn’t help but listen in. Two of them were sitting right next to me on the bench so the access was easy, the other two sitting across on the other side, legs draping the floor of the train. They were all wearing skinny jeans, tight tees and low-top Converse, and carrying little purses, the contents of which I could probably guess – lipgloss, money, metro card, gum, cell phone, condoms. The short-haired girl sitting on the other side of the one sitting next to me was up in arms about some boy she liked, or at least did like, until she decided he must be gay…
“Do you know what he told me?” she hissed at the girl sitting just beside me, “He said that Molly stuck a finger in his ass and it made him laugh! Can you believe that? I mean, he just let her do that and he thought it was funny?”
I looked over at her and I swear I saw fire flames dancing inside her pupils. Her friend responded, “What’s the problem exactly?”
“The problem? The problem is that that means he’s gay! Any dude who lets anyone put a finger or anything else in his ass MUST be gay!”
Her friend, the one sitting next to me, just shrugged. I looked toward the other two girls across the width of the train and their glassy-eyed, teenaged stares pulled me backwards in time – the faces of friends who either have no opinion or have no inclination to offer it. These other girls know their place in the hierarchy, I thought; the short-haired girl is obviously the righteous ruler in this particular pecking order.
“God, I can’t believe it, I mean, can you believe it? I can’t believe he’s gay, I like really liked him, ya know?”
This is where I interrupted. And I interrupted her not in order to save this poor boy from being unduly railroaded in the middle of a westbound train, but more to save her poor little friends from having to endure any more of her insistent whining, whining which had no foundation in fact.
Plus, I have been known to offer advice to strangers. You know, whenever I have first-hand knowledge that they apparently lack…
“Um, excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and I just wanted to say something. There are actually a lot of nerve endings in the anus and it’s because of this that the ass can be a great source of pleasure for men. Women too.” The short-haired girl just stared at me, but her friend piped up, “Yeah, I heard that!”
I continued, “Think about it, we have pussies, because we are girls, men have cocks, since they are guys, but we all have assholes. Why would only gay men’s assholes like to have fingers, or anything else, in them?” The short-haired girl cocked her head at me, squinted her eyes. I kept on speaking, “I personally know quite a few straight men who love to have their asses played with. Dildos, fingers, vibrators even!”
“Really?” she asked. I peered over at her friends across the way, both of whom were smiling. I suspected they knew all of this already. They probably had encountered a few ass-centric straight guys too.
“Yep, really! And I know a lot of chicks who like anal sex. And I also know gay men who don’t like it at all. So, ya see, just because this guy let someone go there doesn’t mean that he’s gay. It just means he might like having his ass played with.”
She had one more question, “But, but … I know straight guys who won’t let anyone get anything near their butts! They get really mad about it even, because they don’t want anyone thinkin’ they’re gay. So, if it’s fun and all, why are they getting mad?”
“Well, that’s simple, hon. That’s because of the very false assumption, the one that y’all were actually furthering with this conversation, that butt play makes a dude gay. But now you know that is not necessarily true, right?”
“Wow, yeah. Yeah, I do. Thanks.” Her friends heads nodded in unison, “Yeah, cool,” as the four of them walked off the train.
With that, my motherly duty had been done.
And I am certain that my own mother, had she been there sitting beside me that day, would have been able to conjure up some pride for me and my nurturing, sex-educational spirit… that is after she had picked her jaw up off the floor of the A train.
Sadie Says … That’s Life
I spoke with someone last week, someone who has faced great adversity in his life, including the loss of loved ones in a plane crash. Yet he, despite having endured abject sadness, spoke to me with a radiance of such depth that I could practically hear him smiling over the phone line.
This is what he said to me ~
We all face difficulties during our lifetime Sadie, challenges large and small, but it is up to us to decide how gracefully we move through them. The more we manage to act with intention, the more wisdom we build.
