Saturday, July 24, 2010

The fury and the sadness

The people that have gotten to know me, really gotten to know me, know that I can be a very furious person. I wear my aggression (passive as it may be) like a coat at all times. I find myself balling up my fists and biting my lips till they bleed some days. I get so angry that I cry.

In my Tuesday couch trips, I talk about this anger and how it stems for a sadness within me that I am finally coming to terms with. It's a pain I have hidden for years. Sadly, I have known it almost as long as I can remember. I first felt this way when I realized I was different from all the other little kids my own age. I was in kindergarten and they were going around the room asking what our parents did for a living. I knew my mother was a secretary for a judge, but I had no idea what my father did at the time as I only saw him a few times a year.(My parents had been divorced since I was 2)  As I got frustrated to the point of crying because I didn't know the answer, the other children laughed and pointed and taunted me. "Alicia doesn't know what her daddy does!" I felt like I would never belong because I knew my family was broken and part of me probably was too. That's a horrible revelation for a child to come to at 5.

As I continued through school, I was always separated by teachers because of my intelligence and behavior. Other children were special because they were smart. I was...different. Part of me grew to hate that word.

It didn't really help that I was the only child of a woman that fought every man that stood in her way. Her anger and distaste for the way men treated her in the past rubbed off on me. Even now, I have a hard time trusting men. (Also when you consider my horrendous track record with some of the "winners" I have dated over the past 5 years, it sort of makes sense.) Still, I have a flicker of hope within me.

For 23 years, I have dealt with an anger and sadness that I have never known how to let go of. Sometimes, I wonder if I will always be this way. During my last couch trip, I looked over at my fellow voyager and said, "I think we're going to be doing this for the next two years." I want to get rid of this. I really do. I want to one day be something other than angry.

I want to be happy.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Me within me

I spent a lot of time fighting myself when I was with someone from my past. I warred with myself to be someone that I wasn't. I tried to squeeze myself in a mold and into a size 8. I'm not that person. I can't be bent that way anymore. I damn near broke in two when I tried. I have learned that if someone does not accept you as you are when they first get to know you, you will never be happy with them. My happiness from that time was a farce and a show. I know that now and it's taken me a year to come to terms with the lies I told myself.

Now, just about every weekend for the past four months I have spent time with Tim. We talk about a little of everything and a good bit of nothing. I find myself sitting across the table from him or on the couch and I lose all track of thought. I start noticing the slope of the bridge of his nose or the way his eyebrows curve or the peony shade of his lower lip or how his mustache is a lighter shade of brown than the rest of his beard. I then have to force myself to listen to his words again because I found myself lost in the finest details of him. In those moments, I feel like I am experiencing a high school crush all over again. I am not after him for his looks, mind you. I rarely date people that I am physically attracted to. I find his heart and his mind most attractive.

We sit together, and even if we are not touching, I feel him there. I have been around people that I can be in a room with for hours and not feel their presence. It's comforting to feel someone's presence again. Without that sensation, a cold creeps into your soul that takes far too long to get out. That part of me had only started to thaw when I started to let Tim in. Now, when I sit with him, there is a warmth and a glow in my heart that I honestly cannot remember.

I think I once told Tim, "I forgot what joy was." The truth is, I never knew it. Not with the others. I spent so many years living for someone else's happiness, someone else's whims. I tried to be the woman they could love at the sacrifice of being able to love myself.

Then there was Tim. Someone I found myself being myself around and I scared myself by doing so. I found myself laughing, singing, living...being. Being me. I found myself being a person I had forgotten existed. It was hard at first because I was scared of myself and what Tim would think about me being me. He didn't realize I was still feeling my way in this new, but old, skin. The more I am with him the more I get in touch with myself. I don't want to let the feeling slip away.