I’ve been living in a double bind for quite an extended period of time and I’m only just admitting it to myself.
Whilst languishing in denial, I’ve tried all kinds of mental and emotional gymnastics to work myself around the trap, but I think I’m going to have to concede that I can’t move forward without true and actual resolution.
When I think about the toll this has taken on my life in the past few years, I wince, because it hasn’t been spiky and dramatic, but it has been chronic and profound.
I have denied myself clarity, peace, joy, desire, love, decision; All Good Things. Not entirely, which is how I got away with it for so long. And probably not even as much as many people deny themselves those things without ever even knowing any different. But I did know different. I have known so much more of All Good Things than I have allowed myself to experience these past few years. And I’ve been disappointed, honestly, that I haven’t been able to access them in their full vibrant ferocity. I’ve missed them in my life. But I hadn’t really considered that I was throttling the supply. Or rather, I had considered it, and I judged myself innocent. Isn’t that always the way.
Nearly seven years ago now (the anniversary is approaching), I fell in love with – what – the image of a man? And then, when faced with the facts that, firstly, I had indeed fallen in love, and secondly, pursuing a romantic relationship wasn’t an option, I made the decision to just let myself, in all my crazy fucking glory, and in complete absence of reason, love that image as hard as I fucking wanted to anyway. And, boy, did I love hard. And, boy, was it excruciating. And, boy, was it enlightening.
Through that Love, I found God. And I don’t mean I found belief, or faith, or understanding, I mean I felt God. And not a God that’s going to be confined by any petty ideations. A God much vaster than anything I could conceive of. A Reality much richer than I’d ever thought possible. A Universe more minutely beautiful than anything running through my dreams. It was everything I’d ever wanted and more.
For a while I didn’t know my love was wrong. By which I mean I still lived in the paradigm where the point of being in love was to get something, and I still believed it was possible to get that thing. To be with the man I was in love with. And so I reached emotional heights unlike anything I’d known before, not only with full permission from myself, but with encouragement, because I took it as confirmation that this meant it was ‘real’.
Eventually, that illusion cracked wide open to make way for something more expansive. I shed a lot of pain, a lot of patterns, a lot of lies, a lot of limits. Everyday living was a psychedelic experience. I gave up clinging to the notion of a traditionally romantic outcome and instead explored the nebulous boundaries of this free-flowing Whole New World.
For a while that was good. And then it was fine.
But he never went away. I kept doing the work, healing the broken parts, giving up the attachments, integrating the lessons; all on the assumption that one day I’d reach the natural conclusion of this revelation and be permitted to go onto the next stage of my journey, without him. Because he was never there, anyway, right? He didn’t want to be a part of this. So why the fuck is he?
At some point, it didn’t seem fine anymore. I started to deny myself, because, even though it never felt wrong, it surely couldn’t be right.
And this is the crux of the matter. I am trying to live in my integrity. I’m trying to live a life true to myself. But he is literally the benchmark for my integrity. He is my ‘full-body yes’. If I need to think about what certainty feels like for me, I have to think of him, because nothing feels more certain than that. Everything I know about how I want to live tells me to follow that feeling; to trust that intuition that he is All Good Things. Not to chase an outcome; just to be true. But at the same time, following it feels so fucking intrusive. He didn’t want to be a part of this. How dare I make him?
And, what’s more, if the truest thing isn’t true, how can I trust Truth anyway?
No wonder I’ve been stuck on this one.