I’ve never really been good at goodbyes.
It was more like a pattern I learned. Modeled for me in another statistic of a marriage ending in divorce. Little did I know at the age of five that I was entered into a database. Entered into a collective consciousness that says when things get hard we just give up, or turn to sweeter cheeks, or stronger drinks. The voice that tells us we deserve better.
Decisions on where I would live or who would raise me being made for me. Learning then how to stand idly by and let life happen to me.
Little did I know.
The other night on the couch in a moment of certain clarity (maybe the sky was aligned just right) it suddenly occurred to me that most of the living I did when I was younger felt like I didn’t have options. Or, rather, that it was all just happening to me. Outside of my control. Like I just had to accept things as they were. Never once stopping to ask myself what I wanted or how things could be different. It was all “go along to get along.”
Never a thought occurred that maybe I could change. Not even aware in the moment that this is not how things are meant to be? Nor did anyone tell me that I had a voice. I see it now, looking back with as much compassion as I can, that somewhere along the way my self-worth had been put on pause. And so I became well versed in the art of attachment. I needed someone/something else to tell me I was good. And if I wasn’t then there was always someone else to be blamed. My parents. My god. My situation.
All of my youth and through my twenties I was what I like to call now a performer. Really good at getting you to like me by channeling your interests and desires into my own and reflecting them back at you. I was your mirror. I was easy to be around because I wanted you to like me. Classic people pleaser. Even Jesus fit into this modality. I wanted Jesus to like me so I was really good at performing the part I had seen played out in those around me. To be better meant to suppress my own desires and ignore my inner world.
But never did I consider myself as one of the crowd. Always feeling myself on the outside looking in. The odd man out. And it is this sort of belief that caused me even further separation and divide from who I really was. Allowing my distorted perspective to dictate my perception. Moving as though the world was all happening to me. Not seeing the role I had to play in it all. Choosing to stand back, or stand by, and let life continue on without me.
Even the choice to give up didn’t occur to me in the moment. Shit! Just like I don’t believe in one moment of salvation. There doesn’t seem to exist one moment of evolution. I am constantly caught up in change and letting go. Sitting down and letting go. Letting go of my god to save me. Letting go of my past to further direct me. Letting go of the white knuckles on my life. Letting go of the controls.
Control is an illusion.
Like a good friend said to me yesterday, “we can grin and bear it but if it doesn’t serve us well anymore then we are free to move on.” That grin and bear attitude to life is real. The “this is what we do” way of life that was handed to me. Teaching me I can just ignore all those feelings deep down because it’s easier to stay afloat on the surface. That fear of letting go is almost too much to stomach. There is no control in a free fall… only a surrender. Moving through gravity that only has one plan for me… push me down. And maybe all the kicking and screaming I’ve done served me well before. But now I find that by sitting down and sinking below my thoughts are where I discover who I am.
At the bottom of everything.