Texting with a friend this morning, and really over
numerous conversations, with numerous people, it occurred to me that I didn’t
have the customary attraction to sneaking around authority figures as a kid
that most do. Upon some reflection this
morning I have come to some realizations.
The first, is that being one of six children it is fairly easy to get
lost in the crowd. This made me question
my self-proclaimed loathe of attention and recognition. So I decided to dig a little deeper. I then found myself feeling like what I was
after was to be seen. This is not in the
look at me look at me sense though. I
think that I spent most of my childhood and adolescence hiding from myself
even. I’ve always known, well at least
since I recognized what it was, that I was attracted to women. Being raised as I was, surrounded by
well-intentioned religious stigma regarding homosexuality, coupled with
homophobic jokes and comments from family and friends alike, this deep dark
secret was devastating to me. I would
never be normal, right, righteous, or acceptable, even to myself. This then led me (see how ADD works with the
feeble minded???) to think about what a melancholy kid I often was. I had a lot of pain that I was dealing with,
and didn’t even have the vocabulary to process it all. So I developed a very tough image that I
portrayed. The best defense being a good
offense (that’s how the saying goes right?), I became a very hard and angry
person. I believed that if I was mean
enough, hard enough, strong enough, that I couldn’t be hurt again. But the truth of the matter was that I was
still hurting. Every day, and especially
at night, I hurt, and I was petrified, of everything. The real problem with hiding under the guise
of strength, if you get good enough at it, is that it doesn’t occur to those
around you that you are not capable, not able to process and/or handle
difficult situations that come up. The
thought process develops in the minds of those around you that you are a truly
strong person, and that you can handle anything and everything that comes your
way. The real kick in the gut is that
you have nobody to blame but yourself, as you have put every effort into
projecting yourself as that person who CAN and WILL handle, deal, survive,
thrive even. I believe there is a
terrible price to pay for dishonesty with oneself. It comes in a packaged deal with guilt,
self-loathing, anger, depression, and loneliness. And once you’ve slid so far down the rabbit
hole that you truly believe you can’t find your way out, then maybe, just maybe
you start to realize that you are not in fact as tough and as strong as you
think that you need to be. Maybe then
you realize that a connection with another human being is what you’ve needed
and craved all along. Distancing yourself
from everyone and everything in an effort to become strong has really only
weakened you. This is how it was for me
at any rate. In letting go, and allowing
myself to acknowledge my own nature, that I DO long for that connection, that
space to be vulnerable and trusting with another person, I’ve found a kind of
new and empowering strength. I’ve
discovered that I revel in conversation, communication, connection. It’s how I best learn and grow, and how I’m
best able to see myself. It’s possible
that this is what I’ve needed all along, to be able to see myself. I’ve needed to get out of my box, out of my
bunker to see myself and the world at large from other perspectives to be able
to piece the puzzle, my puzzle, together.
