August 16, 2023
Feeling Music and Being Left, Alone
Dear Friend,
I am here. You are there. We can’t or don’t or won’t talk in
ways I wish we could. So much, oh there is so much I want to say to you. Since
we do not talk, I will say these things to you here. I am afraid the words will
not come out right, that I will scare you away, that what I mean to say and
what I do say will not match. This is not poetry. I can do poetry: I dream, I
think in verse. So have a kind heart as you read these letters.
I was numb for years. I was numb not only from the three
years and four months (yes, I have been counting them) since the protection
order was first issued for my second husband, in order to keep me safe from him
and allow me to start my own life. My PTSD started before that. I was numb from
the trauma during the abuse, numb in order to stay in a situation that I needed
desperately to get out of. Then I was numb in fear. Numb out of habit. Numb out
of lack of trust.
But then I trusted you. This past week, suddenly, I have
started feeling. It is amazing. It is partly because of you, because I trusted
you. I woke up. I am learning how to manage my emotions again. It is similar to
when I first got sober nine years ago. Everything is amplified and messy. My
brain is now sorting it all out, but slowly.
And, as I was told by a wise friend, feeling “wrong” feelings for a
person is better than feeling nothing at all.
After all, there is no such thing as a wrong feeling. If it is there, it needs to be
acknowledged. It is coming from
somewhere. I have learned that the hard way: I used to drink to drown those
confusing feelings. They stayed there until I acknowledged and dealt with them.
Now I get to do this again. It is wonderful and mild-swirling and overwhelming
and awe-inducing and made me cry for the first time this weekend. I haven’t
cried for months. I think this is good.
I am listening to music again. Really listening. I had been
stuck in silence before. I have started
with familiar songs, the music of my past. I am recalling memories attached to
those songs. It has made me wonder: what
song would you choose to live in?
If I had to live in a song, it would be You’re Gone
by Diamond Rio. It would be a bittersweet
living. This is for two reasons.
The first is because I remember my friend Timmy when we were
both in graduate school in Nebraska. He
was my dancing partner; we would go to street dances and country bars, wherever
there was a band playing. We could dance
to anything—two-step, waltz, polka, you name it: he led, I followed. We even danced to Metallica; we also made up
our own steps to Ants Marching by The Dave Matthews Band. You’re Gone
was our song in a way; he would sing it to me because we knew he was going to
Hawaii for the Pioneer Seeds breeding program after graduation. I never heard
from him again. He was a respectful, fun friend. The choices we make affect the
rest of our life. It is a good memory.
The second reason I would choose You’re Gone is
because, although I have supportive family, many people who used to be in my
life aren’t in it anymore, or they are on the outer fringes, looking in. I
acknowledge that my disability and who I am in general is not easy to live
with, and I have changed over the years, but few people have had the courage to
see me as I am, and stay close.
I say that is okay, because I am used to being alone. That
seems strange coming from a twin. When I was first forced into a situation
where I had to make it on my own, I resisted it. I was scared. I made some strange and poor
choices. This is a discussion for another letter. Now I believe it is better to
be alone and find contentment in myself than be with someone and pretend things
are okay: to be together and be miserable or living for someone else’s wishes
or their supposed happiness only spreads sorrow. It took me years to come to this realization.
Today’s devotion in my book The Promise of a New Day
opens by letting me know “A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to
oneself or others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do”
(Carlos Castaneda). I certainly am on a path I didn’t predict when I was
younger, and have had to back up, start over, switch paths at different moments
in my life. But that is okay. Revisiting my compass, where I am, is better
than plowing down the wrong path for the only reason that I started it and I
think I have to finish everything I start.
Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting
go. Perhaps as I get older, I have learned to try to control less (especially
people) and do more of what I need, not what others want. This has given me a
certain freedom, and a certain peace. And I think that peace is what can bring
some sort of happiness, if I let it.
But this is my path, my story, my truth. Every person has
their own.
What song would you live in?
What song are you living in now?
Thinking of you,
Julie
P.S. Before you freak out that I am telling everyone to get
divorced and leave if things are tough, I’ll tell you why I’m glad people stay
together—and why I would have, and wish I could have taken a different road.
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