Puzzled

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.