Tag Archives: friendships

Choosing Gratitude

By Posted in Life Lessons, Poetry, Written a long time ago Tagged , , 1 Comment 
unexpected
a name from the past
appears on my screen
my world tilts on its axis
forgetting for a moment
I am not the same

how easy to slip
back into old habits
back into anger
back to proecting myself
at all costs
seeking desperately to belong

suddenly
I'm the scared almost ten year old
still looking 
for a place to belong
at twenty
and even thirty years old

but I'm not
I have grown
I own my story

I understand now
what he meant in my life
why he had such power to hurt
what he taught me
and I can look back in gratitude
almost

gratitude
for believing in me
loving me
not trying to change me
accepting me
unconditionally
seeing worth and value
and beauty in me

gratitude
almost, but not quite
claiming my vulnerable story is new
old habits of fear
dig sharp claws deep

then I lived unknowing
unthinking
giving away my power
stuck in fear and shame

now I live 
understanding
able to choose
acceptance
forgiveness
gratitude

Written April 11, 2012 and originally published on my old blog.

Apparently I’ve forgotten things I knew then and also there were things then I hadn’t even begun to figure out. The story of that friendship makes much more sense now on this side of the closet door.

Also looking back … it never really was about unconditional love and acceptance, but that was how I experienced it at the time and how I remembered it when I wrote this. This side of the closet door and this far in the journey out of the toxic theology of evangelical Christianity, I have a different understanding of what those things mean.

Reclaiming what was taken

By Posted in Life Lessons, Poetry Tagged , , , Leave a comment 
you took something that day
or maybe, I gave it away?
No. it wasn't my choice

it was your actions
your carelessness, your selfishness
your lack of willingness ... or maybe ability
to understand how your actions affected
someone else

that shouldn't have been a surprise
the history, the pattern, 
well-established by then 
and yet ... it was 
because I was the one 
you trusted more than the others
and so I thought you were the one I could trust

I want to say you took my innocence
but someone will assume something sexual
it was never that, not between us

whatever I call what you took
after that day I trusted even less easily
you'd seen more deeply than I'd let anyone see before
still not to the truth
but back then I didn't let myself see that deep either

but you had seen what I knew then and
you had tangible reminders, words I'd written
words I'd reluctantly shared
until you sent them back

you said later it was about not deserving them
but at the time
you said less than nothing
other than you didn't want
them ... or me? ... anymore

I was ... heartbroken
the word I used that night through my sobbing tears
swinging at the park with the only person
I could still trust enough 
was ... violated

it's taken a very long time
almost thirty years
before I've felt the same freedom
to write with vulnerability that I knew before that day

I didn't block you when you 
reappeared on the edge of my life this time
I thought that was giving away my power
I let you lurk
at some level wondering when you'd engage

I'm done waiting
leaving you lurking ... 
that is what gives away my power
you're not in my world
your voice no longer holds any sway
you are gone never to return

I guess you could say I’ve been unpacking some boxes.

Mainly I wrote this for me because I needed to take back my power, but maybe it will also reminds someone else that they can also reclaim what was taken from them.

And even if it doesn’t, part of reclaiming what was taken is giving myself permission to share the words I’ve written even if they might really only make sense to me, because sometimes all we can do is tell our stories in whatever form they come most naturally.

Closing a door left open too long

By Posted in Life Lessons, Poetry Tagged , Leave a comment 
I don't know why I didn't block you on sight
why I allowed you to add me to a list of friends
knowing you would quietly lurk 
and part of me would always be wondering when
you would decide to reach out 
and bring turmoil back into my world 
as you've done so many times before

I'm not really sure friends ever described 
what was between us
it was both more and less
though I've never really had 
words to explain 
us

friend, confidant
best friend's fiancée
partner of my heart
unofficially adopted brother
soulmate, stranger
betrayer, advisor
almost boyfriend
no one

all of those things
and none of those things

at times you brought so much good
into my life
you taught me I was worthy of love
... until you walked away
you taught me my words had value
... until you threw them back unwanted

I know there were reasons
I know the hurt that was in your life
I know I needed you as much as 
you needed me
and we were both broken and damaged
and it wasn't just the two of us
it was the four of us always
even when it wasn't

I know I promised I would always be there
if you decided to stop running and needed me
That's why it's hard to close the door firmly
I didn't make that promise lightly

but I'm not the same person I was then
you're probably not either,
but I wouldn't know, because this time
you didn't reach out, you just lurked

Well, actually, I am the same person
but I didn't know me then
and neither did you
I just thought I was broken
and you, many times,
made me feel less broken
until, in your own brokenness,
you broke me more

I was probably foolish to trust you
stable wouldn't have been a word
to describe anything about you 
in our previous versions of this story

there is still anger at you 
for abusing that trust
and for how guilty I feel for closing the door
but, also, maybe I'm mostly angry
at myself for hiding away who I was
and allowing myself to be so easily hurt
and believing the lie that I was broken
because I couldn't see my own value

and maybe that's the anger
I need to let go of in order to finally 
close the door 
not on who I was then
but on the power I gave you in my life

there's never been a healthy version of us
it's always been too tied up 
in our brokenness and shame

I'd still be there if you needed something
because the good you were in my world still exists
but there are boundaries now that cannot be crossed
so the door is closed 
because I know who I am
and sometimes there is no going back

The person I wrote this about knows who he is. This is me saying I’m done. What connected us then is no longer.