"For you, love when you are imperfect"

I'm trying to go through all my e-mails with John. The first three weeks produced 134 pages, single spaced, so I'm saving the most important bits, especially those that feel loving or wise in a separate document.

I was rather shocked to read that I wrote this on Oct 6, 2007: None of your things (his list of his own faults) scared me (aside from the thought that you would die young, and that's what was really hidden under your words, but you didn't want to tell me), because it is what it is.

How the hell did I pick that up? Was it the smoking? I look at his list of flaws and cannot figure out where that came from.

But this exchange from October 15, 2007 seemed worth sharing. (John's e-mails are in blue. Mine in black. Turns out if you use google chrome, you can put and paste instead of having to retype.)

I just got turned down by the one man I've always tried hardest to please. And it hurt like fucking hell. I wrote him:

Hi Dad,

I propose you and I apply to do this together. If we try to do it with the 4 of us, it will never happen, but I would LOVE to do this for a week with you. If we do it, we should both apply.

http://www.yosemitepark.com/Accommodations_HighSierra_HowtoApply.aspx

Constance

And he didn't reply and then he was like "Oh, I went to the high sierras when I was a kid." Really casually. But he and my brother go hiking in the same areas all the time. And I hate the fact that I'm 35 years old and a casual comment from him can still bring me to tears. I know if I tell him, he'll care, but I don't want to make a big deal of it. It just seems, with me, it is evaluating whether the activity is worthwhile, and with my brother, it is finding time to hang out with him.

Part of it is that my brother is really busy and just doesn't make my parents a priority. My dad is the only man I literally 'play hard to get' with. I don't return all his e-mails, don't call him unless he's called me first, get off the phone quickly half the time, because our relationship works SO much better when I do. But I'd so much rather just relax and be. But when I do that with him, he pulls away and starts to get critical. God, I sound like a mess! Ah, well. You asked to hear about my dirty laundry, and I guess I trust you (mixed signals and all) enough to share it.

Mixed signals? I assure you my signals are genuine. They are simple but not easy. I would not trouble you with less.

You show me yours, I will show you mine.

All I ever wanted was to have the love of my family. I didn’t have it when I was a kid. Always the castoff, the rejected. When I was a teenager I tried again, to the same result. I went to the edge of the continent, worked a decade to prepare myself, strengthen myself, develop wisdom and strength and resourcefulness. I tore myself from my uncle who had sustained me, went to Seattle to truly stand or truly fall on my own merits. When I returned to my homeland it was with the deepest sacrifice. I gave up my home. My work. My friends. My success. My money. Everything.

I remember shortly after I returned to my homeland, Ohio, and I called my family and told them I was planning a family barbecue. I had no money. I scraped and scraped to buy hot dogs and soda and buns and charcoal. Everything was in readiness. Nobody showed up.

Seventeen members of my family didn’t show up.

I am with you, Constance. I know that ache, that need, that anguish. I have been there, and nobody came. I know the howl you hear within you. I hear it too. Sometimes it’s what howls me to sleep at night. Sometimes it’s what wakes me up.

I am not so naïve as to offer you solutions. Instead I offer solidarity. That howl tears me too.

I wish we lived close by. I would love a hug. And give you a really long one.

Thank you for sharing. I wish I could go back and hang out with you on that day and let you know how much you mean to this world.

We are wounded birds, Constance. To you, nothing will ever be so intense as the anger and disappointment of a man. And nothing will ever be finer than his warmth and acceptance and love, the joy of release. For me, nothing will ever be so painful as the rejection of those who should love me, and nothing will ever be finer than expressing my pain, my anguish, the joy of release. Do you know what I mean? We are symmetrical. We are each personal pain accepted and personal pain delivered. We are tales of ruin and of redemption.

Yes. That resonates as true. And I also think our strengths come from there. Neither of us has just ignored it and numbed out. We've faced it, and we're alive and vital. We can't avoid the pain without limiting our capacity to feel all the wonderful things too. The depth of our pain is the height of our joy.

