Easter. I hate this time of year. My mother died around Easter, and so the holiday flowers always remind me of her funeral. I miss her every day, and as hard as that time was, I look back on it now and realize how loved she was, and how loved I was by the friends who are family, that showed up at her funeral. She was the youngest of 15 so all her relatives had passed before her, and I am an only child so there was no other family but me and my kids. But her funeral was a testament to the people in my life that she had touched somehow. And a reflection of how much they wanted to be there for me. Knowing how alone I must have felt.
I wonder, as I’m sure you sometimes wonder, who might show up to wish my loved ones well when I die. I know there will be people who won’t find out until its too late and others that might want to come but feel awkward or can’t make it for some reason. And unlike the carpenter king we celebrate this day, I won’t be coming back.
Or at least I won’t be coming back here.
Or I won’t remember that I’m me.
Or I get to go to the next level.
Or what?
We just don’t know, do we?
I wonder how much unfinished business my mother left on this world when she died. I wonder how much I will leave. I hope not much, but it's practically impossible to fix everything we mangle in our journeys. The most we can hope for is to learn from our mistakes and try not to repeat them. Fixing ourselves is a full time commitment, and one I highly recommend.
Now I’m not saying I’m fixed, just committed to trying to be the person I think I am. See that’s the trap isn’t? We all perceive ourselves as someone that no one else sees. Even the people that love us the most don’t see us the way we see ourselves. For example, I had an ex boyfriend once comment, after I told him the trials and tribulations of my divorce, that he couldn’t believe that I divorced him because he tried to fuck me up the ass. And I marveled that that was the only thing he saw wrong with the story I told him. Not his affair, not the absence he had in our friendship and marriage, not the slow deterioration of our communication because of his affair, just that I had refused him that anal activity. And what a wrong perception! How could he love me and see only this? It wasn’t the act that turned me off of my husband it was the WAY the tried to perform it. With no tenderness or thought to my feelings, and it was a huge trigger to my rapes when I was 12. There wasn’t even any discussion about how we would attempt this new position other than he wanted to and that I should just relax and it would be ok. Not did I want to. Not lets research this together as a loving couple and try this. Like all sex exploration should be.
Once you are forced into a rape, sex becomes a much more slippery slope than for others. Its unfortunate that that husband and my ex boyfriend didn’t understand those things then. I hope for their lives they do now.
Perception, unfortunately is everything. And back in those days I was handing out incorrect judgements right with the rest of them. But because I’ve been perceived so incorrectly most of my life, I’ve become a bit more understanding of the faults and inconsistencies that appear in people. You might say Im a gullible door mat, but at least I explore all the reasons for an action before I label a person as a player, or a slut, or a prude, or frigid, or broken, or a bitch. All names that have been slung at me. And my reaction is usually to hide, shut up, flee or smile. Smile to hide the hurt not smugly.
This carpenter king was all about unjust perception and forgiveness and love. I’d like to think that as humans, if we take one thing away from his preachings it was this. Its all about love. Loving without conditions, or unconditionally as you would a child. With vast amounts of forgiveness and understanding. For in each of us is a wounded child, looking for a safe place. Be that safe place.
Cheers
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