While I go into the business of living from my heart, the uncovering process is… a bit brutal. Old ghosts of myself, identities (or phases, as I’ve judged them with a disassociated snub) have come a-calling once they heard me waking up. Wonderful. And this week has been so kind as to call in the big ones. In addition, I saw my ego guardians jump up to police these ghosts. I patted them a ‘hello’ in grace. ‘It’s ok. You can sit down.’ I close my eyes to feel the energies of these old friends. I’d much rather resort to my panicky intellectualizing. It is really too easy to focus memories on the ‘others’ involved — who hurt me, who I was in love with, who didn’t get it — rather than remembering who I was back then, rather than welcoming and loving the ‘me’ I deemed foolish or unlovable or too trusting. In the throes of old ghosts looking for eye contact this morning, I scribbled some notes of confession:
I have crucified my heart. I tried to burn it alive with my seething, with my disdain. I buried it deep below the shadows — away from me, out of sight, out of trouble, out of order.
Truth be told, I hated my heart for how it made me feel big things. Inconvenient things. Unexplainable things. Feelings that felt maddening to the tiny manageable compartments collected to keep everything just so. My insides weren’t recognizable to the outside world. At least, it didn’t seem that way. Maybe everyone else was too nervous to recognize their own, so I fell in line with them instead and bit my lip until it bled.
Like two kids hiding in a closet, I told my heart to keep their mouth shut, to stop giving us away. It kept telling our secrets. It would spell them out all over my face. Like a bully, I decided to defect and join in the heckling and the distancing.
‘We don’t want you here. Get lost.’ And secretly, ‘Please, just stop bringing up how alive I am, how much I love. Please.’
Like a coward, I held out my rusted cup, begging for others to do what I could not: love me. But that never worked, of course. Either my cup could not hold what they wanted to give, or once I tasted it, I spit it out. I couldn’t risk it.
I wince, ‘It’s too dangerous.’ My heart winces back, ‘But you’ll die.’ Maybe I’ve been trying to. This anger folded into my belly has thoroughly exhausted me. Knots and pangs and dense cravings rumble over each other. How long is this journey from annoyance to gratitude?
Heart, I know. I know you’re the best part of me. Oh, this pressing and precocious truth. It just means I have a lot of crying to do.
Come to find out, the person in my life whom I am angriest and most hateful towards is me — the ‘me’ when I am in love. I get angry at her fresh-faced enthusiasm. She shouldn’t be attracted to other people — what’s wrong with her? Stop daydreaming, stop writing poetry. Stop it! Then I am angry at her for being the beggar, not admitting I am the one who made her so. I am angry at her tiny and bloated stomach, shrunken from starvation, because I am still so ravenous. Yet here I stand, the one who told her not to eat, who hit the plate out of her hand. I was too scared of food poisoning. I was terrified that I would get used to it. I didn’t want to be used to love because of how painful it felt to have some, then none. But of course, I had none, because I would not cook anything to feed myself.
Sweet heart, you must be so hungry. I have plenty of food for you. Will you come, sit at the table? Here, have some tea, some bread. I am going to make you your favorite meal.
