Sometimes we just have to do what feels good, even if it requires a greater surrender than we’ve ever had the courage to make before. Our darkness is as real, as valid, as beautiful as our light – never sharing that with anyone is such a waste of everything we are as humans. It may take a great, horrific leap of faith to let go of our own shame and finally be honest with someone we care about – but it is such a relief when we do. Whether that person understands or not – whether they judge you, leave you, or think you are a nutcase – doesn’t really matter. Because it sets you free. If we go around denying parts of our own soul, flinging out a different set of lies to every new lover, friend, or casual acquaintance (tailor-made to whatever it is we think they want of us) then how can we ever hope to have anything real?
The past week I have been completely wrapped up in my own world. It’s hard to be specific about what is going on, because I don’t even really know myself. I do know that I am happy, and have very little fear of being hurt. It is incredibly ironic that the man I am most vulnerable with is the one I am least afraid of now. I have given him power, and giving him power has given me strength. I still have secrets – things it may take me a long time to tell him, if we get that far – but I feel as though I am growing, and that I am more me than I have been in recent memory. I am not so naive as to think I have no desires or expectations – but more than anything I just want to know that I went as far as I could, and that nothing was wasted.
I have started a new art project, at his insistence. I have always been shy about showing him my work, or performing in front of him, and he knows this. He gets incredibly frustrated with my hiding things from him. Being ordered to do this task by him has given me the guts to explore territory I would never have dared go to without that. Wanting to please him, and knowing his tastes, has given me the permission I felt I needed to take bigger risks. The latest pages of my scrapbook are some of the best I have ever done. Maybe one day I will be okay with showing them to the world in general, but for now they are just between me and him.
If I let other things slide for the sake of enjoying the moment, then so be it. My life will still be here when things die down. My inbox may be filling up quickly while it goes untended, but I know that my heart, my work, my blog and my life in general will be better-off for me having become absorbed in something strange, and new, and giving it everything I have. I think the surrender will set me free.
