Tenderness

I suppose you could say I'm kind of writing to write. Sort of stream-of-conscience. But not really.

Through most of my life, a tender touch always made me cry. Always, without question and often to the point of shoving the tenderness away, until my later years. I suppose I calloused myself to it, though I still hold a weakness for certain touches (the face, particularly).

I've always maintained my favorite English word is "whisper."

Today I sit and listen to Rain by Patti Griffith.

Rain is a silent, private tenderness. Delicate. I've never done "delicate" very well. A tough girl. A tomboy. Dresses make me feel like an alien (except during my promiscuous period, during which time the higher the heels and the tighter & shorter the dress/skirt, the better). Still even then I was seeking that tenderness that I almost always rejected. Strange oxymoron, I know.

Whisper....whisper is soft, like the breeze...I always envision it riding on the wind, sailing across the world, over oceans. Whispers of wishes and dreams and broken hearts.

Tears....tender.

So hard to cry...can't stand that tender part of me, that cries from some place of deep wounds and darkness. I can cry angry tears because anger is not tender, but tender tears are.

Tenderness is so hard to take...to accept. To be understood and validated hurts more than anything else because it's so foreign. To be accepted hurts because it's not believable.

To trust......all the years I've spent thinking I was trusting when, in truth, I've never trusted anyone completely. There are still secrets, dark ones where I can't let tenderness invade. Places of my own torment that - ironically, out of tenderness - I don't want others to see or experience.

Tears, rain, whispers, winds. Things that fade, but hurt so much because they touch something I avoid and always have.

That's why tenderness hurts.

Regret

It's chilly up here - but it's clean. There are no cigarette ashes everywhere. It smells of the hazelnut candle I lit an hour ago, and the opium incense - my personal favorite - that I lit about thirty minutes ago. The windows are pathetically "covered" - that is, the plastic I attempted to cover them with for the winter, is now hanging down, loose from the top. The blue painter's tape I used in an effort to save the paint on the window frames, didn't do the job. But it's dark - the lights are off - and I cannot see this eyesore.

It's solitary here. I have the door closed and I hear nothing but my edited version of ATB's "Trinity" on repeat. I made it repeat the woeful center part over a dozen times. I was proud of this, actually. I'm good at editing videos and music and photos. I'm actually better than your average person.

The song suits me right now. I am sad.

Not sad. Sorrowful.

I think there's a difference. At least, it feels like there is. Sad is, I suppose, something you feel when something happens. Sorrowful, for me, is this feeling inside that aches so deeply and causes these tears that aren't blatantly sad. They just  fall, each one as if it has a story to tell and - if the story isn't told - then perhaps the next one that falls, will tell it. They keep coming and, with them, flashes of regret, pangs of pain, dulled only by my own self-criticism.

So the tears stop - just for a moment - until the ache pushes them up and out again.

I think....

I think about how afraid I am to go out.

and why

Why?

Why.... because maybe someone will see me. Maybe someone will see me. Maybe they'll see this horrible ugly I hear and see every day.

I've learned over the past few months that I - in my life - have had two choices: I could pretend this horrible ugly didn't exist and I could fight (in any way possible or necessary) anyone who called me out on it (ie "classless cunt" as my ex referred to me [yeah, pretty classy, huh?] or "white trash" or "trailer park trash" or other derogatory comments) or I could hide behind a mask. Either way, I was in denial of these self-loathing whispers, constant in my ear. Constant in my mind. Constant in the mirror.

Thinking...

I can't please anyone.

Nobody.

I don't know how.

I thought I did......

I thought I knew how but now, that's stripped from me in so many ways.

Now I know that sex doesn't get you love, even if my mind tricks me into believing it again and again and again. Being a good cook, doesn't get me love.

But my mind tricks me over and over and over.

Laundry and being a good mom. Cleaning.

Being quiet. Subdued. Unspoken, really.

But not enough to let on, that you really are unspoken and silent.

Just enough.... just enough...

But nobody will ever be ..........what I've always looked for.

I am 42 years old.

What a sad joke that my life is right now. I feel old and tired. Exhausted, really. Too tired to lift anything. Too tired to go anywhere. Too afraid to talk about it. Who do I call? Who do I talk to? Who do I tell all this to?

These secrets.... they're mine.

I know I'm not alone. I know others have exactly these same secrets. Secrets about themselves, about men and relationships, sex, love.... love....

Shame....

Thinly veiled....

I wish.... so much.

wish he knew..... wish he knew.... wish he knew..... and him and her and him and them...

Wish they knew.....

Oh how I wish....

Another tear.

It's full of regret. Full of shame. It hits my stained white t-shirt, that I wear only when I know nobody's coming around and I'm going nowhere. Usually when I clean.

It hits a half inch from where the last one fell. And the one before.