Thank you for sharing and being a safe place to share.

Absolutely our strengths come from there J

Where do you think you found the will to *deserve*? And you do deserve, so magnificently. Where did you find the will to achieve?

Where did I find the strength to controvert? To transcend? To obviate?

But our old pains still ache us, and we still long for what satisfies. For you, love, when you are imperfect. For me, likewise. Your inner father is a tyrant, to whom you wish to yield until he is pleased. For me, my inner mother is a monster, whom I long to rise up and conquer, and earn her love with my strength.

That we have learned to take joy, even rapture, from our deepest wounds, shows us that we have indeed transcended, incorporated. It is not the way one would wish to learn powerful things. But one does not learn powerful things the easy way. Ours were long hard roads. We emerge weary but also toughened and able. We went so long without shelter that we need it not. But oh how we crave it. We must conquer, each in our own way, what both gives and deprives us of shelter. But it is shelter we seek. Shelter and warmth and acceptance.

Reading your summary, it seems like all my sex issues come from my father issues, and I feel like I ought to have moved beyond that, so much! I've never go to the "daddy" playing because it just feels SO wrong! Moving on and letting go. And yet, I never do it completely. Never able to stop proving myself, trying to be enough of something. I don't know.

And I know you don't have any judgment there--and I'm so grateful to you for that. But I still have judgment there. I keep thinking I ought to be able to make myself whole and complete on my own, and on one level I have, but on another, I still yearn for approval and protection and not to have to do anything--just to be. But I do project my inner father, no a healing of the wounds created by my inner-father--into the sexual sphere. I need a partner who will help heal those scars in my soul. And I wonder if that is true for all of our people?

It's funny--my dad told me this year, the week of my grandma's funeral, and it was clear he'd felt guilty about this for years--he and my mom had an agreement that if she got pregnant she'd get an abortion, and once she got pregnant she said "I can't" with no discussion, and my dad resented her and me for a while. And I totally understood his resentment! Totally. But the fact that he felt guilty about it, for 35 years! He is normally SO careful around me--he never criticizes me. He's even told me several times in the last year how beautiful I am, and how he expects men are falling all over me, and I couldn't believe how much that meant to me. I was in the 7th grade when he told me that no man would ever love me if I didn't lose weight. And I told him to fuck off (although not in those words) and closed my heart and never even tried to date.

Anyway.... thank you for listening. And thank you even more for sharing. You are an amazing person John. Really amazing--I've only ever shared that stuff with a shrink. I am loving getting to know you.

Do not think you disappoint me, Constance, as you do not J

I reject that in you which seeks to confine that in you! I embrace your releasing self, very truly! Very fully. I feel like I have life I can share with you! And I need not even touch you (unless you want that). I feel truly that it is a simple matter. Know what we are. Accept ourselves. See the way in which it works with someone else who understands. You are reborn into beauty. Pain becomes power. Anguish becomes joy. The beauty of our people is that they cannot achieve these things alone. We depend on each other. We must depend on each other. We depend on each other.

When you integrate, my friend, it will take your breath away J

I hope you will be there to witness it.

That is part of the beauty, and part of the curse, of what we are. We want so much to stand alone, but we cannot. We must eventually yield to the fact that we need each other. And we need something nobody else can give us. Only those who understand.

And when we find that understanding and acceptance, it is the feeling of coming home, of finding others of our kind J

Yes. Yes. Yes. Amen.

How the hell did you get to be so enlightened? So aware? So strong in your vulnerability? So clear and focused?

Sleep well. Deep, restful, peaceful, joyful loving sleep.

I love you John. Not in a sexual way, or a romantic or an erotic way. In a "I trust you completely with who I am, and I'll be there for you--you can call me at 3 in the morning if you need someone. Or even at 7 in the morning!" kind of way.

Then, he spoke about Jamie, the gal he was 'playing' with in a non-sexual way. And I shut down. And the next day he wrote: "I love you back" and I forget he had ever said that.