in this proud land we grew up strong
we were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail
It's interesting--for all my family's aligned with the military, I was never formally taught to fight. Other kids took martial arts; I took ballet. Other kids played sports; I sang. But I learned how to fight nonetheless, mostly to defend myself, and by high school I was very familiar with blades, brass knuckles (or its common equivalent, roll of dimes in my pocket I could fist my hand around), bamboo canes, and the value common objects had--pens, pencils, scissors, letter openers, knitting needles, even safety pins and shop-class staple guns.
no fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
I've changed my face, I've changed my name
but no one wants you when you lose
Didn't help, mind; I still went down, over and over. My only strength in fighting was the willingness to make sure I wasn't the only one on the ground at the end of it. (And to be fair, some bullies would only take so much damage before backing off, so...I guess that's something?)
don't give up 'cos you have friends
don't give up, you're not beaten yet
don't give up, I know you can make it good
That, and not giving up. I was never strong in the sense of striding forward, confident and unafraid--frequently, I was terrified. I would come home and cry for hours. I developed a fair bit of anxiety. But my strength was always in endurance. I counted as wins the attacks I lived through, even though that attitude detonated at least one relationship when something technically unconnected struck against that "Just get through this, don't think about it, then it will be over" mantra.
though I saw it all around
never thought that I could be affected
thought that we'd be last to go
it is so strange the way things turn
So when the two-weeks-turned-two-days hit, followed by the ban, I tried handling it the usual way. I endure. I stagger, I fall, I bruise, I bleed. I heal, I get back up again. And in the beginning, that seemed to be working. Process out the swirling chatter of thoughts, dissect the cloud down to strands easier to comprehend, accept the loss...and get back up again.
drove the night toward my home
the place that I was born, on the lakeside
as daylight broke, I saw the earth
the trees had burned down to the ground
But...there was one very important difference with this situation. Oh, sure, I've had to interact with other former loves, but it's always been a stilted thing, awkward communication through the slits in the fortress wall, wary and stiff until they moved away. It's always possible to become friends after, though few exes have. But for those first few months, I have this sensation that if I yield, I die, so...I don't. I hold to the fixed point, no access to the heart given, all routes in blocked and locked and held far away.
don't give up, you still have us
don't give up, we don't need much of anything
don't give up, 'cos somewhere there's a place where we belong
Until this. Because it wasn't departure. It wasn't a complete ban in the sense of, Never see this one again. It was...You can still have him in your life, just not all of him. You can still see him, interact with him, hug him when necessary, hold hands...all the multiple little acts to show affection and care from friend to friend, instead of lover to lover.
rest your head, you worry too much
it's going to be alright
when times get rough, you can fall back on us
don't give up, please don't give up
But--I don't...work that way. Granted, I've never been able to turn off desire and deep affection like a tap, with anyone, but I have been able to barrier those feelings away, bury them deep in the shadowed basement until I can dig them up again and see if they've preserved into something shining, or rotted to bones and strands of care. And...for a very few moments, that was going to be my approach. Time to pick up the shovel and pack up everything except 'friend level' affection, set it aside, and move forward.
Instead, I sunk into the mire of my own confusion, spinning in circles, half of me in denial, saying "But but but--" over and over, and the other half just mystified as to how I address this at all.
got to walk out of here, I can't take any more
gonna stand on that bridge, keep my eyes down below
whatever may come and whatever may go
what river's flowing, that river's flowing
Don't get me wrong--I have broken up with lovers and remained friends. I've become lovers with friends, before realizing we were actually better for each other as friends, and transited back out. So it's still not the sex. There are ways to deal with sex, desire, want, everything. I know that.
moved on to another town
tried hard to settle down
for every job, so many men
so many men no-one needs
This...is...more. Because it went deeper. And, stupid me, it had gone deeper before I'd actually caught up with what I felt, let alone anyone else in the situation. Never let it be said I am not completely oblivious on occasion.
But that presented a very unique, and unfortunately new, problem: namely, how do I just be friends with someone I felt so much for? And the flip side of that coin: how do I tamp down and let ebb the desire for the man when all he has to do, literally all, is smile at me and I'm trembling?
don't give up 'cos you have friends
don't give up, you're not the only one
don't give up, no reason to be ashamed
don't give up, you still have us
Yes, I know, part of that's the ban itself. The lure of the forbidden thing, I covered that. And we've proven both of us are adult enough (yes, even me) that we're not tempted to fall on each other like frenzied felines now. Which is good, because...honestly, the steady state of feeling manifestly unsafe around someone I wanted to be around was getting a little erratic. And crazy-making.
don't give up now, we're proud of who you are
don't give up, you know it's never been easy
don't give up 'cos I believe there's a place
there's a place where we belong
But that's left me here, endlessly overthinking, endlessly trying not to overthink. Wanting, and being able to have, in one sense, but not take in another. And my hands are still itching. And I've pretty much abandoned human eyes entirely--my eyes are still green, that seems to be a given along with the red hair these days, but I'm seeing the world through cat slits because I literally cannot bear it otherwise.
And I have all my reasoning revealed, I have looked at it from all angles I can think of. It's been discussed both with the focus of the ban and the originator of same. They know what I know, which, true, may not be everything, but is everything I've been able to dig out and expose right now.
And it changes nothing. And I'm beginning to think I need to change, but...to what? Going back to oblivious seems futile. Going forward this crippled seems impossible. Staying here hurts too much continuously. There has to be something I'm not seeing. There has to be a way out that isn't stay and suffer, and suck it up, or everything's fine, no harm no foul, you can pick things up again. Because that not only defeats the purpose, but...as I said to the ban maker, even if all restrictions are lifted, I can't go through this again. If there's another misunderstanding--and since there's been two, major misunderstandings at that, there will likely be a third--and another rift comes in, I'm...going to have to take the incubus path with this one, and block, ban, unfriend and mute everywhere I can think of. Never see him, never talk to him, never hold him, never think of him as much as I can, keep my head down and get back to work.
I won't be able to function otherwise. And I kind of need to function to...y'know, function.
But cycling through all iterations of this is now its own stressor, and hello, we're back in the spin, just like that. I'm very nearly my own perpetual motion machine at this point, fueled by emotional conflict. How lovely for me.
And I still don't know what to do.
(Pictures taken at the Enchanted Isle of Mystery. Lyrics from Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up.)
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