Someone I know sent me a text a few days ago, kind of out of the blue, and asked me if this blog was a surrogate to intimate relationships...
This text message caused me to have a number of responses, which were quite illuminating...first the order in which I had them and then what I learned from the whole exercise.
My first reaction was to call her, immediately, without any further thought or consideration. Thankfully, she didn’t answer. What she would have gotten from me would have been rubbish. I was calling to defend myself. I was calling to stop her from ever thinking such things. I was calling her to push her, with words of course, out of my inner sanctum where she had just inserted herself.
As what she asked me percolated, I got a little angry. I was upset that she hadn’t really reached out to me or talked to me in a long time and then that is what I get from her? A kind of judgy text message followed up with an audio clip saying that she doesn’t mean it judgy and that she is trying to get to know me better. To me, her text and audio message belie a true interest in me. I have been swimming in dark and threatening waters recently, and I didn’t receive so much as a phone call or check in.
And then some audacity roiled up in the fact that she felt she knew me well enough to call me out and that she felt she had a good barometer on my life and relationships...I mean she clearly reads this blog, but that is not always good indicator of my relational status. I do put It all out here but there Is no way for me to stay absolutely current here and get anything else In my life done. Truth is I have a very active and close inner circle that is as full as I can handle while being able to maintain any kind of intimacy with anyone. My kids, my parents, my sponsees, pets and a few very close friends is all I have time for. I truly do not think I could allow anyone else to get any closer to me right now. I feel overwhelmed and grateful by the relationships I have currently, and letting someone else in, super close is just not something I can handle right now.
Finally I landed on the fact that she sent the message the way she did was a good indication as to where she is with the whole intimacy thing, at least with me, and the fact that I attempted to push her away with words and then silence, a pretty good indicator of where I am today.
It isn’t that I don’t want intimacy in my life...it is just that it is very hard for me to tolerate. What I have learned this year is that I need a great deal of time alone. Like hours every single day. And when I say alone, I mean alone. No one around, no one talking at me or to me. I think back to those days in Ireland and I think there were like 4-5 days that I didn’t speak to anyone. And while it felt weird, because it was so unusual, it was lovely.
What I have found, historically, in my life is that I have a very hard time holding my center when others are around. My people pleasing default setting activates and whatever I wanted to do gets derailed because of the needs and wishes of others. I have to kind of keep a tight barrier around myself otherwise I bleed out into feeling like I don’t exist at all. I become some sort of vapor in the lives of others, and wholly absent in my own.
I do not think this blog is a surrogate for intimacy. I think it is me practicing intimacy in a way that feels safe for me. I can and do create intimate bonds through my writing. People who read and reach out and we discuss and talk about things this blog stirs up in them. I have several people who I have come to know, quite intimately because of this blog and my writing. And I love that. It feels safe. It feels true. It feels pure to me in a way I cannot completely define.
It is hard for me to be honest with you when you are in front of me and my truth is going to hurt you. And so I will almost always twist that truth to be more palatable to you. I do not want to hurt you and I will always hurt me instead. I will pull punches, hold back true feelings and authenticity in order to spare you embarrassment, hardship or pain. I will do this to both of our demise. And as much as I can see this as a fatal relational flaw, I do not know how to do it differently.
But here, in the safety I find behind the screen, here I can be honest with my thoughts, my feelings, my pain and my truth. Here is my safe space. I created this space for me. And I pushed myself way beyond my own comfort zone to hit publish on that very first blog. No one at the time knew who much lying I had done about who I was and what I actually really thought and felt. This blog was started as a way for me to become myself, with you. Albeit at a safe distance. And yes, I still need the distance to feel safe. Perhaps I won’t always but today, I absolutely still do.
I would say that it isn’t you that I am afraid of...but that would be a lie. I am afraid of you. Afraid of you getting close, telling me who I am in a way that makes me feel like I now have to be that person or risk pissing you off or hurting you. I do not know how to survive that. I really don’t. So I bring it all here and unleash it through my finger tips each day, a kind of pouring out all the excess me I don’t know what to do with. And creating a safe distance between me and you, a distance that provides me the safety I need to be authentic and real and honest.
