Drama
About an hour ago there was some arguing going on outside the house - fighting - a lot of fucking swearing and a lot of use of the words "fucking" and "cheated" and "lied" and "bitch". This went on for about five or ten minutes before being punctuated by a *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*. It took me all of five seconds to dial 911 and report in a quavering voice,
"I just heard gunshots fired outside my house."
"How many?"
"Four."
"Are you sure it wasn't fireworks?"
"I don't know. There was a lot of swearing and yelling."
"Thank you for the information."
OK. I still have no idea what happened, the cops did come within a few minutes, but the melee had dispersed, at least audibly. I can't see the front of the house from my apartment, and initially I was too shaky and scared to go outside. About 1/2 hour into it I decided to go out and poke my head around the side of the house. Cops were talking to several people, I heard someone talk about hearing 4 shots, which made me feel at least a little less reactionary and slightly more sane. Ah, the genteel life of Connecticut.
So now I'm totally wired. Not crying anymore, as I did for just a few minutes in the thick of all that, just letting off some nervous energy as well as some sadness that had been hanging over me all night, anyway. I'm slowly sipping at some coconut flavored rum and it's pretty good.
My mind has been in a brooding way all day and night. Had plans to go to the casino again to meet up with my lovely bartender friend, but my girlfriend cancelled, and I don't do bars, especially dance clubs, alone. I've been thinking a lot about my family today. That I love them, but don't love my relationship with them. That I have deep, unresolved wounds that I worry about getting around. That those wounds are working against me, keeping me in a place I don't want or need to be in - one where a facade of closeness, maintained by regular, almost daily contact with them, is substituted for a deeper understanding and acceptance and communication. One where I find myself looking to others to create the sense of safety, freedom, love and acceptance I seem to be craving. One where moving on becomes difficult, and at its worst can feel like a betrayal.
Everyone's family is dysfunctional on a certain level, of course. My own feels so mired in past patterns, expectations, and roles that at times it feels utterly suffocating. I have tremendous compassion and empathy for the dysfunction - nobody means to harm anyone else - but it doesn't mean they don't. And the overall empathy - enabling - becomes a quicksand-like trap. My mother is the closest thing to a fucking saint I will ever know in this lifetime, I mean it, and this has served many well, but in some ways this has backfired when it comes to family.
You see? You see how difficult it becomes to criticize, not empathize? The thought of harming others in any way destroys her, torments her, and I have heard her wonder aloud what she did wrong when there happens to be a crisis at the house. She raised nine children, worked full-time for years, served and continues to serve her community and church with vigor.
The truth is, at times I find myself impatient, even angry with her. She had me at age 40, I was number eight. My relationship with her has always had some distance and some strain. Perhaps I was given less attention - I'm fairly certain I was - which in turn made any attention I did receive, especially negative or "intervention-ary" sort of attention - extremely unwelcome and uncomfortable. I do not now, and never did, have "heart-to-heart" talks with my mother. My eldest sister took on that mantle. I know the distance that still exists burdens my mother. I see it almost every day in the way she looks at me.
This is the shit I'm talking about. I don't know how to heal this breach, and a big part of me will never be open to her. As a child I would always cry behind the locked bathroom door, trying to hide my vulnerability, pressing cold cloths over my eyes when I was done so no-one would see the redness and the swelling. Some critical part of me never felt safe.
Lately I keep talking about what I think I need in a relationship. And safety feels like a big word, and maybe a heavy word, too. But I don't want a blanket or even a fortress. I want someone who is strong enough to bear witness to my pain, my aloneness, and not carry me, or cover me, or fix me - I just want them to look at me plainly, with neutrality, and let this darkness be, and still walk with me, trusting me to walk through it, and meeting my smile and desire on the other side of it with the same smile and desire. I don't just want safety. I want transcendance.
And I'm still totally wired off rum and gunshots.
"I just heard gunshots fired outside my house."
"How many?"
"Four."
"Are you sure it wasn't fireworks?"
"I don't know. There was a lot of swearing and yelling."
"Thank you for the information."
OK. I still have no idea what happened, the cops did come within a few minutes, but the melee had dispersed, at least audibly. I can't see the front of the house from my apartment, and initially I was too shaky and scared to go outside. About 1/2 hour into it I decided to go out and poke my head around the side of the house. Cops were talking to several people, I heard someone talk about hearing 4 shots, which made me feel at least a little less reactionary and slightly more sane. Ah, the genteel life of Connecticut.
So now I'm totally wired. Not crying anymore, as I did for just a few minutes in the thick of all that, just letting off some nervous energy as well as some sadness that had been hanging over me all night, anyway. I'm slowly sipping at some coconut flavored rum and it's pretty good.
