[Back in time; themes that continue to be very present.]
As I ride my bike around the neighborhood, his chain around my waist, Chango jogging on the sidewalk by my side, I am taken back to those afternoons in Sacramento, running alongside the kids I nannied for, anxious to teach them how to let go, yet terrified to do it myself. We learn by taking such risks.
It has taken me years to understand and realize that I have not collected and deepened all of my present skills to provide someone else, but that building all of these loving, parental actions were necessary to my own growth process, protection, and holding. The last three years especially, I have dedicated significant energy and attention to various care-taking methods so that I may be more wholly set up and gift myself all of the love and kindness I deserve. I refuse to continue to misguidedly and freely give all away so many of these skills and labor in exchange for something that could hardly be called equal.
After so many years steeping in this shit myself, I can now see more clearly the pervasive, effusive, and all-consuming anger floating around her like a hazy smog. There is no space for creativity, no room for connection, nor any opportunity for a mere breath of joy in allowing this emotion free reign. She would of course grow extremely upset upon hearing this, and especially if I were to share how very much she reminded me of my mother in those moments. For years, I provided her, as I had other friends and more intimate relationships, support, only to ultimately find myself crushed by the heavy, crumbling, and collective weight of these individuals. I am coming to realize the unsustainable nature of caregiving, when one goes at it alone, without the other at least putting in some minor effort to carry their own load. I cannot force her change any more than I can the next person, regardless of how close we once were.
And at the same time that I enforce stricter, harsher boundaries with others, I reach into a greater depth of compassion and empathy for their inability to recognize such self-inflicted suffering in violently holding on to tension and resentments. We are not our past.
This past year has been full of several lessons, traversing various relationships and encounters. I feel myself in a deep mourning, at the same time that I am energized and inspired by new, more soulfully led connections. Accepting rather than assuming, snap judgements. Learning to see and work more collaboratively with our current reality, and how to radically forgive.
Crescent Phrasing 