It's All Coming Back To Me Now

My current earworm, following a series of unexpected ones over the last several weeks (as you can see from my last blog post. The rest are even more embarrassing, so let's not go there).

But this, I think, is the big one - and not just because of the lush orchestration, huge fuck off vocals, and an opulent video that allow me to indulge a sensuous side I rarely let out. Yes, it's cheesy. Yes, it's Celine. Yes, it's easily mockable. 

So what? It's a song where Jim Steinman took a risk, committed to writing the biggest, most emotionally laden, romantic song he could, inspired by Wuthering Heights. No matter what you think of the result, there's something incredibly brave about pouring your entire self into a creation and then putting out there. Whatever its form, it's a precious gift.

And that gift gives so much more than the creator ever expected, often offering the chance for profound healing, because when they unreservedly pour themselves into their creation, they allow us to do the same from the other side - and it is only when we do so that real transformation can occur.

So it is with this. Jim Steinman wrote it as a song about the darker side of love: obsession as it moves back and forth between 'We're done!' and 'No, wait...' But as is often the case when we step into another's creation, how it resonates with us may be completely different from the stated intent, because all creations from the heart have layer upon layer of meaning. 

When I first told a friend that I couldn't stop listening to this (and listed the others from the last weeks) she said, Your romantic longings seem to be surging to the forefront.

There was an instantaneous, not defensive, NO to that, because even when I first fell in love with this song, it was about so much more to me. Now, if she meant Romantic - with a capital R - that nails it, because it is absolutely about my core quality of experiencing, processing, and creating through intense emotion. 

That is my true indulgence here - letting myself feel. This is one of the few songs that can get me to go on a crying jag I've needed to be on for months, even years. It wrenches to the forefront my lifelong terror that anyone I'd ever be truly, madly, deeply in love with will die and the desolation of having to live with unending grief.

But above all, it's about my family and letting myself feel everything I've held at bay about that most fundamental rupture in relationship. As most of you know, I walked out of the house with a few bin bags, leaving my parents a note on the fridge door. It was a long time coming: by 4, I stayed upstairs watching the Electric Company when my father got home, rather than running down to meet him. In fact, I clearly remember feeling distressed when he got  home, because a sense of oppression would settle over the house, as if the portcullis had come down, trapping us all inside. Leaving was the culmination of a lifetime of inner knowing that staying in that emotional desert would destroy me. Either way, I would always be going it alone.

And better to go it alone and free, whatever that may bring.

I made that choice, knowing many of the consequences: my family's rage and ensuing vindictiveness; the ripples through the wider family; the relief; the fear; the need to carry on fighting. What I didn't expect, didn't dare allow myself to fully know, was

There were nights when the wind was so cold

That my body froze in bed 

If I just listened to it 

Right outside the window 

There were days when the sun was so cruel 

That all the tears turned to dust 

And I just knew my eyes were 

Drying up forever

If I let myself feel - know, in the deepest sense - that tearing yourself away from even a deeply dysfunctional, soul-stealing place would leave you with wounds that bled so much more than you thought possible, I might have gone back. And I couldn't do that. Not for so much as a moment. Instead, defiance and resolve had to see me through:

I finished crying in the instant that (I) left

And I can't remember where or when or how 

And I banished every memory you and I had ever made

THAT. THAT was what was necessary to get out and stay out. If it meant chewing off my arm so I could get out of the bear trap, so be it. Anger and unforgiveness get a bad rap, but they can often be the only things that keep you moving away from a situation you should never return to. Without them, it's too easy to remember the brief moments where you could breathe, when you thought, Yes, this can become something good: moments watching The Muppets, a magical night in the Himalayas with uncles, aunts, cousins, the youngest uncle keeping everyone in stitches

There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light

Moments that, if you could stretch them into eternity, might have brought light from the darkness. But, as all moments do, they pass, and the reality is what you've always known it was...

There were those empty threats and hollow lies

And whenever you tried to hurt me 

I just hurt you even worse 

And so much deeper

...an unrelenting, grim, joyless landscape that just needed to be survived. Though the threats weren't empty, and you were the child, so your power to inflict deeper pain on those responsible for the cauldron you lived in is debatable.

Turn around. Walk away when you can. Don't look homeward, angel.

