It’s been quite a year, especially since the closure of my last counselling session. My inner work and personal development have not stopped, nor should it, and while I find myself back on even keel, there is still a tension between the old me [my old ways] and the new me struggling to come out [new ways I am trying to adopt]. There are even people who would only be too happy to see me revert to my old self. Out of worry? Out of love? Projecting their fears, desperate to retain the status quo!
The moment that I described in Comfort, Salvation & The Angel of Cuddles was life changing. Up until then, I have never been able to forgive myself for my transgressions and fallibility. My internal critic was too autocratic and wouldn’t allow me to shrug off my foibles the way some people are able to do with impunity. I have never luxuriated in my humanity. I have never accepted that I am not perfect, and that is quite OK to, not be perfect. Too much of my sense of self and esteem was given over to what others think and thought, and not to what I think and want.
A friend was rather put out that I was not going to a party he organised. He harped on that it was not once, but TWICE that I have not attended the TWO parties that he invited me to attend. The first he acknowledged that I had prior arrangements, and he said, “But you and so and so, could still be together and come!” The second time… it doesn’t matter why, but his attitude told me that he was not interested in my reasons. Now that is quite OK, my concerns are not his. However, I was not going to indulge any explanations or justifications, not only because I do not have explain nor justify, but also because he was not interested.
Nor was I going to concede to his expectations!
Perhaps I am overreacting, [shrug], and thinking about it later over the weekend, yes, I am resentful at people who project onto me their expectations, assuming that I revolve around them. I formed a great riposte in response, that may not be quite appropriate, but it expresses what I feel:
“My life starts with me, and radiates outwards. My life does not start with you, subsuming me.”
That’s what my life is, well becoming, and so it should be. It is mine. Likewise, that is what your life is, and should be. It is yours.
For too long I have allowed myself to be seduced by faux words of love and concern that detract me from living my life, from me being me. Like the rest of humanity, I have an agenda of my own. One that is equally important as his, hers or yours. Like the rest of humanity, I have found there are many social and cultural mores are designed to distract me from myself, from my own [unique] individuality.
I say faux words, because too often the love I have experienced has been conditional. It may not be intentional, nonetheless it was conditional. Faux words from people who wish something from me, and use love and concern as a lubricant. Maybe I am being too harsh, but it is exhausting struggling against expectations that do nothing but diminish you as an individual.
I’m not denying that people love me, and do care about, and like to share their concern for me. I can see it in my close friend’s faces, and I can read it in their text massages. I know it’s genuine. I don’t deny my parents love for me, but I find that love in particular, is couched within social, cultural or personal fears and expectations. It is an exercise in irony. My parents love is genuine, but it comes limited in its embracement of life. The constant projections of their own fears and expectations, was a server derailment of who I was. The irony is that for all their love, I was not encouraged to grow as a person. I was not encouraged to live, to embrace life, to find love, to cry and to laugh.
To be fair, our social and cultural environments are just as deadly to life. They too are exercises in irony, couched within their own expectations. Often, the group quashing the individual, rather than supporting them.
The road to Redemption starts with me. I plan on walking it, stopping to have a drink, tell a story, laugh at a joke, greet a friend, and getting a root. But first, I have to tell my detractors to, “Fuck off!”