My mind has been in a brooding way all day and night. Had plans to go to the casino again to meet up with my lovely bartender friend, but my girlfriend cancelled, and I don't do bars, especially dance clubs, alone. I've been thinking a lot about my family today. That I love them, but don't love my relationship with them. That I have deep, unresolved wounds that I worry about getting around. That those wounds are working against me, keeping me in a place I don't want or need to be in - one where a facade of closeness, maintained by regular, almost daily contact with them, is substituted for a deeper understanding and acceptance and communication. One where I find myself looking to others to create the sense of safety, freedom, love and acceptance I seem to be craving. One where moving on becomes difficult, and at its worst can feel like a betrayal.
Everyone's family is dysfunctional on a certain level, of course. My own feels so mired in past patterns, expectations, and roles that at times it feels utterly suffocating. I have tremendous compassion and empathy for the dysfunction - nobody means to harm anyone else - but it doesn't mean they don't. And the overall empathy - enabling - becomes a quicksand-like trap. My mother is the closest thing to a fucking saint I will ever know in this lifetime, I mean it, and this has served many well, but in some ways this has backfired when it comes to family.
You see? You see how difficult it becomes to criticize, not empathize? The thought of harming others in any way destroys her, torments her, and I have heard her wonder aloud what she did wrong when there happens to be a crisis at the house. She raised nine children, worked full-time for years, served and continues to serve her community and church with vigor.
The truth is, at times I find myself impatient, even angry with her. She had me at age 40, I was number eight. My relationship with her has always had some distance and some strain. Perhaps I was given less attention - I'm fairly certain I was - which in turn made any attention I did receive, especially negative or "intervention-ary" sort of attention - extremely unwelcome and uncomfortable. I do not now, and never did, have "heart-to-heart" talks with my mother. My eldest sister took on that mantle. I know the distance that still exists burdens my mother. I see it almost every day in the way she looks at me.
This is the shit I'm talking about. I don't know how to heal this breach, and a big part of me will never be open to her. As a child I would always cry behind the locked bathroom door, trying to hide my vulnerability, pressing cold cloths over my eyes when I was done so no-one would see the redness and the swelling. Some critical part of me never felt safe.
Lately I keep talking about what I think I need in a relationship. And safety feels like a big word, and maybe a heavy word, too. But I don't want a blanket or even a fortress. I want someone who is strong enough to bear witness to my pain, my aloneness, and not carry me, or cover me, or fix me - I just want them to look at me plainly, with neutrality, and let this darkness be, and still walk with me, trusting me to walk through it, and meeting my smile and desire on the other side of it with the same smile and desire. I don't just want safety. I want transcendance.
And I'm still totally wired off rum and gunshots.
posted by Black Egg at 12:04 AM
4 Comments:
ack, gunshots! That is scary. I'm glad you did call 911. Probably they got calls from other folks as well. I'm sure you're not alone in being freaked out by it.
It's a hard thing to process family stuff. I have a wonderful family, but I do feel hurt, resentful and screwed up due to certain things that have happened in my life. And there are certain things that I still just have to deal with whenever I deal with family. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to change them- you're right that behavior patterns become so ingrained. But I like the idea of changing how you react to those patterns.
And the last part (again) is something that I really get. When I'm depressed, or angry, or even happy, I don't want someone to try and fix it or even comment on it. I want them to acknowledge it and accept it and stand by me through it. It's really hard to get people to understand that though (and sometimes when I'm depressed, it probably sounds like I just want things "fixed"....makes it a little complicated!)
Yeah, I don't know what came of all that gunshot/enraged fighting drama - but maybe I should check the police blotter!
Family - sigh. Family.
You're right, it is really hard sometimes for people to get that you don't want fixing. You just want the broken parts accepted, acknowledged, and then to move on from there. There will always be something unknown about all of us - to ourselves, and others - and that's the way it's supposed to be. Mystery and darkness are meant to be explored, and you can't know or see it all, not all at once - but not having the fear to go there and check it out - that means everything.
Thx 4 checkin' in...
"rum and gunshots"
i think that says it all... sounds like it might even relate to family matters as well... hows yer week looking so far?
Yeah, damned rum and gunshots. Next time I'll run out to the garage and grab one of the scythes out there (there's more than one!), head out to the street and yell BREAK IT UP MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!
Yeah, right.
My week so far is ok - having some strange changes of habit, for instance I don't want to drink. And not in response to a binge or sickness or anything like that. It's weird.
Work has been sort of annoying, but at least my co-workers seem somewhat uniformly annoyed, so that kind of helps. Hmm.
I'll try posting in a day or two, or maybe later tonight if I have the gumption...
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