Saturday, July 16, 2011

The Devil You Don't Know

One of the most important and hardest lessons to learn so far in life has been the lesson that it is not my responsibility to fix people. While I believe that all of us have a touch of this in us, for some it is more of a hump to get over than others. I know for me, at times, it was akin to climbing Everest. And I am ever aware of the backsliding.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt some sort of ingrained mission to fix other peoples' miseries and situations. For those of us who spent as much time raising and protecting our parents/siblings as our parents did us, the root of this can be obvious. Whether obvious or inobvious, however, this tendency in me has proven more unhealthy than healthy in the long run, and after 27 years, I have let it go.

It kept me imprisoned in unhealthy relationships, pushing for my partners' miraculous mental revelations. It kept me dating and settling for chronically unhealthy women with no hope of ever seeing the light at one end of their darkness. It has pulled me into negative energy spaces with friends who seem to have no interest in viable, long-term solutions to their immediate miseries.

When I first entered therapy a couple years ago and unloaded all that was weighing me down, my therapist looked at me and responded (in not so many words), "These things are all sad or unfortunate, but they're not your problems."  I don't think my mind could really comprehend it at first. I had no boundaries. No rules about what was mine and what was someone else's to handle. Those people, however unhealthy, were my partners, my friends, my family, and admitting it wasn't my responsibility felt like abandonment.

The process of letting go has been long, and hard, but so very worth it. I had to learn that love, true or otherwise, can be poisonous, and there is no way to love someone harder or better in order to change that. I had to see that some people really do prefer the devil they know to anything else, because misery can be soothing in its familiarity. In waking up and looking around, I saw the darkness in addiction, and that not everyone is as ambitious, or stubbornly-willed as you might hope in your love for them.

In trying to put distance between myself and the people/situations in my life that were perpetuating my need to play savior, it made room for healthy people to appear/reappear in my life, including one of the most important of all. Talk about freedom and joy.  It surprises and pleases me when people see this change in me. Feeling the change in myself at first was even exhausting. The devil you don't know can take a lot of energy at first. But when people started bringing up how happy I was all the time, I knew all the pain and exhaustion of moving through it was worth it. I had to get used to a smile on my own face. I had to remember how much I giggle.

I am ever grateful to the people who have stayed in my life through all of this. I am thankful for the new people I have met, and blessed in the necessary loved ones who have returned. As for those I have lost, I cherish you, and my wish will always be for you to become the saviors of your own destinies. Sometimes the best way to love yourself and others is to let go. Sometimes it's the only way, if you want to see that person grow.

~ Mar

Monday, February 14, 2011

Six Degrees of Awkward Gay Social Separation


For any of you who have followed my blog to this point, you’ve heard me touch on the shallow subculture pool (and all that entails) and my thoughts on what I like to call musical exes.  This entry is a slight branch out from that, inspired by a friend’s Facebook status (as well as a few other things).

In all my 27 years, I have always had friends that other friends or other people couldn’t understand why I’m friends with them.  They’d meet the person in question and say things like, “She seems angry,” or “a lot of maintenance” or “they seem dark,” etcetera.  I guess it never occurred to these naysayers that what may seem one thing to them was something else entirely to me - that maybe that person fills a space in my life that maybe somebody “easier” would not.

Now, this is not specific to the subculture, but take what I’ve described above and put a subculture twist on it.  I am currently friends with someone whose ex is dating my ex.  I have also made out with the person that one of my favourite people is currently romancing.  It’s been said that we are actually lucky if we have as much as six full degrees of separation here in the subculture pond that is so small you can practically spit across, and for the most part, it’s true.

Situations like this can definitely be awkward.  We don’t always exist in a space where we can effectively avoid each other, if avoidance is our tactic of choice.  So when someone has just ended a relationship with someone and that person starts seeing someone that you may have previously been seeing, life gets awkward.  That part is unavoidable, and certainly not what I’ve come to discuss, because short of expecting people to leave the city, it’s not a problem that’s solvable.  However  . . .

We all know that relationships (romantic or otherwise) rarely end on a good note or with any sense of amicability (at least right away).  Chances are great that if you just ended something and your ex starts seeing someone you know, you’ve got lingering issues and more than a few choice words you’d like to share.  Often, in the subculture, you see a sort of power struggle ensue – two lesbians break up and there seems to almost be some sort of invisible game of marbles happening, to determine who was friends with what friends first and who’s going to walk away afterward with the most of them.  This struggle often tries to take place on margins of who was right and who was wrong, when relationships almost never fit squarely into right and wrong categories.  I disdain this power struggle – my hope is that someday people will understand that we’re all mucking along in the same world, no better equipped than anyone else to be passing judgement on people or relationships and how they best function.

That having been said brings me to the main point.  Gossip.  Or trash-talking.  Or any other way you might like to color it.  People trying to tell other people what person might be bad, or damaged for them.  Where do we get off, I wonder, telling someone that a person we once cared about who may have hurt us in ending something, is somehow too broken, or crazy, or [insert gossip here] to be in someone else’s life?  Who are we to say who is good or bad?  We’re all damaged, we’re all messed up in our own ways, and to sort of steal a line from RENT, just because my baggage may not go with yours, doesn’t mean that it won’t go with someone else’s in a way you’re unable to see.

