I don’t even remember how this post came to be, its starting point, its first word. But I was making coffee, this morning, in the kitchen. No, I’m lying: I was making coffee five minutes ago in the kitchen I was thinking about how CONSERVATION aided in the breaking up of my relationship. Do I feel guilty? No, but it was definitely an element of that. And this because - sorry, I’m trying to re-trace my thoughts backwards - we as artists are so involved in what we do, that we give all of us in the process. Maybe the ethical considerations... (this is how it started: that thought I had while I was opening the blinds in my bedroom!) - that which hurt me about the ethical considerations (previous post here) I was having last night is that these considerations were smokescreen for the personal pain I still have to endure due to my past and gosh I should be sorted!
I am a professional who works with the emotionally distressed and I should be sorted, grounded, flattened, balanced. I should know and know best. My ideas and focus should be crystal clear. Instead, I am excessive and intense which are all adjectives I would use to describe my mother when she was in, or right on the verge of, another alcoholic spell.
I should have worked out all of this. It should not hurt me anymore. I am a grown-up woman who “knows”.
But it is not true. I am a woman who feels. I still cry thinking how much I miss them and how much I miss the ideas of having “normal” parents. Or a normal family.
All of this cannot be stopped now, this process of emptying, sorting, cleaning dusty areas of the heart, going through old photographs of the mind, feeling, acknowledging, being aware, and basically live, cannot be stopped.
People give us suggestions on how to get better. I am telling you now: I want none. Don’t come to me with mindfulness and yoga and turning vegetarian. The only thing you can tell me is to go through all of this even if going through means making a fool of myself and being covered in shame.
I cannot conform, not anymore, to the idea of Perfection as a Therapist, Woman, Lover, Artist because I am an emotional being: I need the intensity and the excess and the exploration, and the down-side and the sadness, and the questioning, and the reading, and the lucubrating, and the mental masturbation of thinking and re-thinking and finding pleasure in the act of thinking. Because only this is the fuel for my creation: self-cornering myself so that I can jump onto the next stage. I am well aware that this conditioning is internal but at the same time, this is not dispelled thanks to some external factors.
So, I am floating, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I know I can sail, I can row, I can swim, and I can manage a boat and it doesn’t matter which mean I will use - maybe none, maybe all, maybe I’ll push the boat! - but I am moving.
And to the voices in my head that tell me that “oh, you have always to be different!” I say: yes, I am different
because I am unique.
© mtomat 2019 - written on 21.11.19 - no reproduction without permission.
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