But you were history with the slamming of the door 

And I made myself so strong again somehow 

And I never wasted any of my time on you since then

But here's the rub: whilst anger and defiance can get you so far, they can't take you all the way. Because even as you think you've banished every memory you have ever made, they are the ghosts that haunt you, the demons that drive you. If you believe that you've never wasted any of your time on them since then, the truth is, you have: 

In not feeling what you really feel - so you don't go back. In living on defiance - so you never go back. In staying numb so you survive. In not leaning on anyone else because you knew from the beginning you could never lean on them. In not truly letting anyone in so you are never again torn apart like you were by them. In always having one foot out the door so you are never trapped. In living in the grey zone, numb, so you can keep putting one foot in front of the other, moving away from them, even when you no longer need to be a spore blowing on the wind, but can become a seed planted in rich soil, expecting the sun, rain, all you need to grow.

In these ways and so many others, you've carried them rather than banished them; wasted so much of your time on them. But is there a way to put them down after all this time?

If you forgive me all this 

If I forgive you all that

Can I? What does forgiveness mean? Where does it begin? All at once? In stages? Will I have to do it again? Does it mean what they did was okay? And what do I do without that weight? Without the anger that has driven me forward?

What do I do with the emptiness? And now what?

When you see me like this -

And when I see you like that:

(*my parents are on our right)

We see just what we want to see... 

...all coming back to me

I can barely recall but it's all coming back to me now

That's how we begin to heal, even from the deepest, earliest trauma: not by separating, but as the song does, by bringing all of it together: by letting ourselves fully feel the nights of cold wind and the days of cruel sun, even as we slam necessary doors, allowing anger, defiance, and even numbness to carry us to the places where we can stop surviving and start living, even if, at first, only by nearly dying. The way into the light is most often through the dark night of the soul - and through the songs that carry us there. 

It may all be coming back to you now, but that doesn't mean you have to go back to it. Welcome it, even when it feels like the tears will never end; hold it; be with it. Let it all find its place in you.

Remember, you made yourself so strong again somehow.

And then, as Gibran might note, your eve may be, in truth, your dawn.

The dawn that will, finally, bring you home. 

A letter to Lou on her anniversary

Dear Lou,

It’s been a long time.  So long, I’m not sure you’d recognise the girl - almost too young to be working a suicide hotline, but already so very weary - you took under your wing.

But then again, maybe you would – because in that short time our lives intersected, you played a huge part in the woman I became.

It’s hard to know where to start, you know? There’s so much I want to say, so much I understand now that I didn’t then, so many questions I want to ask that I didn’t then. But most of all, I want to give you the chance to shelter under my wings – the adult wings that can now hold as much space as you need – needed – for as long as it takes.

I can’t give you – nor do you need – the shelter I can offer now that I couldn’t then, because I had to grow into it. But I can sit with you, on this day of your anniversary - much as Will and Lyra did in their different worlds – and talk to you.  I hope that’s ok.

First of all, thank you. Thank you for being you – for being there. For being able to see past the rage and for daring to stick your arm through it to the hurting girl beneath. Thank you for listening, so often and so completely – and without judgment. Your faith in me, in my ability to face situations – both small and large – meant the world and made a universe of difference to my life.  Things got better in small ways: I remember hearing your Carolina drawl behind me on that December day, a little over a month after you died, after my biochem exam, saying, “Good job. I’m so proud of you.” I got the highest grade in the class.

And because you trusted me to handle the small things, you made it possible for me to go for the big ones: 3 months and 4 days after your death, I moved out of my parents’ house, leaving them a note on the fridge.

Despite the struggle; the immense pressure from my parents to move back home; the overwhelming depression that roared to the surface when I was no longer constantly fighting my family and led me to put my leg over the 8^th floor balcony railing one December night; my father ringing me on my birthday and asking, ‘So, how are you paying your rent? Are you sleeping with your male friends?’ – despite all that, it was the best decision I ever made. My life truly became my own that day.

There are no words to thank you for being one of the incredible, loving people who made it possible for me to make that choice.

But that’s not all there is to say – some things are darker, more painful. Yet they need to be spoken aloud.

