Wow.

So I was on an 'altered state of consciousness' trip last night and having all this fun, and all of a sudden I saw John there. It was the last place I saw him in real life and he was smiling, but also reaching out to me, across the parking lot. In real life he was waving and making silly faces and I had tears just streaming down my face, uncontrollably. And then this semi truck parked between us, and then he had gone. But last night he was just there, and I felt it to the tips of my bones.

I really thought I had gotten over John. I really thought that I loved him, but I had accepted what is. I can't believe how deeply shaken I was by that.

(I don't do altered states of consciousness much--I did do mushrooms years ago in Amsterdam, and I've sometimes had mild hallucinations from marijuana. This didn't have any images for me, except John, and just that one image, frozen in time.)

I also realized that, for me, there is a huge difference between submission and surrender. With submission, I force myself to do what he wants, that I don't want. And with surrender, I open wider to him. There isn't the clenching. Submission is, for me, an act of will over-riding my every instinct, when all I want is to be held. Surrender is when I just get softer and more open.

One time, and one time only, I was truly surrendering to this man and I started having visions. I could see the shape of the universe, and it was like a giant nautilus shell. I should mention that my mom did LSD in the 60s, and saw the universe in the shape of a giant shell. So it is possible that that image had been planted in my head decades before. But who cares. It was really amazing, like I could surf through the universe and see how everything connected together.

John saw, so clearly, private girl as well as public woman. And my public woman knows how to handle rejection, but my private girl just doesn't. And for him to see me that clearly. And I know, it really was him and not me. His fears about not being able to give me what I wanted were real. At the time, I dismissed his fears about his health as being in his head because the doctors found nothing. But, clearly, he was ill. And his concerns about his memory lapses, I didn't believe that and thought if he had cared about me, he would have remembered borrowing my ring the same day we had an argument about whether we should get engaged before we had sex or not. (I wanted sex before engagement. He didn't want to hurt me and didn't want to have sex before he was sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Of course, if he'd known how short the rest of his life was....)

I'm not saying I was wrong to be upset that he forgot about borrowing my ring. I can see now, it was his failing body and not me. But I don't beat myself up about it. But if I knew then what I know now...

Somehow, other people's words seem to best summarize:

I've been thinking about leaving my fingerprints on your being...

So come down now. Remove your mask. See. All you gotta do is ask me. I'll give you all the love life allows.

What does this feeling mean to you. Both to be seen and to be seen through?

Stew, Passing Strange