the calm, and river wind

My mind is calm today. It’s a welcome change to the clashing drumbeats that have been pounding in my head for the last 24 hours or so. Nothing bad, but I did have a moment of awakening last night at the meeting, and things started to make sense in a way that they never have before. I’m starting to figure some things out – some patterns in my life that kept repeating, some things that kept happening to me, and situations I’d find myself in and hate, but that I put upon myself in past relationships, and in my childhood.
 
Last week, I learned the difference between guilt and shame. Genuine guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done – it can be fixed by making amends and being genuinely sorry – and making sure you don’t repeat the mistake. Mistakes are things we do, not who we are. Shame on the other hand is feeling bad about how you ARE. And I never realized until working through this program how much shame I had for bits of my past. Everybody has done things they’re not proud of, on some level. Mine usually manifested in relationships. I was not someone that I would want to be with. But I think, after last night – I’m starting to accept and come to terms with my past in a way that will fully allow me to embrace and realize my future. I am aware enough of those patterns and mistakes to not repeat them. Especially not now. What I have now is too good to be trivialized by those things. And I’m not that person anymore. I had it backwards, all along. I desperately wanted to feel safe somewhere. I wasn’t safe with myself. Being left alone, inside my head was a dangerous place. So I’d fill that space with others – I’d look for people that I thought at the time I could feel safe with. But I wasn’t willing to be vulnerable with them because it was scary. And you can’t truly feel safe without vulnerability first. That’s what I messed up. I thought you had to feel safe in order to be vulnerable, but it’s not true. Vulnerability is necessary, in a way, for building trust. And without trust or vulnerability it is impossible to be truly intimate with another person. A lot of times, codependent people look for relationships, but not intimacy because we want the other person to act as a buffer for us – so we can feel like we belong somewhere, and not have to face the reality of the void of emotions within ourselves. I’ve been guilty of that time and time again, looking for someone to fill that void. I don’t want a buffer anymore, and I haven’t since before I met her. I don’t want a void-filler, or someone to protect me or shelter me. I don’t want someone to save me, to drag me out from myself. I can do that on my own. I want someone that I can shine with, who I can show things to and can teach me in return. An equal partner, where one is not more important than the other, both of us matter and both of us see each other for who we are, apart from who we are together – and love and appreciate that distinction. And that’s the difference that is tangible that I can point to now and tell myself, or anyone else that will listen that yes, this is why it’s different. I’m different. I’m not ashamed of myself, I have forgiven myself for my past mistakes, for all the crap I put others through, for the crap I put myself through and the situations I put myself into that were unhealthy and incompatible with growth or a future. There was a lot more to that than I realized, and I spent a good part of the early morning hours this morning not sleeping in order to get it all out. It’s deeply personal, slightly intimidating and brutally honest stuff that I don’t feel like sharing all of. But that was the crux of it. I spoke with Spike briefly last night about all of this, and she agrees. Not only does she agree, but she feels the same way – and feels comfortable enough with me, and with our relationship to share that with me. We have a common ground that is balanced and not uneven. And I genuinely believe that is the only way to have a starting place. This is just the beginning. And I believe whole-heartedly that it is the start of something good, for both of us and we’re moving forward with equal footing. I don’t know where forward will lead, but I have a lot of hopes. Maybe all I’ll say on that is that I’ve been thinking of rivers a lot lately. Many things, and many reasons. But some of them don’t need to be said.
 
I did something yesterday, and something happened to me that has never happened before. I’m still not sure what to make of it. Yesterday was our anniversary, and I wrote something. I didn’t post it here, and I don’t know why, but I posted it elsewhere. And after I posted it (and also, won recognition and some sort of award for it) I decided it had to change. So, amid my 3am writing fest last night – I wrote something else. Something that I want only her to see. Something that is a piece of both of us. Something I am insanely proud of. And I have this compulsion (that I have so far managed to control) to read it to her. This is huge, on many levels. I rarely, if ever, read any of my writing or poetry out load – ESPECIALLY not to the person it was written for/about. That’s a big level of vulnerability for me, however – maybe the only way to hear poetry that is so deep and so full of…something is to hear it. Not saying I won’t write it out for her too, so she can have it and not only have a memory of it in her head – but I think I might. I’m seeing her tonight, and we’ll see if the urge will contain itself or I’ll take the coward’s way out and just hand her a piece of paper and see what she makes of it. But that I feel that way about something I’ve written speaks volumes to me.
 
Not much else to report. I’m enjoying the calm in spades and happy to be peaceful. At the same time, I’m thinking about so much, but it’s not in a tidal wave of thought, they’re coming one at a time, waiting their turn, and each and every one of them makes me smile.