it's allright

when i was very young, i was entwined with inappropriate sexual activity. quite a lot of it. i can't tell you what was first or even who it was, but i do know that i had become sexually active by the time i was in the 1st grade. i grew up in a single parent household.and learned early on that if i wanted to get affection from a male, it was expedited through sexual activity fairly seamlessly. sadly, i think that this also telegraphed the information that intercourse was affection and that lust was love.

as one can imagine, being a very young, a very closeted, and very naive sexual partner affords the partners the opportunity to take advantage and perhaps be a bit utilitarian or abusive as it were. i found myself on many occasions growing engaging in sexual activity with young men only to have them make fun of me and the process later. needless to say it was often obsessive, traumatic, and taboo. and it was how my world was sculpted.

it was no wonder i started to medicate at a young age also. all those intensely passionate feelings were difficult to manage for a 12 year old.. and i soon found that i didn't have to manage them, i could just blot them out. and i did. repeatedly.

when i started my journey down sobriety road, i was not really even aware that this novella i have just described was how i had lived my life. i had done such a good job of sailing denial that i hadn't even begun to put the dominoes back together. but as i did spend time being clean, working with a sponsor, working a program, and enlarging my spiritual life. i encountered a situation and a man that very much mirrored that of much of my childhood.

he had been in a position of helper to me on my early journey to recovery. i remember the decisions to be honest with him and the disappointment in realizing he wasn't able to quite do the same. but he was smart and he was funny and he had won my confidence so i continued to have faith in him and the person he represented to me.

in the midst of his desire to make a name for himself and to carve a niche in the local scene, he enlisted me in a project a year or so after we had parted. as i accepted his invitation, he prepared to move on without me. i had changed my path and had almost immediately felt discarded, but kept moving forward as i had learned to do at such a young age. this was my total experience with the hearts and affections of men. so it didn't seem extraordinary at all.

another year passed and once again he contacted me out of the blue with the promise of another project and another adventure. i had somehow found comfort and some success with the last segment and felt confident this would follow a like path. my proverbial universe had once again opened a door and as i walked through with little fear because that is my nature.

more success followed for me in the short term. i travelled some, created an outreach entity, captained a floundering social network, resurrected a periodical, and learned much about an enclave that had been a mystery only a year or two prior. and i gained some confidence as i walked many tweakers through their follies toward some truth. but this time the adventure created some frustration and envy in my mentor. he had slowly become the wizard whose curtain had been pulled back and i had seen this and had refused to pretend i hadn't.

he lashed out at me, through my reputation and my vulnerability. i believe his intention was to make himself the great wizard of oz again, turning to him for solace and comfort. alas, that was not my path. instead i realized that something stinky was afoot and decoded a clue within this effort that pointed directly to him.

ptsd ensued. i had certainly been in this position before. many times. i had trusted this guy. and i had opened up to him and had looked to him for mentorship. and he had obliged always with the knowledge that his particular excalibur was more important that any of the knights and fools he encountered along the way. i became an incinerator with heat and horror roasting me from the inside out. i simmered and stewed for months until he cut me loose. but the day he created his little drama for me, i vollied with my perception of his play, and he didn't speak to me again even to cut me loose. he sent a messenger and a big gift. and he didn't speak to me until over a year later.

my anger was so stifling and toxic, i had no choice but to seek therapy. i needed to talk about the victim i was used to being and process how to move through this anger ( without getting high). i had never done this before. i was 46 years old and i had the emotional maturity of 16 year old. therapy changed my life. not only was i able to realize that my perceptions through all this peuky drama were pretty spot-on. i could trust my feelings and my intuitions. i learned that my anger was about much more than just the travelling salesman posing as a wizard that had occupied my life these last few years. i was angry about all those manipulating bastards who played with me like Giuseppe played with pinocchio. i had been angry for most of my life. but i had never felt entitled to honor it. because, all those years, i had felt like a freak, inadequate and not-at-all normal. this realization, that i had carried around this bullshit through all my years, just like a scarlet letter, was a pivotal action that has changed the course of my heart.

i have been actively working on letting go and moving past all these feelings i describe here. they were embedded in my core and i consistently return to those feelings when life shifts. but the difference, (and it's a huge difference) is that i don't linger in those feelings any more. i have learned that i can feel other things about myself. i can be happy even if i have made an ass of myself, or said something incredibly inept. i hope you get the picture.

this is probably long and rambling, but i had to get this out. i have recently encountered, through the degrees of separation, an invitation to go off to see the wizard once more. i have been gobsmacked 'cuz i don't have the anger i once had around this. i am impartial to say the least. and i have gratitude, real gratitude, that i can the platform to release even more of the toxic waste of my own self-judgement. and had i not travelled the road to meet the wizard, i would never have discovered the ancient internal fire, never have extinguished that fire, and found my way back to the allright.

i wish for peace....