Moments of Clarity Part Three - The Final Chapter

I sat with Brady the other night, talking about matters lofty and banal, which we often do. One of the great gifts that we share is that we are both on a spiritual journey, one of enlightenment and self discovery. One of the other gifts that we share is that we see each other. At one point in our conversation he said to me “One of the things I admire about you so is your ability to feel.” He told me that, the way he sees it, I dive into every emotion and feel it to the fullest. I know that is true. Even when I am trying to be emotion-less, I dive into my indifference and swim in it until I can touch the bottom of the pool. There have been times when Pat has said the same thing to me about admiring my ability to feel things to their full extent; that’s all well and good – until you are the walking carnage left from all those feelings. Other people who feel things as deeply as I do are nodding their heads right now. Aren’t you? You know how exhausting it is.

However. When my eyes are open and I look at it clearly, I know what a gift it is. I know that it is better to feel than not to. I’ve done both and it is clear how much better it is to feel than to be barren. To be frozen.

I watch a tv show called Drop Dead Diva (good show; really good – I love it a lot). This last week was an episode about a man who had turned himself into something he wasn’t because he was grieving from his dead wife. In one scene, Brooke Elliot talked to him about being the man his wife had fallen in love with. Another character spoke, at one point, about being the man his late girlfriend had fallen in love with. I remembered a scene in one of my favourite movies, THAT’S LIFE!, in which Julie Andrews tells Jack Lemmon he is not the man she married – and not the man she wants.

I thought about these scenes for a day. I reflected on how Pat had, at some point in the last year, told me that this person I have been turning myself into, this angry person who had bottled up all their feelings, this person – it isn’t his Stephen. He was right. He had fallen in love with a person who cries at television commercials and cherry blossoms floating down from the springtime trees. He had fallen in love with a person who laughed all the time and hugged everyone. He had fallen in love with a person that I was, systematically, killing with all this anger. That’s not fair to him. It’s not fair to anyone who knows and, truly, loves me. After all, without my over the top emotions and bull out of the gate personality, who would my friends have to make fun of, with love?

Brady says we have to manifest that life which we want. He says if all we feel, all we produce is negativity, how can we possibly draw anything positive to us?

Pat says I should always try to come from a place of love.

I thought about both those philosophies.

If I walk around with a scowl on my face, acting like some fictionalized version of what I think a tougher, harder, impenetrable Stephen should, could, would be like, how will I ever draw to myself the people who will actually treat me nicely? All that person will get is people who are comfortable with mean-ness. And the circle will not be unbroken. The anger will grow until it consumes me, altogether, finally destroying that which is left of the sweet little boy who used to link arms with his mommy when they went grocery shopping or mall walking. I liked that boy. I still feel his hand in mine. I must honour him, properly.

Brady told me that when he walks around New York he smiles at people. He looks at them and sees their stories. He sees them, sees their humanity. He loves them for their humanity.

I used to do that.

For the past few years, though, I have been covering my eyes. I use a hoodie, pulled way down; or a baseball cap, pulled way down. I use a position of my head that keeps my eyes down or an expression on my face that averts their eyes from me. I have spent the last few years shutting out strangers and shutting out family; I have done this out of anger and fear of being hurt.

Two nights ago I went for a walk and I looked at the people who passed me. I smiled at some of them. They smiled back. I focused on feeling happiness, rather than anger. I made the active choice of humanity. I opened myself up; and the change was palpable, it was tangible. People were responding to me very differently. I felt different. I had been feeling like I had taken my body and encased it in an old fashioned, heavy iron safe – I had been walking around in this safe with my head and my arms and legs sticking out. It was so heavy. It was so exhausting. No wonder I was tired all the time. Now, though, I was starting to feel considerably lighter. I could feel my facial muscles soften and my expression, too. I felt a shift in my paradigm. So I wanted to tell Brady and I wanted to tell Pat. I left a message for my friend and then I sat down with my husband and told them about my walk around town and how it was changing me. I told them: the anger is going away; it hasn’t turned to happiness yet… it’s a little sad and wistful right now. But at least it’s not anger anymore.

It’s a start.

For now, that will have to be enough.