I have thought about his words many times since then as I’ve pondered the last several months. And I can consider many of the graceless ways in which I acted over the course of my entire life, if I look back even further … while simultaneously attempting to balance those memories out with the ones that recalled me acting in integrity, and with purpose and meaning. But then I remember that it all has meaning, doesn’t it? Every step we take gets us to where we are supposed to be. Even the stumbly steps lead us to right here and right now.
A couple of days after that phone conversation, I was standing in my living room chatting with a photographer who had come over to take pictures of my house. She’s a writer, too, and is about to embark upon an adventure to a faraway land. I am envious of what she is creating for herself in part because her plan is similar to the one I often fantasize about once my little kiddo flees the nest. But mostly I am inspired. By a single woman carving her very own path. One that, I would guess, has also been paved with chunks of clunkiness, tempered by certain gracefulness.
Because that’s how life is.
She asked me how my book sales were going. I wrote a book, you may know. It is about my open marriage. Or what was my open marriage. I told her that the electronic version was selling fairly well on Amazon but that sales on my old website had stalled out. I thought about it for a quick moment and then admitted to her, easily, because she seemed the type of person that I could be really frank with, that I didn’t much feel like promoting the book any longer. It felt disingenuous; as if, by doing so, I was standing for something that I didn’t have the credibility to represent. After all, I don’t have an open marriage any longer.
I don’t even have a marriage.
But, that’s life, right?
We make our way in the manner we know how, and then we get stuck and we back up or turn around or veer off course or stop for a while and recalibrate and then get going again. Sometimes we fuck up in the interim and sometimes we make choices that feel like we are doing the right thing. And sometimes, even if it feels right, it just isn’t. And sometimes, even if it feels wrong, it turns out to be right after all.
And I guess that this is how I am beginning to feel after these two conversations collided – like I am going the right way. Even if sometimes it feels like I am being heaved backwards by situations and scenarios far beyond my control, I am moving in the direction I am supposed to. Being reminded to act as gracefully as possible was simply… a road sign. Confronting my conflict with my book was, too.
And having an open marriage?
Well that was one of my paths to enlightenment – in learning that my marriage wasn’t everything that I thought it was.
But, hey… that’s life.
Sadie Says … Back on Track
I have had, deep inside me …
No, my sweet pervs, not *that*
Although, I can’t tell you how much I fancy a deep and abiding thrust of steadfast, unintentional lust within the expanse of me. Inside my body, my being, falling forward toward remote places within me. Long. Fast. Hard. Soft. Slow. Stirring.
Definitive.
No, instead …. I have had, deep inside me, a misery that I could not define. One that I understood, even as I moved through it, was purposeless, feckless, meaningless. It served only to hinder myself and all that I touch.
I understand now that it is not valuable to be attached to emotions that result from situations beyond my control, the outcomes of which often have nothing at all to do with me but are simply behaviors of the other people involved. How arrogant of me it is to think “they did this to me.” How self-serving it is for me to attach a meaning beyond the fact that what happened … just happened.
That is all.
But we do that, don’t we? Take a scenario and make it ours to relate to. We construct a story from it and turn that narrative into a barrier – a barrier to possibility and empowerment within our relationships – and we use the thoughts and feelings that arise from that story to keep ourselves locked into another narrative – “I am right, you are wrong,” and that blame sits in the way of being really focused on what matters and gets in the way of our productivity. Our possibility.
Fuck, I did that. I made it all about me. Yep… I spent the last couple of weeks since the last post I wrote literally paralyzed by, “You did this to me, you motherfuckers.” But there is no power in that, is there? There is only anger and hurt and victim-hood. Sitting inside of that space was, I get now, a waste of my precious time. But knowing where we have let ourselves be derailed is often the key to letting things be what they are, yes? So that then we can get back on track.
I’ve got too much to do in this world to let such a state propel me into the tailspin of inaction. And so today I move forward. I will look closely at every piece of my life that I am not satisfied with and take responsibility for my part in creating it. And I will gain wisdom in letting things be what they are.
In all their infinite complexities.
And perhaps soon there will be a story to tell about me having something less abstract and more concrete (or silcone, or glass or ceramic… or better yet, FLESH!) … inside of me.