This song was in my head this morning. Seemingly out of no where I kept singing it. So I decided to watch the video. So many tears. This kid was me on the playground. But instead of a parent guiding me I grew up amidst psychological warfare that I tried to fix for everyone. I tried to hold all their pain and mine. I was comforting until I could no longer take that burden anymore and cut the cords and attached to something else.
A husband. I needed a father not a husband. But I didn’t know that and perhaps he didn’t either. Young and naive we embarked on a journey. Seven Saint Bernard puppies and two adults in the back of a Ryder truck with all our belongings for Moses Lake Washington.
I was so dissociated I hardly remember myself in that time. Impulsive, brazen, curious, warm without any good reason to be. I remember that I just acted, I didn’t feel in the moment. I felt later when I could think about things. I created a sense of busy that had me never think about all the pain I was in.
I set to making a life. I looked at others and tried to piece together what mine should look like. I wanted the family pictures on the wall and that feeling of security that never existed inside or outside of me. That’s what I was searching for and love seemed the only way to create that.
So I kept trying for love, which kept leading me to shame. How can you be proud when you’re getting a divorce and hurting your children? I never got to be proud. I got more shame.
I put on a strong front to try and protect myself, but inside was an ocean of shame.
Unlike Calum I never got the I love you no matter what moments. By the time I came out it was another situation to internalize negativity about myself. Divorce the one thing I set out not to do. And hurting someone I loved, everything I stood against. And hurting my kids unthinkable. From that moment on I became cast in my own story as a bad mother, and something awful.
Therapists, friends, loved ones would try to ease this burden at times, but I shackled myself under my own burdens. Punishment.
I’ll never forget when I finally told him. I had tried so many indirect ways to try and keep my security, but finally I couldn’t keep it under wraps anymore. I told his family too. I wanted them to still love me no matter what. And I think they tried really hard which would be against the typical family system laws of protection. I didn’t love me, so I pushed them away in shame.
No matter what is never a condition I had or created for myself. I am working on that now for myself and my kids. Unconditional love from the inside not seeking from the outside.
I didn’t realize until now how much shame I have harbored underneath this tough exuberant exterior for being gay. Because mine was intermingled with hurting people when I was supposed to be a responsible married adult.
I was a scared child. I am more often than I would care to be a scared child. It feels embarrassing and terrifying to be aware of that, and yet that’s the only thing that can help me create something different.
All my relationships after were always going to fail, because I had no relationship to and with myself. None. I rejected her.
And this latest period of my life forced me to learn to have a relationship with myself so I could determine my boundaries from a place of love and protection, not merely a state of emergent need.
Dear Christina,
I vow to love you from this moment forward no matter what. Only to allow good actions into our lives. To have your back and always pick you first for my team, even when you make mistakes. I will love you fiercely. The no matter what parent you didn’t have.
Always,
C