I am afraid to be thankful, so I stand back and stare in awe, without touching. Without tainting. I want it to stay perfect, so I don't go near.

I hide.

Like a coward, I hide. Unlike the tough girl I've always been.

I hide.

But I feel and I've felt.

So deeply that it feels like gouges in my soul, filled only with confusion and disorientation and uncertainty.

Regret.

It feeds that voice that says, "It's your fault. It's all your fault. Nobody can love you."

I did everything wrong. Always. I always do. I push them away. I hurt people.

Yet..... I cannot fathom hurting anyone.

Never. God.....

I never want or wanted to hurt anyone.

And yet, I feel like a monster.

So I cannot be seen. I don't want to be seen.

Let the tears come here - in the attic, amid the scents of hazelnut and opium, behind fallen plastic and haggard painter's tape. Here, up high, where nobody can see.

Tomorrow I will be fine.

Tomorrow I won't cry.

Tomorrow, I won't wear a stained white t-shirt.

Intensity in Love

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

My session, today, was heavy. I was already shook up when I got there. I got some news and instantly started shaking, crying and got a headache, simultaneously. Funny thing is, it was good news, but it was so damn overwhelming. So I showed up to see Michelle very shaky an disoriented.

"Let's take a minute," she said, "Take a couple deep breaths."

I tried...felt silly. I always feel silly when someone says, "Breathe....take a deep breath..." (I even feel awkward doing it for the doctor, now that I think about it. Weird).

Anyway, as I predicted, she asked what my take was, on the dream I had about my father. I told her I was completely, absolutely lost. I had no idea. This surprised her.

The session kind of went all over the place - she triggered me once....one of those snapshots, like a lightning-fast emotional response to something she said, and then poof it was gone.

"What did you say?" I asked her.

She looked at me confused. I was confused. I started crying. I was reminded of something, but couldn't remember what I had been reminded of. It's so strange how those flashbacks work.

"What did it bring up for you?" she asked.

"I don't remember. What was it you said?"

She said she was talking about making mistakes ....

And I snatched a kleenex from the box on the table, where she'd set it for me. "He was so cruel," I whimpered. "So cruel." I started shaking.

"Punishment...that's what it brought up. There were no mistakes. You couldn't make mistakes," I told her, but without the emotional connection. I shed a few tears and it was gone. All that was left was the memory, devoid of any attachment. "He once punished me for holding the cat wrong."

Then we talked about re-parenting.....Cindy is doing a marvelous job at this. "Ron won't be able to re-parent you," she said. I suspect this is because of the extent of the abuse I went through with my father. Plus Ron also, unfortunately, has some of the same traits as my father....tall, powerful, and he has a way about him that's very much like my birth father. I am trying to work past that....as is Ron, to his credit.

And then...the most painful of all: the dream.

First she said she was very surprised that no therapist had ever spoken to me about sexual dreams about fathers who molest their daughters. "It's very common," she explained.

She also told me it's not uncommon to experience arousal when being molested. It's a physiological experience that the body cannot control. It's clearly more obvious for boys/men because, well, you know...it's obvious if they're aroused. But not so much for girls.

"I don't remember ever feeling aroused," I told her. "The only good feelings I recall are those of knowing that I was doing something right...doing something to make Daddy happy....Never do I recall being aroused."

She said we (women) often pile junk on top of it: how gross and disgusting and despicable it is, how wrong and dirty and we have so much piled up on top of it, that even if we were aroused, we wouldn't know it.

Which brought us to the dream. She said the dream was symbolic and - in her opinion, based on what I told her - had nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with Bill.

For me, the most difficult aspect of that dream, was the strong emotional attachment I was feeling towards my father as I initiated sex. The feeling of this very powerful love, was identical to that which I feel for Bill.

We talked a lot about this, about my authentic fear of this love for Bill.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know. Doing something wrong? Saying something wrong? Being hurt. Being abandoned."

But there's more to it than that, even. Kind of like Cindy is "re-parenting" me, Bill is giving me this love that I've never had before and I am terrified of it...not used to it...

"You know," she said, "It takes a huge amount of courage for you to love him....to let him love you that way."

I cried...this heart-wrenching, desperate cry. Aching inside. So confused. So afraid. Hopeful but terrified.

The only other time I ever felt such intense love, was when I loved my father. Feeling that intensity is blindingly terrifying.

Yet....if I let it happen...if I just let it run it's course, I will (or should) re-learn love. Healthy love, instead of the toxic, abusive, painful love that I hold inside as a norm. This fearful, punishing love that sticks to me like velcro.

I wonder....

I wonder if I left Bill years ago, because of this intensity, in favor of a more superficial relationship, that would spare me from loving so deeply.

Thank you Cindy....Ron...Bill......

Bill.....thank you.