This time around I am actively moving through the pain. There will be no more running from it, - no more driving myself literally in circles or consuming mass amounts of media, and no more rolling it up and trying to smoke it, or peering into a bottle for it. There will be no more scampering to the ears of others with a melodramatic soap opera dripping from my tongue, and no more pointing fingers in an outwardly direction. This time around, I am allowing myself the space and the time just to feel. To sit in the seemingly cavernous space that this deep weeping wound exists within, and to observe its size and proportion within the depth of my gut. This time around, I am becoming well acquainted with my sadness.
Together, we go on ambling walks around a small neighborhood of San Diego, California. Together, we take long bike rides around the town of Clairemont, as I discover new pathways and darkened alleys. Together, we hop along a windy Pacific shore where an ocean churns and my mind focuses on the sounds of seaweed popping underfoot. Together, we spend time processing through these insights and reflections with the friends whom I have spent the past few years recoiling from. Together, we take to a wooden dance floor and we tap, we shake, we fling, we caress, we stomp, we sway, we shiver, we triumph, we lay down, we scoot, we stand up, we step precariously, we lunge, we jump, we toil, we flick, we flow, we cry, and we rejoice.
This time around, I openly mourn for the lost little girl who so desperately wants to be loved, yet is naively clueless about what love really is. For too long, I have focused my energy and attention in the wrong directions. Searching outside of myself, I mistakenly thought that a clean and organized living space would bring the peace of mind I was seeking. Rather, it became a focal point that could, in a mere matter of seconds, send my emotional state flying into a fit of resentment. (Just as it did to my mother all those years ago.) I have neglected my needs, choosing instead to focus on the comings and goings of a singular other, believing this would be enough to guide my boat onto safer harbor. I have shirked responsibilities, such as a due diligence towards my graduate studies, and I played the flake too many times to old friends, as well as to potential new ones. I came to reside in a perpetual state of tension and anxiety. The rage began to eat me alive, from the inside out.
Jumping further and further into the repetition of past behaviors, a noose around my neck continued to constrict. The anger, the pain, and the sadness, were raging at an all time high. Even though I knew that I was not being who I am or who I am truly meant to be, I thought that loving this sole other would be my salvation. As a friend recently shared, “You were looking to be validated.” Rightfully said, as all I wanted was to really be seen, and to have this one other acknowledge my power. The graceful dancer, the boisterous singer, the passionate writer, the wanna-be painter, the hungry lover, the spoiled child, the wise woman, the loyal friend, and the insecure human, all were witnessed, yet he also observed the fists I had been shaking, and the saliva I had been spewing, while forcefully attempting to make him see me, to make him truly love me. How could he possibly love me when I so obviously do not love myself?
After the minutes, hours, days and years, spent in quiet solitude, during my early and mid 20s, I have a clear vision of what loving myself looks like, - it is painting with vivid watercolors while singing along to the soul soothing lyrics of artists, such as the Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, and Ani DiFranco. It looks like long, ambling strolls ‘over the river and through the woods,’ taken in the darkness of night when I can move around as though I am a black, neighborhood cat, - curious about all of the unspoken truths lived within each fabricated dwelling. It also looks like my senses savoring sweeping vistas of mountain chains stretched out before me as I sit upon a rock outcropping a mile high, breathing in the magic of pine scented breezes while Red-Tailed Hawks swoop and dive overhead.
However, I intuitively and emphatically understand that I am most alive, I am joy and ecstasy embodied, I am living, and breathing pure, unadulterated love when I dance, when I acutely and presently move my skin and bone, muscle and memory, nostalgia and fear, through the spacetime continuum. When I surrender to all of the longing, when I give myself up to the conflict and the confusion, when I lay down with the emptiness, when I let go. And that is it in a nutshell, - love is simply letting go.
Letting go of all of the pain of past transgressions. Letting go of my parents’ mistakes. Letting go of any shame and guilt. Letting go of the apathy, envy, jealousy, ego, pride, and hurt. Letting go of the sadness because I do not know what love is. Letting go of the fear that I will never know. Letting go of what happened yesterday. Letting go of what is to come tomorrow. Letting go for the sole purpose of being here, now. Letting go of taking everything both personally and seriously. Letting go of the tinkerings of thought that keep my body erect and tense and my spirit chained. Letting go to let go.
This time around, I simply say, “Thank you.” Thank you for helping me to begin evolving beyond my fear of men and intimacy. Thank you for being a model of positive thinking and opportunity seized. Thank you for sharing your time, and your being. Thank you for giving me a swift kick in the pants.
For, this time around, at 31, I recognize that it is high time I start truly focusing on my goddess given birth right, - I am a born mover and performer. I am a movement practitioner. I must then do all I can to constantly be moving, and attempting to share this unique gift with others. I must do all I can to love myself now, so that I can let go and dance.
