There’s a certain amount of shame involved in every
confession. A certain amount of
admitting you pretended something was different than it was gets added. Stir in a shit-pile of denial. Gently fold
in shame and add a pinch of
it-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-like-this.
In a separate bowl, you have to add a heaping helping of
bravery. Bravery is the leavening for
rising up to bare your confession
Then you pull back the curtains, and you realize you’ve been
closing layers of drapes for years, and you have to peel them back, like the
cliche layers of an onion, to get to the blinds that finally let the light
shine in. The light that heals and finishes the confession for you to consume
for sustenance to endure better things.
See, I first closed those blinds over ten years ago, after
making a New Year’s Eve dinner and ending up with a black eye and a hole in the
wall. I patched the hole when I moved away, but I’ve been wandering this
existence with unseen black eyes since then.
I pulled the blinds. I pulled the blinds to keep the outside
world from looking in. Pretty soon, I was pulling the shades to hide the
blinds.
Then I hung up drapes to hide the shades. Then I bought a
pretty valance, to make the drapes look good.
Pretty soon, you realize you can’t hide inside, behind all
the curtains. The play goes on and
scenes change, and you have to step into the spotlight and play the part. There are no strings, but you want there to
be. You feel them…as you trudge. Someone else, pulling here, releasing
there. Screaming you’re unworthy.
So, you buy a cloak,
and wrap yourself in it. You learn, the
hard way, not to let anyone into that cloak.
Mouths leak like ships hitting icebergs, and you sink. So, you draw it tighter, sealing those leaks
and closing yourself off.
You learn to run. Not
fast. No, there can be no quick
movements. But it’s running nonetheless. It’s an exercise in quickness…walking on egg
shells without making a sound. Because
when the sound is heard, it strikes fear deep within your bones, and you’ve
become accustomed to not knowing the response.
The not knowing. Not knowing if
you’ll end in a pile of tears or brokeness, buying more curtains, covering in
more cloaks. Burying yourself and then
forgetting where you left the bones.
I wrote myself a letter.
I earned my bones. I decided to
find my bones.
Before you can find them, you have to wake up. The awakening is hard. It’s a god aweful journey through pain and realization…realizing
you gave up your spine and quit on yourself.
Learning to love yourself again is, perhaps, the hardest journey. Because, you’ve been made to feel you don’t
deserve it.
When you wake up, and peel back the layers to let the light
in, they up the ante. They like the
shades and the dark you wander so aimlessly in…questioning your very existence.
They buy you prettier drapes…to hide the ever more ugly.
But you cannot stop an awakening. The eyes just open, and they can’t be closed.
The eyes open, then they seek the light. They take down the valance, and the drapes,
then the curtains, and then you open the blinds. The light shines in, and you see, for the
first time in a long time, the light.
It’s warm when everything seemed so cold. So, like a cat, you just sit there for a
while. In the light. Take a nap.
Relax.
You smile and look at the ground and go looking for the
bones. It’s a digging exercise into
everything you denied. Rediscovering the
light, the warmth, the smells and you welcome the journey.
And you dig. And dig. Deep.
Deep, deep, down until you find the you. So many piles where you buried
so many parts of your soul.
Eventually, you find the pieces to put back together. And as you glue the pieces, and it becomes
whole again, you discover how truly awake you are.
You fill the cracks with the gold of lessons learned. More precious than it was before.
Then you hold the whole, and you tell her its ok. And you lead her away from the holes…step by
little, tiny, baby step. Away.
Back to self. Back to
whole. Awake. No shade.
Into the light.
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