| Momma you out now! I have a secret…I’ve always loved you, but have always been ashamed of you. Maybe it was since I’ve never been comfortable completely with myself and my story, then naturally, it was too hard to embrace your part in it when speaking to others. I mean how would I do that? Giving all that information of myself and you, yet feeling like I had nothing good enough to offer up about myself or you, unless someone knew me well, so I felt all I’d be doing is just giving people even more to see me as less. I felt toxic, broken, tainted,..no contagious, yea, I felt like knowing me and getting too close would infect people. And we all have enough that we regret and to be sad about right that? So why add my confusion on top? I always spoke of your love, never your past or your path, but of your passion. Your love was always like some kind of serum or elixir that I never understood but it was magnetic and I seemed that love, because I never found that type of heightened raw and boundless love. And so, its how I knew and learned how to love, by admiring yours from a distance and up close at those rare moments we were in each others lives, I always felt understood and accepted by you, like you knew a me that I hadn’t discovered or found worth in. The flaw in your love was that I tried even to this day to copy it and offer it to people that didn’t deserve that kind of love and all it did was serve to further break me down. Loving the wrong people does that..it was like a revolving circle, because your love broke me down too. Because I couldn’t have it as much as I needed it, so I chased it in women and friendships! I craved acceptance and boundless bonds, but most never understood my passion depth leaps and bounds, because most people never experienced raw love like that, but I did and I thank you for that, because I never questioned your love and how many can say that about anyone?! I know why and how I’m strong, because I am in awe of your strength fight and hope…just as people get confused by me, I used to get confused by how can you experience so much dark yet speak so much of light as if it was all going to be alright? It never made sense, but I always knew that there was always another level of contentment that I could aspire to even in the midst of my pain and darkness. Even the ways you’d speak of feeling when I was going through things, and I was, even denying it, it spooked me hearing how you knew. Being so distant yet you still were so connected to my heart and spirit. I never believed in things like that, but I used to pillow talk to my girlfriends about you like you were some kind of savant. I’m not proud to admit this, but there’s been times I’ve wanted to turn off the lights forever…even during this time, I guess I don’t speak of it a lot thinking I can always over power my experiences by wiping them from my memory but you always remember. Every time, date, admission and all as if it was some dark holiday and you’d give me this sense of everything will be alright, sometimes with and without all that cliché holy spiritual motivational talk, but mostly with your love language which I’m convinced is a language all on its own. Even now…mom, even now sometimes I wonder about the dark, but somehow through your darkest moments, you made it through. I vaguely remember these stories you tell me about how you used to talk to me when it was just you and I, a bond built from within your belly sitting beneath your broken heart, hearing its anxious rhythms I suppose kind of gave me an ear for the pain of others. There’s so much good that you have done that just can’t be seen and only is felt or maybe just heard, but how could I explain that? You’d sound like an alien, because connections love and perseverance like yours is sadly foreign. And all your mistakes were right thick on the surface, just as deep as everyone else, for all to see…so I figured that I’d just keep my personal business to myself. Even now I have that habit of controlling how much of my personal business is known, yet I can speak freely to everyone of their own situations. It just seems safer that way, not feeling like I may have to cringe expecting certain reactions if I ever spoke my whole truth, which at times I don’t even feel like I know. I’ve repressed so many things that I can’t stay present for one second without trying to make it to the next, not dealing became a way of life. And I put you in that “not dealing” category..it made sense to me, sometimes even now it still makes sense. I know I’m not the only one that hides, but the problem is that I’ve also hidden. Sometimes not even knowing how to show you affection up close from being so guarded internally for so long, even though I loved you, I guess I just didn’t know exactly how to be a son. Its something I’m getting used to, I felt more in control wanting to keep us at an even level as friends and preferring you just view me as a grown man, as if keeping emotions under control would keep things more clear and less messy. I struggle a lot with letting go of control of how much I let people get in, and what they know about me once they are in, and you shouldn’t be one of those people. And I’m sorry for that. The silly things we do to protect ourselves by keeping others at arms length, but how else do we survive. I never understood that I had been spending most of my life just surviving, staying closed off and being numb, only choosing to feel within fleeting moments of relationships to keep from losing another thing I had no idea how to keep since it wasn’t a thing to be controlled. But I guess the only way to change a pattern is to force yourself into the other direction. I found too many comforts in things that only hurt me in the long run, ironically, coping was also self defeating sometimes. But I’m end this by just saying that I love you #1, I’m proud of you and can’t wait to explore this new chapter. Your love strength and hope inspires me. |
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