I am working on the whole inter-relational intimacy thing. But I am finding it is a slow and arduous process. I do better with people one at a time. I spent the evening with a friend the other night, just us and I had a lovely time and felt no need to hide or pull away. I was able to be with her and stay present and be honest. But I find when there is more than one other person, something happens in me that causes me to alter who I really am, and either launch myself into this extroverted person that really is only a projection or shut down and remain hidden completely. Saying little, offering even less.
I do not believe this blog is a surrogate for intimacy. I believe it is the place where I practice intimacy. This is the place I tell the whole truth because I feel safe enough to do so. If even one person was sitting at the end of my bed...you would likely get a much different thing from me everyday.
I have a tricky history. I am also a drunk. I also feel like I have chosen poorly in the relational department, repeatedly. So I am quite gun shy. I need the space in order to feel safe. And safety has been one of those things that I have failed to provide myself for the duration of my life. I think it was something I thought other people provided for a long time. Learning late in life that it is actually my responsibility and purpose to ensure that I feel safe in my own life. And in order to do so, I have had to walk away from a great number of people, relationships and social situations.
Some of those people were unsafe. Some of those relationships made me unsafe. Some were toxic and caustic and did a great deal of damage. Today, I make no apologies for keeping my distance. My experience has been that I have worked awfully hard to stay in people’s lives who aren’t safe and really could give a fuck about me. I was not important, and I am still unpacking why the fuck I was even involved with them in the first place. I know it starts with needing to feel important and valued, but I have chosen so many times to attempt to get that validation from people who are incapable of giving it. And if there is one thing I have learned in the past two years, it is I am not fucking doing that anymore. Every one of those relationships has been removed. Every. Single. One. And I have found immense peace in their absence.
And in their absence I have found a great deal of intimacy with myself and a few others. People who I am sure of their motives, who check in on me when I go dark, who show up for me in ways that are caring and warm and personal. If there is one sin I have committed repeatedly it is this: I show up for the people who will never show up for me, and I take for granted all the people who habitually show up for me. And I have worked really hard the past few years to right this very off balance part of me.
So I guess the answer to her question is no, this blog isn’t a surrogate for intimacy. It is the way I practice intimacy, first with myself and then with all of you who take the time to read what I write and then circle back to me to discuss how what I have said lands in you and for you. Sometimes, the written word is the most intimate for me because it is memorialized forever and I have to be accountable to that truth. I cannot say that I said something else or that I didn’t mean it. The words and feelings and thoughts are here. Forever. And I am accountable to them and for them, always.
I welcome her commentary as I welcome all commentary even if it pisses me off, hurts me, or causes me to spin a defensive story. It is all seeds for growth and change and intimate relationships with all I might encounter. I just have a need to limit my own exposure. And I guess you should know that about me from the get go. I need space. I need freedom. I need the ability to be my own person away from you so that I can relate to you better and more intimately. Without the space and freedom, I just become whatever you tell me I am.
Perhaps one day I will be more able to be me and do the close intimate proximity thing better. I am not really sure. I know that I really am doing my best over here. Drowning quite literally sometimes in my own tidal swell. It isn’t that I do not want to be closer to you, it is just that I cannot be closer to you without distancing myself from me. Perhaps one day I will solve the equation of my own intimate difficulty, but for today, all I know to do is to give myself the time and space I need.
And to understand that sometimes, the distance between us actually provides me safety in that you will not breach it to come seek me out. You will just observe the distancy of me and refuse to put forth the effort to bridge the gap.
For my friend who reached out, thank you for using words typed on a screen. Thank you for approaching me with my most comfortable medium for conversation. I hope you will not be offended that I offered back this indirect but heartfelt reply. I see your efforts to connect and come to know me better...and all I can say in truth and love is that I am over here really doing the very best that I can. It isn’t perfect and often seems perhaps more challenging than is worth the effort. But I am being most sincere when I tell you I do not have any other way. This is the best I have got...and while I continue to work on this and other facets of my being that interfere with my ability to relate and feel safe and happy, this is who I am today. And it is ok, if that isn’t good enough for you or anyone else. It is for me...and that is the best and most solid relational ground I have ever stood upon in my life.
I am blazing new frontiers over here, even if I might be the only one who ever traverses the great divide that is me...
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