Go Where the Resistance Is

Sheesh.

Why did I call you?

Oh yeah.

Perspective.

Ah.

Go through the difficult stuff, accept that there will be challenges, but I don’t have to allow myself to be hurt and I can get out of my own way.

“Darlin’ you’ve been resisting this for years,” he paused, “you crying yet?”

Affirmative.

I have to stop wearing eye makeup.

Or just surrender to the fact that on the occasion when I connect with certain people in my life I feel safe enough to cry around them.

I was not feeling so safe tonight in my normal spot on Tuesday evenings, there was some disturbances in the force, so to speak, and I felt for the first time what it meant to have some PTSD in my life.

Like I flippantly will acknowledge that I am most comfortable with my back to the wall.

I like to see what the fuck is coming my way.

I like to be prepared for all eventualities.

“Diapers, water, sunblock, sweatshirts, snacks, water bottle, wipes, sand shovel and bucket,” I patted myself down, “phone.”

“Oh yeah,” I said and smile, “babies.”

Or boys.

They are boys really.

I am a good nanny because of that but I forget that just because I am adept at my job that it is an easy job.

It’s not an easy job and I think that I am just some lazy person who has to work really hard to just get by, that struggle means I am doing a good job.

That is such bullshit.

I don’t have to work so hard and I bet if I wasn’t trying so much things would come easier.

I can advocate for myself and as I have been writing about I have some amazing people in my life who are urging me to do just that.

I am the one blocking my way.

Which is why it’s great to have some folks in my corner to give me suggestions and I am, defect of character that still works, a people pleaser.

I don’t want to let my friends down so I will take their suggestions.

Besides I know when I am balking that this is where it’s at.

“You only get hurt when you resist,” he concluded.

And then the tears really did overflow.

I looked up at the tops of the trees brushing the low hanging sky, the fog starting to rumble in like the wet wooly beast it is, weaving through the tops of the trees, obscuring Twin Peaks, a few dense, bright breaks of blue, then grey.

I think that my life is grey.

When that is me resisting.

I am resisting going over to that blue light, that clean, brightness scares me.

You know, I am most comfortable in the dark, hiding behind some clothes.

I used to have nightmares that would keep a therapists in caviar for decades and I remember often in them that I would hide in the closet to escape whatever was coming for me.

I would get in the back of the closet, beneath all the low hanging clothes and burrow under the dirty laundry scattered along the bottom and hope fervently that I just looked like a crumpled bit of laundry in the heap and not the scared child I was trying to still my breath to non-existent.

It wasn’t until recently that I began to wonder if those were really dreams or perhaps memories.

Just because I felt safe did not mean I was.

Hiding in that closet did not save me from being hurt.

It didn’t then and it won’t now.

So, here’s to traveling through the resistance and finding out what is on the other side.

“Honey, I have been doing this for 29 years, and I’m in my sixties, how old are you?  In your forties, you have 40, 50, maybe even 60 years to go, get the fuck out-of-the-way.”

Yes indeed.

Get to living.

“Go to Paris,” he said.

“Paris sucked,” I said, in a hot flash of tenderness that felt like I was poking a canker sore I thought has healed but is still there just below the skin healing slowly.

He laughed.

“No, your perspective sucked,” he said.

“Ah, yes,” I said, “Paris did not suck.”

Sigh.

I know this all sounds vague and nebulous but things are cooking and I am loath to take the cover off the pressure cooker until the meal is done.

Suffice to say I am walking through the resistance, taking the next action in front of me and listening with open ears and an open heart to my advisors, friends, and support network.

It takes a fucking village.

But fortunately I know that my walking through this and all other things that I have gone through, enhances my life and is of great service to others.

I mean I help a lot of people and I don’t do a lot of talking about it.

There’s just no point, it’s just what I do and it keeps me in the mix, in life, showing up, again, so that others will be pleased, but also, because, it saves my life and gives relief from the consistent wah, wah, wah in my brain.

Habits of a life time take some time to break, I have to wear some new grooves into my brain channels.

To that affect I am also going dancing, ecstatic, with one of my best girl friends on Saturday.

Can’t tell you how long I have told to go get my dance on.

Time to suit up and show up and I don’t know, dance, meet new people, spend time with my dear friend.

You know.

Rocking my life.

Because the real resistance is thinking that something needs to happen.

HAPPEN NOW.

To make me better.

I am better, for fuck’s sake, I am great.

I don’t have to always be on this improvement kick–let me stuff yoga, surfing, maybe re-pledge to do the AidsLifcycle ride in 2015, lose some more weight, finish a book, get published, go back to school, take a class in sign language, French, accounting, or make up–the list goes on.

I dont’ have to get up and do a thousand crunches.

Oh yeah, I did that once for about two months.

I was nuts.

Let me stop, pause, look at the resistance and say, go here, rather than go run a marathon, you don’t need to improve.

You just need to take a deep breath and go through.

Going through I am.

Here’s to seeing you on the other side.

Tags: dance, dreams, ecstatic dance, faith, friends, girl friends, giving up, it takes a village, love, mentors, moving forward, moving on, nightmares, postaday, recovery, resistance, surrender, therapy