Maybe I’m Amazed

It’s never ceases to amaze me how life always gives you the experiences you need, helping you to heal and integrate disowned pieces of yourself that would have remained hidden had these circumstances not appeared to shake you and wake you.  And when something shows up in your life, something that you know is big…you know it because….it’s just one of those things that is so supercharged and miraculous, it HAS to be BIG, we start to interpret its meaning immediately, don’t we? I do. I know better, and I still do.

And with this awareness I am going to now  interpret the meaning of some of these big events. I am going to overlay personal meaning onto a reality that has absolutely no agenda to wake me up. Or does it?

I don’t know, but……

I met a man I’ll call J. J is a man with some kids. 2 kids. 2 little girl kids.  Human kids, not goats.  We fell into something like love. That’s my interpretation of some stuff that happened that caused me to feel some emotions.  Lalalalalalallalalalla, LOVE!   Anyhow….he’s got lots of troubles, some have called them fatal flaws.  It’s still hard for me to wrap my head, (and it’s damn stretchy…big too…) around his situation. To balance out his flaws, (enormous legal troubles, custody battles,  the very real possibility of jail time, a trifecta of ex-wives, one of them rabid, and the absence of any sort of emotional boundaries with other women, etc…. yes, there’s etc….) he’s just about everything I want in a partner…which tells you, J’s pretty damn awesome, or I’m pretty damn crazy. I think both are true.

I wasn’t a priority in his life. With his never-ending list of gruesome responsibilities, I couldn’t be. He had his daughters ripped from his life, and interestingly,  I am a daughter who was ripped from her Father. I would never respect a man who didn’t put his children first…..But I still wanted to be first, or at least second…. I am also the daughter of a Father who would eventually after getting his children back, chose a woman over his children.  My Father didn’t put me first, I wasn’t a priority. In one of our recent conversations, J confessed that maybe it would be easier to let his kids go, to stop fighting because it was creating so much hardship for him, I just listened, I knew he wouldn’t do it….but,  I must shamefully and honestly admit….a part of me wished he would.

In the end, I had to let him go, because, in the end, I chose to interpret the situation as one that wasn’t going to bring me joy, based upon the absence of joy I was experiencing. I say “in the end” as if I know…but, it feels like the end, based upon my intrpretation of what the end feels like.

I thought I knew what our relationship was about…but, I don’t know what it was about. Not entirely. Probably not even close. But,  through our interface with each other, I have been exposed to parts of myself that have been suffering for most of my life, parts that have remained mostly dormant, save for the times they are triggered, and I react out of reflex rather than act out of awareness.  These parts have been brought to the surface of my mind….standing in line to be acknowledged, dusty and tight, scared and exposed.

When I was three my Mother took me away from my Father and told me he was dead. When I was 10 my Mother and my very much alive Father reunited for an itty bitty bit of time. I don’t remember questioning my father’s resurection. Maybe I never believed he was dead.  My parents reunion was my Father’s succesful bid to steal us back from my Mother. My parents were emotional and mental midgets. After my Mother left us, my Father went out and found a scaly hillbilly to be our Stepmother.  After some time, my wicked Stepmother convinced my Father to give us back to my Mother. He chose a psychotic, bucktoothed, wig-wearing, grave-digger over his three beautiful children. Maybe she was a wizard in bed, I don’t know. She was later found dead hanging from a rope in the backyard of a house my deceased Grandmother paid for.  

I don’t speak to my Father, and I have yet to completely forgive him, whatever that means.  Hearing my love speak about his girls, seeing his tears, holding him while he shared his anger and pain at having lost something so precious, opened me up a bit more to forgiving a man who did walk away. Maybe my Father wasn’t strong enough to bounce back after all those years of estrangement, maybe my Mother’s evil deed forever severed the bond for him, because…I remember a bond. A deep bond, and it seems lost now.

I’m certain there is a bond that exists between a Father and a Daughter, I wonder where it lives… and I wonder if it can be repaired once severed.

I  just had the honor of caring for another Daughter’s Father while he was dying. I wondered where his Daughter was as her Stepmother cradled her Father while he struggled with the hard work of leaving his tumor-filled body.  My wondering stopped when she called me just before the end of my shift. She told me that she had just talked to her Stepmother who asked her not to come because her Father would be dead before she got there. She asked for my opinion, did I think she should come?  This man had been hanging on for 2 days,causing me to wonder what he was waiting for….His wife told him it was okay to leave,  and I expected him to stop breathing for good at any moment, but he just didn’t.  I assumed his Daughter must live in another state for her Stepmother to say such a thing, but when I asked her, it turned out she was just down the street. Knowing that I might be causing some drama,  I said, ” If it was my Father, I would come.”  She said, “Thanks, that’s what I needed to hear.”   And she did come, and I went home. And I wondered…was it true? If it was my Father, would I go?  And I thought, I am the Stepmother and I am the Daughter, and through this experience, I was able to open to forgiving him a little more, to forgiving everything a little more.

I doubt that my relationship with J was simply about healing my Daddy wound,  but I am certainly closer to my innocence than I was before we met. I don’t know if god put me in charge of pushing morphine into a dying mans veins while he waited in his wife’s arms for his estranged daughter to come say goodbye,  simply to show me myself.  I just don’t know a damn thing , do I?  No, but I have interpretations that sometimes make me feel good, and sometimes bad. Maybe the truth is neutral.

But, if  all really is ONE….

Hmmm…

I’m amazed.