Blame, Love, Hate

My name is Cristina D. Johnson. Forgive me as I ramble.

Over the last few weeks, I have delved deeply into the dynamics of my relationships - past and present. I have, in earnest, examined my role in these relationships, whether casual or not, and how I - myself - contributed to their demise.

And it was, indeed, a demise.

From jumping out of moving vehicles (a feat which I learned very young and did many times, escaping from the grips of "the system".... back then they didn't have automatic locks) to jumping INTO moving vehicles, I have done many things, to hurt many people.

I have tried to redeem myself, as I have come to recognize some of my transgressions, realizing they - my partners in these relationships - were the victim of me. Imagine. Me. A perpetrator of some sort. Never perverse, mind you. Nothing like my own transgressors but still.... perpetuating hurt on others, without awareness. Not that unawareness is an excuse - it is not, because their pain was (and, perhaps is) real - however, I was unaware of this pain I may have caused.

I knew no other ways.

I suppose people have loved me. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to say, really. How can I say, when my one, true love - my first love; my father - was so destructive, so evil? That was my first love and I loved through hell. I loved through pain, torment, fear.... I loved him so much. So much, that I would do all I could - anything - to stop his pain. That was my first love.

Shattered, in most regards, yet still here. Haunting and taunting. Only now, now I am aware of this toxic love....this shameless, childlike love, which I cannot drain from my veins, no matter how many times nor how deeply I cut. This love is still there. This idolatry. This idealization. The perfect man... Daddy.

I stand on this fence, balancing clumsily with love on one side, hate on the other. The banister on which I have always stood, is comprised of hate, love, blame, confusion....

Will I ever know love, when I see it?

I know pain when I see it. I have seen it in the eyes of my children; whether of my doing or others'. I know what pain looks like. What does love look like?

And yet...

The dichotomy is this:

I hurt others, yet I withhold myself from others, because others have hurt me.

What a vicious, vicious circle.

When others hurt me, it is reason to submerge. When I hurt others, it is because they have - by my own perceptions which are, admittedly, distorted - hurt me first. Or perhaps they pose the threat of hurting.

Love, I suppose, in any form, any relationship, all relationships poses this threat. This threat of harm.

But isn't it strange that I would fear harm from love, when I have only known this one TRUE love, and never allowed for any other?

The gates are closed; the windows locked. There is no way in. Yet, I protect as if there is.

And I blame.

I believe there is nobody who can love the way I can.

This is because of the profundity of my love of Daddy. I know what it is to love through heaven: the heavenly sound of his music,  his voice, his hair, his arms - so strong - his poetic muse, his verbal prowess and intellectual fortitude. And I know what it is to love through hell: his kicks, punches and blows, his throws and holes in the walls and his tears, his painful, painful tears. His sexual perversions and humiliations. I know - God I know - what it is to love so deeply that no manner of sin or sainthood could shake it.

I carry it now. Still. This infallible love for the first monster to ever take my heart. Crush it. Embrace it. Frighten it. Shatter it. Put it back together again. All through the eyes of a child.

And in no part of me that I recognize today, can I find a place to blame him for my own sicknesses. My own shortcomings. My own transgressions against those who may - or may not - have loved me.

They couldn't have loved me as much as I have loved, for they did not stay. Right?

Yet.... is it not because of me and my own words and actions, that they left? How can I hold others to the standard of a child who adores the man who twists and mangles everything within her, down to her very self?

Love.

I know unconditional love. I am living it. I always have.

For those who wish to leave me,  I feel angry.

But at the same time, I do not blame because love and hate are so closely related.

They say, "You only hurt the ones you love."

This means - to me - that only the ones who love you, can be hurt by you. The rest, could care less what you do or what happens to you.

I wonder, to this day, is he okay? Where is he? Will I ever see him again?

I also wonder, will I ever be free of this dichotomy? Will I ever not see him in my mind? Will I ever feel anything close to the love I felt for him?

Trying to love, trying to give, for me....

It's like trying to fix something without the proper tools.

I let people down. I hurt them. I test and try them and I don't know how not to do this.

So I shut down because I will not be the monster that is Daddy.

Until I learn something new, someone new, some new way or thing, I will simply not be. I would rather be nothing, than be a monster, even though I have seen myself as both many times in my life.

This world is crazy.