The Results of All Our Days

I've done some bad things.
I've done things that I don't know how to forgive myself for.
Or how to forgive others for.
I fell down rabbit holes and I ask myself "How did I let that happen?"
But I don't have an answer. I lived it, but I don't know how. What's that Matt Good line?

"Looking back it seems so simple, but how we done it, I couldn't say."

I'm such a harsh judge. Such a cruel critic. Of both myself and others.
I met a man last weekend and he 'suggested' I 'work on compassion'.
Yeah, well...

Some roads are easy to travel.
Forgiveness is worn over and abandoned.
But the grass is cut and fences shinny along the road to judgment that lives in my mind.
Those neural pathways are well worn.

It's funny that my greatest sins were both perpetrated against and with the same individual.
I'm like one of those guys who was beaten as a child and then turns around and beats their child black and blue. How one can be both perpetrator and victim in the same breath.
How we ended up so entangled, I will never understand.

I think, there are some people with whom it's just magic. You always click. You always have something to say, you laugh, you understand, you see them for who they truly are, flawed, lovely, well-intentioned fuck ups. Almost like you see through the mask at the treasure underneath. There are a few people in my life of whom I can clearly say I have an undefinable and unspoken kinship with and love of.

But I also think it's circumstances. There are certain dynamics which create invisible and unarticulated ties that can bond people in ways that are hard to make sense of. Those circumstances can build a trust and a respect and a connection that is extremely difficult to explain. Not in a gooey way, but in a way that comes from being your most vulnerable with other people and having them not run away.

I'm gonna go out on a limb of trash here and quote from one of the "Twilight" movies:

"When I left, I left you bleeding. And he stitched you up. And it left it's mark on both of you."

And it has. And it does. That quote doesn't account for the impact when that experience is not a solo act. In my particular case, one particular person was there for me like no other during 2 of the most traumatizing and painful times of my life. Circumstances beyond the pale of common experience. And in those dark and terrible times, I was indeed held together, and am grateful to have been held together. But that dynamic complicates our bond. It has become woven into it and can no longer be untangled. Which adds to and confuses our relationship in a world of myriad complex relationships and limited trust.

There's this place I go to from time to time and I'm quite convinced that the appeal of it for so many is the phenomenon of bonding. The programs there push you to know and see yourself in horrible technicolour ways, to dig out the truths burried within you that our society and our pride works so hard to keep locked away. But there you are, forced to face your shit.

And then the motherfuckers ask that you share it with others. It's terrifying. But what happens, almost without exception, is that people understand. People relate to the ugliest parts of you. People embrace you and care for you and want you around all the same. They don't freak out or judge you. They show you nothing but love and compassion. And so you get this glow after a couple of days from this sense of peace and freedom, because you can just be your whole self and not hide for a change. But then you have to return to the real, cold world. And suddenly all you want to do is go back. And thus the cycle of handing over large chunks of your money as often as you can begins.

What I find really strange about that is that those relationships, those intense bonds, are generally fleeting. They go, they do a workshop, they cry and yell and support each other, perhaps exchange an email or two and then disperse.

But not me. I bond for life. I friend for life. I love for life. I don't know how to do differently. Which makes gathering people and gathering guilt very easy. It makes letting go and compassion very hard.