I felt a bit icky after what I wrote to you earlier. As if I was trying too hard to be whoever you would like me to be. As if I had to convince you of anything. That I’m smart and funny and interesting enough to be around, to keep close. Pleading for you to please please please see me and not through me. To consider me when you think about how and with whom you’d like to spend your time. To live in your mind rent free for a while, as you’ve lived vicariously through mine.
Something shifted inside of me a couple of weeks ago. I took a deep dive into myself, or so I suppose, (all by myself, so that I didn’t have to watch over anyone else’s mask or breathing tube for a change) and in a dimly lit cave on the bottom of the ocean, I found the remnants of myself, the ones I left behind about 30 years ago.
Back then I was told, over and over again, that I wasn’t what was expected. Or how I was meant to be. Not to be loved unconditionally. But to be rejected for who I was. Not enough to come home to. Or too much to handle. Not enough to spend time with. To care for, to keep safe. Fight for. Cuddle. To let be and love.
So I rejected the lovers, teamed up with the cowards (what else was I to do?) and left me there to rot, on the bottom of the ocean. Long enough so that my flesh would fall off my bones of its own accord. Disintegrated. Dissolved. Never to be found again.
The thing is, the water knew that someday I’d come back, so she preserved me for me. Kept the pieces together that I left so carelessly behind. Kept me alive, fragmented but complete.
That’s how I’ve been lying there all this time, like an unassembled puzzle.
Once I got me back on land, I put myself together again. It’s funny because I now look like a life-sized, living, walking, breathing, dancing Kintsugi mug. With golden threads running all through my hair and skin, across my lips and chin and belly button, all the way down to my toes. When I sneeze, the threads get liquid and shift a bit. When I smile, they illuminate. I’m trying out a bunch of stuff just to see when, with which movement or affect, they’ll rearrange themselves, change form or start tingling. I trace them with my fingertips.
Since I’ve taken on this new form, I don’t really care to convince anyone of anything anymore. Everything revolves around showing up now. Showing up for someone. For yourself. For life. Wholeheartedly. Enthusiastically. Profoundly. Courageously.
It’s about celebrating. Myself. The other. Life. Wholeheartedly. Courageously. Enthusiastically. Showing up for all of it. Meanwhile handing out spoonfuls of sugar to the ones crying and bleeding and smoking on the tiled bathroom floor.
I can honestly say I’ve tried to be a good guest at your party. I’ve tried. I’ve tried. I’ve tried tirelessly. I blew up the balloons, brought candles for the cake, invited you to dance and covered you in glitter when I felt like you needed it. When Í needed it. And when you reluctantly declined to dance with me, I never seized to stop trying. To try and make you feel better, feel more courageous maybe. But I probably only made you feel more uncomfortable. I thought you needed it, that you eventually would let go of your reluctance and dance dance dance with me around the sticky dance floor, meanwhile accepting, enduring at least, to dance around with a little bit of glitter in your hair. And that this would set you free for even the tiniest of moments. And then things would be better after it.
But eventually, Í turned out to be the one needing my efforts the most. Maybe that was the mistake, that I didn’t stop sooner, didn’t relinquish when you refused to take my hand when I invited you for a spin across the confetti covered dance floor.
At least I can say I’ve given it my best. I found peace in all the ways I celebrated you, many of which you are not aware. I believed. In you. In me. In us. In adventure. In magic. And confetti covered dance floors.
But maybe giving it my best was never what was needed.
All I know is that it wasn’t enough to keep the music playing. To keep the party going.
Maybe it wasn’t supposed to.
And maybe, just maybe, you never even invited me to begin with.
