Cutting Ties

There comes a time in life when I find that I've cut ties from things and people that I know were unhealthy for me, and still I find that there are still cords in my heart that need to be severed. It's never so simple as just putting your mind to cutting someone out of your life and leaving them. There's always a residue. It can take the form of finding yourself alone and thinking "I should call such and such person" and then remembering that you broke up with that person, or otherwise have distanced yourself from that person recently, or even a long time ago.

Though it's been over two years now, I still find myself sometimes thinking "I should tell my mom about (insert thing here)" and then stop, freeze, and stare at myself for a moment, because its like I just realized my brain short circuited back five years. This used to happen all the time soon after I cut off contact with my parents. It was pretty frequent for about three to six months, when it started to taper down. Now it happens maybe a few times a year if that, when I suddenly seem to forget that I haven't spoken to my family in years, and for good reason.

I find myself going through the same thing now with my recent ex. He used to be my world, but time changed him, and time changed me. It hurts, but this is a fact of life, and just like cutting off contact with my family, I know I did the right thing- at least the right thing for me. Whether it was the right thing for him I can't say, and I can't let myself think too hard on that- that was the same question that led me back to him the last time I broke up with him...and this time there is no going back. I promised myself that, and I promised him that.

There is no place in my life for someone who claims to stand by my side and love me, who cannot understand that saying they love me means nothing if they are only loving a perceived image of who I am, or they think I should be- in that case they are loving a lie...and its clear to me, as clear as day that this is what was going on despite the insistent claims otherwise. I can not be loved by someone who knows the true me and yet turns their back on it, and yet fails to support me when I needed it most. Words are words, actions are actions. Words mean nothing when there are no actions to support them.

These are the harsh, but vital lessons that have been moving through my life- those of strict analysis of my life, the people in it, and how they may be helping me or hindering me...and that as a healer, sometimes people have to be harmed to be helped. So I've cut myself off...and the sudden change of perspective has been incredible. There are still bonds that need to be cut in this, but it will take time before they can be severed completely. I still have incredible and wonderful people in my life who actually do accept me and love me as I am, and expect me to be nothing less than myself. Maybe someday I'll actually find my other half who also understands that. I don't know.

What matters now is to throw myself back into the world and to live, instead of looking back at what could have been, and what never will be. I know what it is to love, and I know what it is to live. I haven't been doing either of those things for a while, and it made me vulnerable, blind, and in some cases deaf to warnings I shrugged off instead of acknowledged.

I'm back in college, making friends, learning a new language, and learning about a culture I've always been fascinated with (Japanese) and most of all, I'm rediscovering myself, and what it is to love myself as I am. I'm throwing away the chains I've put on myself, and rediscovering my Will...because I see now that I let it be trampled on, because I let myself be afraid, and I let that fear control me. I was afraid to be alone...or more accurately that without Tony I would be alone. Without his mother, without his father, that what...fragile a family I have built for myself would be gone.

But I've lived my life without family. I never considered my ties to my blood family strong, even when I lived with them. To me, they were people who were supposed to love me but never did. So I moved on, and I made myself a family of the soul...and that right there is what matters. While the circle of people I would trust with my life, the people I call brother or sister, are few... they still exist, even if I may rarely see their faces. They are with me in my heart, and that matters more than any physical presence, even if the physical closeness of a tender hug, the gentle touch of a lover, are something I miss terribly.

 I'd lost that before I broke up with Tony though- I lost that when he lost himself. I'd been ambling along for a good year trying to make sense of what had happened, before I finally accepted things as they were and made the necessary decisions to move on.  Despite that, he's still in my heart, just like my mother, my father, my sister, and her family, who I removed from my life out of necessity, out of a need for safety and my own sanity. He's going to become another name on the list of people I think of sometimes, and may or may not feel a pang of guilt about...and there's nothing I can do about that other than suck it up like always, and to my best to carry on. It's life, and it's the life I've chosen for myself, in accordance with my Will.

I don't know if the ties will ever be completely cut. I spent a large portion of my life with the people who still have some connection to my heart though I have tried to cut them from it. I can't cut them out completely, because I would be forced to cut out a part of myself, and my own past. I can't change what happened in these cases, but I can look at it, and accept it as it is- an opportunity for something new, something better, something I can look at with clear eyes and an open heart, and maybe have a greater understanding of what it means to be myself.

I'm the only one who can bind myself to things or people. The fact that the ties remain are because I let them, because I refuse to destroy myself. I love myself too much for that, even though sometimes I question how true that is.

Anubis taught me that it's ok to rely on others...and Sekhmet taught me to stand on my own two feet. Upwawet is preparing me for...something, and teaching me how to see the world, and myself as it is. It's cold, analytical, but strangely as I move through this shameless analysis of everything, my deepest desires and my deepest fears, I find myself understanding and being able to bring forward my own emotions. Where I was to some degree numb before, I find that I can feel my heart again.... and for now, that's enough.