And yet we do.  We judge, and push, we gossip people away from others.  We whisper in the club and elsewhere.  “Do you know what happened?” and “Oh, I can’t believe you’re friends with that person.”  Get off it, people.  We are all able to make our own decisions, regarding who is ‘too crazy’ for us and who isn’t, or who fills a space in our lives that may not have filled a space for you.  I am pleased to have enough confidence in my own judgement in people to decide whether someone being my friend or lover is healthy for me, no matter how unhealthy that person may previously have been for you.  We are all only human, and at the end of the day, I believe with every fibre of the heart I wear on my sleeve that people are worth the benefit of the doubt, every time.  Call it flaw, if you like, but it’s brought me the best people in my life, and taught me the most important lessons, as well.

So yes, I’m aware that I’ve pissed off my share of people in the subculture.  I’ve got exes; both from friendships and romantic relationships, and maybe some of them still carry enough anger/judgement to want to turn people off from me.  I try to be understanding, and I always forgive.  Because we’re all wandering, and nobody’s really doing it better than anyone else, as much as we’d like to believe otherwise.  The ones who are worth it will listen with their hearts instead of their ears, and stick around to make the right decisions about who is deserving of their time.  To those I have loved and cared about, and those I do love and care about, I wish you all nothing but happiness and truth in your wanderings.  Listen with your hearts, for the ground is level under our feet, and you have all been beautiful to me.

“I know that it’s easier to portray a world that’s filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence.  That’s titillating.  It’s an easy out.  What’s a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show that you can have a positive impact on your world.  To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder.” – Jim Henson

~ Mar

Monday, January 3, 2011

The More We Get Together

Recently, I was having a conversation with a woman who co-pastors an eclectic type of "home church" here in the city.  This conversation was about many things, but one of the more interesting things that came up was my thoughts and frustrations regarding the incestuous feeling of the GLBTQI dating scene here in Fredericton, and the drama cycle this seems to perpetuate.  "Just once I'd like to meet a woman where I don't know her ex, her ex's ex, and all their friends in between."  It's recently reached a point where if I see an attractive dyke around that doesn't seem familiar, I can safely and usually accurately assume that they're not native to Fredericton's scene.

My pastor friend's theory, to give you the gist, is that incest (if you take it out of the blood-relative context) breeds a sort of self-focussed, destructive energy.  "A community (or family) that is focussed only on and within itself is going to suffer from unhealthy emotional issues and perpetuate a host of common tics and problems."  We of course discussed how this crosses more than just sexuality boundaries, and is the reason too why so many Christian churches fall in on themselves - the failure to look outward and bring that energy to the larger world.

As far as this theory relates to the subculture though, I both agree and disagree.  One thing to consider is that most GLBTQI communities are incestuous not by choice but by necessity.  "Sub"-culture inherently infers smaller than the community it exists within.  With Fredericton being a small city to start with, one can only assume that even the straights in the area have had more than one experience with playing musical exes.  The smaller the dating pool, the more likely to find this problem.  Moving outside of your local dating area is an option, but not always practical - or even doable for those who can't manage long distance.  Let's be honest, folks, some of us aren't even good at relationships here within city limits, let alone cross-province.

Musical exes appears to me to be one of the things most complained about in the community.  But Debi made a comment once upon a time over coffee that's relevant here, too, and that is, for the most part even though the community is incestuous, there is a feeling that we all have each others' backs if it were to come down to it.  Whether this is something that's inherent in the more literal sense of incest I don't know, possibly.  Also, keep in mind, this relevant comment on the theory has different layers and levels in my opinion, too.  We here in Fredericton seem to talk a lot of game when it comes to breaking up with someone and the anger we allow into that experience.  But IF that ex were on fire on the street, would we piss on them to put them out?  I like to believe for the most part yes.  Not only that, there are varied experiences and spaces that we are operating within daily in this regard.  We have Pride meetings, and go to the club and manage passable friendly dynamics with people that may be avoiding us in "real life."  In playground terms, we "make nice" in the community, with a very human sense of community loyalty lurking beneath the surface of our wounded, musical relationship facades.

I don't think I believe that the GLBTQI community will ever necessarily fall in on itself because of this necessary incest, but I do think we have mini-quakes of falling in ourselves individually.  We rally, we move around each other, and slowly build each other back up in new ways with expansions and growth of the heart.  I think this is necessary, and beautiful.  I've always wondered if maybe the smallness of the community and the limited number of people is God/dess/whoever's way of playing the ultimate joke on us.  I like to think that maybe ALL our partners/soulmates/etc. do actually live in this community frame.  We just have to wait for the music to stop in front of the right chair, however long that takes.  And it very well could be that partner IS someone that you've been with before, they just needed to keep playing until they caved in and were rebuilt and came around one more time.

My point (assuming I set out to have one of sorts) is that, while we spend copious amounts of time bitching about the shallow pool in the city, if you stir up the waters, you will see something safe and beautiful and sometimes healing in there.  We show all the colors of our rainbow in this splintered dynamic.  For me, this is where my Pride lies.  In knowing that while we stand damaged, and human and backbiting, we are home even if we can't see that home yet.  Necessary incest - maybe.  Family?  Definitely.  Beautiful?  Without a doubt.

~ Mar