Because I have been sick with this rotten sinus thing and my defenses are down, and I am walking the knife edge of excess emotions and feeling vulnerable in general, I got home from church today in a state of naked honesty with myself about something that is true for me there. I don't fit in with those people and they don't really know me because of that fact. I sat there looking at a young family from my perch in the choir chancel, and something about the mom brought me back to being a kid in church who feels like she is not quite as wholesome as these other people, not quite as clean living, but rather more of a sloppy mess with all kinds of missing parts and fraying edges. Feeling maybe even a little bit....evil....in my inner disarray. And maybe those people have moments like that too, but I forget that possibility when I am sitting smack dab in the middle of a vulnerable little kid's eye moment. It is a perspective I inherited from my family, people stained by their own histories of shame and abuse, something they so conscientiously hammered into me. And these main line Protestants I worship with, they remind me of my upstate relatives, the nice ones, the sort of nice ones...
(.....I recently got sick of my grey hair and lightened it to a glowing shade of blonde like sunshine that makes me very happy. I also started wearing mascara too, and I am feeling pretty again, let me tell you. One Sunday after church, an old lady of our congregation sidled up to me in her walker and growled, "Well, I hardly recognize you anymore." And I suddenly remembered how sour indeed is the disapproval of an Old Protestant. Those of us raised among Old Protestants recognize this, and I shared the observation with a friend. She suggested we create a candy, 'Old Protestant Sour Lemon Drops', and I am thinking, that in certain parts of the country, they will sell very well....)
My church family would tell you they love me. And I would tell you they accept me, because it is part of their faith practice to do that very thing, and also because I am a likable sort, in my way, a woman who tries her damndest to be kind to others on a regular basis because I think it makes the world a better place, instantly. I listen to what Jesus says, and it is very easy for me to be kind and encouraging to animals and people, and even to plants. Because that is the gift God has given me, my own particular light to shine in this darkened world. And, the fact is, my church friends don't see all of me because I don't show them all of me. I show them a carefully crafted performance piece. Since most of my adult life has been an act of damage control, I am quite adept at appearing as if I am great, fine, smart, in control. That was a survival skill picked up during my childhood when I discovered pretty quickly that having needs of my own put me in a very precarious position with the 2 large crazy adults trying to run things. Having needs of my own was dangerous, in fact. So, I keep the real me under wraps, even yet. Because I am positive people who see the real me won't like me anymore and will either hurt me or abandon me or both. Even tho that probably isn't true either and, on good days, I know it isn't true. But how many days are good days? And on the crazy days, well, my own crazies start running the show and I won't know what's what until it's all said and done and the good days come back again. That isn't anything to depend on!
So there is practically no one in my life now that I let see all of me. I have a few friends, 2 maybe, I am gradually easing into the experience of the Whole, True, Real Me, but this process will take years. I am too afraid anymore to open myself up like that, especially after the atom bomb disasters my last 2 major relationships were. My heart has been permanently changed, charred, scarred--nuclear fallout lasts forever, or damn near. Sometimes I feel my 'identity' begin to fall apart and wonder just who the hell am I anyway? I put on a face for the world for sure, and that face alters a bit with time. Depending on my inner climate more than anything, or on my mental health, my intellectual preoccupations, or how I view my relationship to God and the spirits. Or, how much I like myself. My co-workers see a prettty broad swath of me during our daily 7 hours together, but I also manage to hold myself together there too, for the most part, and then I go home and don't see them or talk to them or have anything to do with them again until there we all are back at work.
The fact is, I need down time. I need to go home. I need to disappear into a novel. I need to go in my room and lie down and close my eyes and breathe thoughtfully. I need to pray. I need to walk. Because in that place, at home, in my down time, I am me. The me I am when no one else is looking and I can say say Ahhh and not be on my guard anymore. (My daughter sees me, all of me, and as long as I confine the expressing of the opinions she considers my craziness to the house, and don't start ranting in public, it's all good. I do have her, but I don't expect her to hold me up. She has her own life to live, after all. And I hope it will be a great one!)
When I go walking, it is at dawn, with the dogs, and I talk with God then. In truth, I walk with my dogs or I don't go for walks at all (sure, I walk to work, I walk to church, I walk to friends' houses, I walk to the market, but not having a car makes that kind of walking commuting--nothing like taking a walk). And when I come home, who is it I see first when I open the door, so damn happy to see me, following me everywhere around the house, and into my room with me when I need to opt out, to read, to escape, to disappear? My dogs! Who else? Bumby hops up on the bed with me and presses her shaggy grey body up to mine. Little Bear marches to his corner and begins biting at his dreads. We are a pack, a dog clan, a family. They know me. They know all of me. We sleep together and we get up together and we greet the sunrise together and I say see you later to them when I leave for work or church or whatever. Me. Ms Nobody. Ms Small Potatoes. Ms Loser, Ms Uncomfortable with Adult Humans. Ms Adored By Her Dogs and Beloved by God. The me nobody knows. Except for them. And now, maybe you?
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
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