dec20

I seem to be in a pretty delicate place in my process. There are a lot of uncomfortable feelings coming to the forefront, but they're feelings that were always lurking behind the scenes, just covered up at times when I was feeling good or particularly optimistic. Feelings like loneliness, insecurity, sadness, fear, anger, frustration, irritation, cynicism, weariness and depression. These were always there deep down but I've put a lot of energy towards suppressing, masking and overriding them in my mind and expression. Because I didn't and still don't want to be that kind of person. Even writing that out was a bit disturbing to me. Is that who I am, who I'm becoming, who I've always been? Not completely of course, but yes, those feelings have been there a long time beneath the surface.

I'm putting a lot of trust in the healing/grieving process. A lot of trust that allowing these feelings to come up and have their time in the light will eventually lead to their integration or release, naturally and in their own time. I'm willing to move into this for as long as it needs to take, but I have been finding it difficult to socialize for quite some time. I'm naturally inclined to make others feel good and comfortable with me, but I'm too aware now that in a lot of cases I'm masking significant aspects of myself and essentially caretaking others emotionally. Morphing myself into a pleasant companion for them, almost more like an AI chatbot than a real human being.

I once befriended a gifted autistic person who was always honest that told me that there was no one else like me, that I was a true original. At the time I felt embarrassed and brushed it off, but they were right. I think part of the reason I couldn't accept it at the time is because I felt so fake. But I am an unusual person. Almost everywhere I go, I stick out as an anomaly.

It's just strange to reconcile. Being original, yet also struggling so much with authenticity. I'm already out of place while trying to fit in, and to be really true to myself would mean leaning into and expressing that even more. What place could there be left for me?

A couple months back I decided that I was going to stop dressing to fit in with or attract others and only wear what I really liked and enjoyed wearing, regardless of what others might think. I donated all my formal and business casual clothes because I always hated how I felt in them, I decided I wouldn't even work or go anywhere that required me to wear them anymore. I also stopped cutting my hair short and let it grow to a messy medium length. Now it almost always just feels right and good to be wearing what I'm wearing and seeing myself in the mirror. But it's not really conventionally attractive or appropriate for any of my intersecting and mismatched demographics. It just feels good to me.

Nonetheless, I've since continued to meet people who want to be closer to me for some reason or other. Often I appreciate their presence and kindness but I rarely feel the same urge to be closer. These days I usually sense that it would be one-sided or unsatisfying for me, and I instinctively keep them at a polite distance to prioritize my own freedom and solitude. Because I'd rather be with myself too. But part of me really yearns for reciprocally satisfying connections.

I'm just in such a weird place. I can see myself taking shape but it's happening so so slowly. And along the way, so many potential friends and partners are coming and going. So much is falling away and being lost, sometimes forever, never to return. And all I can do is trust it and keep letting go, and returning to this process in the hopes that it's preparing me for the real thing.

That's a thought that emerges sometimes while I'm grieving. "You are being prepared." For what, I don't know. I think, in part, it's that I'm being prepared for what I want, what I'm asking for. But also for my true purpose in relation to others, which is in a sense already unfolding and has little to do with my desires.

To get there I have to go through these uncomfortable feelings, and to do that I have to welcome and be with them. Otherwise they'll stay buried and shackled deep down, and I'll never really be free and whole and available. My attention will continue to get pulled inward towards them like crying babies or festering wounds that need attention, and I'll stay fragmented and chained to the weight of the past and my own self absorption while the present continues to pass around me. I have to feel all of it, again and again, going deeper and deeper down into them. No more running, no more hiding from the truth of these feelings or the beliefs they're concealing. Even if they are representing splinters of untruth that were born of misperceptions and misinterpretations, they must be acknowledged and felt in order to be released. They have to pass through the light of a higher awareness that can hold and unfold them into the deeper truth of their ephemerality and essential unreality.