Never will I forget that Saturday morning, having arrived on shift and hearing that one of the Child Protection line workers had committed suicide; looking up in horrified curiosity asking, ‘Who?’ and hearing your name.  Even now, I can feel the full physical agony, as if someone was ripping out the inside of my solar plexus, and I want to scream all over again.

Yes, even now, the memory feels like this morning's.

The fury was like a wildfire through a forest that hadn’t seen rain in years – rage at you for making the choice you did, then telling the police officers who knocked at your door that you were fine, only to die hours later; rage at myself for being someone who worked a suicide hotline but hadn’t seen it in you; rage at G-d for letting you do this.  I hated you so much. SO much.

I was absolutely functional within minutes:  I did a full hotline shift;  in the evening, it was off to  parental friends for dinner – my parents had no clue anything was wrong, and to this day they have no idea that I had a friend who committed suicide.  The price was dear, but there was no way I was going to become the paralysed, incapable of functioning, manipulative energy-sucker my mother became whenever a painful situation arose.

I did it by being angry, as I still do occasionally when I need emotional reserves I simply don’t have; I stoked my rage at you: I didn’t go to your memorial service; I refused to grieve you; I imagined shouting, ‘WHY???? WHY????????? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU???????? SCREW YOU, BITCH!’ at you so many times. Then I just wanted to pretend you never existed, had never found a way into my heart, had never been, for far too brief a time, the mother I needed. I wanted to gut your room in my heart and redecorate so I could pretend I’d never been touched. After all, YOU took yourself out of my life, so *I* would make it so you had never been in it.

But love wouldn’t have it: it was your voice I heard that December day…and so many days after.  Even now, sometimes.

Even now, echoes remain. I freak out during sustained arguments: what if something happens before we resolve this? ‘Are you ok?’ litters my vocabulary like kebabs on the pavement on a Saturday morning. Good friends *have* to say goodbye before extended absences, or the panic squeezes my heart till I can’t breathe, because I can’t forget the day I poked my head into your room across the hall and didn’t hug you because you had your back to me, cutting out a pattern – it didn’t matter because I was supposed to see you again. I didn’t.  My parents made me exquisitely aware of subtext and emotional resonances, you honed my edge for catching the leading edge of depression, of the slip into the suicidal. It was from you I learned that depressed to suddenly light of heart was not something to be relieved at; it was something to be terrified of, something to interrogate.

Every last one of these is a scar, but every last one of these is a gift: even if I'm absolutely certain I’m right, I’ll put my  hand out to reconcile; my friends know I want to know how they really are; the people I love know I love them; and that therapeutic awareness means I’ve asked the right questions more than once.

Out of darkness, light.

And what if you were here now, and we could just talk; or if you’d been here all these years? Would we have stayed in touch, or would there have been a natural letting go? Would we have become women who genuinely liked each other and shared confidences, rather than a surrogate mother sheltering a wayward chick?

I don’t know. But I know where I’ve been – and I can talk to you about that.

Thirteen months after you died, I was where you were – and made a different decision when the question ‘What right have you to take yourself out of other people’s lives?’ came to/was asked of me. In that moment, I remembered what it felt like when you took yourself out of mine, and knew I couldn’t do it to anyone else, and pulled my leg back over that railing. So, a second time, you made me own my life.

It wasn’t the only time – I’ve been there a number of times since, though not so often in recent years.  I’ve always made the same decision, though I don’t know if I always will, because sometimes bringing an end to that pain is so desperately tempting  – we never know, do we? The moment I realised that uncertainty about each time that – or any other – decision looms, I understood.

And I let go – the one time, perhaps, I’ve truly forgiven (both of us and G-d) but not forgotten.

The years since you’ve been gone haven’t always been easy, though there have been many blessings, much laughter and incredibly wonderful friends alongside the darker times spent struggling with inner demons that created outer heartache and pain. So many things I’d loved to have discussed with you: men, religion, life, some of my absolute clangers of decisions, growing up…but above all, your life. Your experience. I’d have wanted to get to know your heart, as you’d begun to know mine. And I think you’d have loved visiting Oxford…so much older than antebellum Carolina ;-).

Oh Lou, you’ve been gone so much longer than the length of time we knew each other, but I miss you so much. You taught me that 30 minutes or 30 years doesn’t matter – love does.

I love you.

And I hope I’ve done you proud. 

Fried chicken and pecan pie,

Me