Remembering best her sad eyes I mourn her loss to brain cancer a year ago. As we grew to be friends eventually I asked what kind of men are you attracted to; “bad-bad-boys.” A teacher of arts working in elementary education, she and I plus another man, both ten years her senior were a trio attending 12 step programs.
Self Help Programs are common if you look for them and work on many specific personal problems. It was common for us to meet at several for various issues plaguing the three of us. There was a constant conflict though, she and I had with the third who reached a point and went no further. The program itself became his passion versus the woman and myself who reached beyond our problems and solutions.
Did I neglect to mention?
Passion is another form of addiction; an intoxicating drug. When you close the door to all farther possibilities, even the solution to what you are addicted to; the solution can be your new problem or addiction.
Leaving the third partner behind, we progressed to a point of trust essential in all relationships. I was intuitively attracted to her by her eyes which seemed to mirror my hidden feelings of sadness and anger. Though there was a sexual attraction too, her admission of liking ‘Bad Boys’ seemed to exclude me. Yet our friendship progressed and we became intimate not sexually but personally.
There is a common thread I intuit between all the various types of problems dealt with by peer or group therapy. Secrecy expressed as “You are no better than the secrets you keep.” My attendance was as result of years and years of private therapy wherein I lied.
The secret I kept from myself and all others was that I thought myself too stupid/dumb to live and/or learn any
thing or perception of myself different from that conclusion. I had learned early on to be entertaining or charming; to engage strangers outside my family of origin as not a threat. I became, and remain, very good at it this lie I told myself hidden behind a mask presenting myself to strangers as okay.
However in time encounters with strangers included some who through acts of kindness and attention intuited that there was something behind the mask besides a clown. And by gentle persuasion drew me into a different knowing of myself as not exactly a rabid dog that should be put down; put to sleep.
Kindness has no consequence other than the act itself. There is no future, no commitment, just a random encounter soon forgotten. To me however it seemed odd and became memorable in contrast to the absence of kindness in my family or origin. Then too there were a few who’d I see again but randomly. Farther along there were one or two who became friends and they, in 12 step programs would be called ‘sponsors’ but to me were then and now mentors. Pretty much the same thing but of considerably longer duration. In a curious way the teacher was taught by the pupil resulting in friendship of long standing.
My friend with the sad eyes had a mother who through drugs and alcohol plus indiscriminate sexuality drove the father away. He was replaced by a man who, in some sense, described as “step-dad” became her ‘father’ who at the age of six began using her sexually. The fact itself was simple but when she went on to say it stopped at twelve because she “liked the attention” I began to understand my lies and her truth: attention.
In her life as in mine those events happen historically when there was no information; that what happened to us had alternatives. Thinking back I realize that 12 Step programs were limited to alcoholics; though available most thinking they had no problem; those who drink and drive, abuse children in any way: sexually, emotionally, with extreme fixed views on right and wrong, religion or government, even business; do more than harm the child they take a way the child’s unique life. Simply the right to discover we’re all different. And really good at, and enjoy living alone. Our parents had no sense of the degree of cruelty we as children experienced and then inflicted on our children. In an effort to better understand my family because I loved them I asked questions and came to understand that they too had been neglected, abandoned and banished thinking it normal then did the same to me; as was done to the sad eyed woman or my sister.
I am free now and we remained friends to the end of her life.
I have no family by my marriage left. In an effort to make sense of my life and loss I’ve written a journal of which this publication is an extension. If you have a WHY you can discover a HOW.
I have changed but in many respects remain a clown. The difference is that I am sincere and it shows enabling others to trust their secrets to me.
We as people can never be perfect regardless of accomplishment, badge, rank or privilege. This can be expressed in many ways; we are all the same: we are born, we live then we die. The difficult part, for some, obvious or apparent, is the living. What we do between the two events of birth and death. Napoleon once said it is too easy to die it takes more courage to live --correction-- "It requires more courage to suffer than to die." His profound, to me remark, explains why so many are addicted to pleasure and know nothing of joy. The first being brief, the latter is eternal.
Regardless of your poison/pleasure if you cannot get enough you’re in trouble and if you’re unconscious of being in trouble it is because you believe the lies told and carried as an reason/excuse for living. If someone you are close to by marriage or friendship mentions this, you have a choice: ignore or listen. The in between place is called denial and/or procrastination.
Love is difficult; it takes work. Killing anything or anyone by abuse kills us. Not just the slain but the slayer and all associated in the commonwealth of what we all share: life.
My secret is a child’s request, “please dear god be real” And if I write it is because it is a joy to do so and what I call friend, my very best friend, is God . . . yet I still, at times, fall into the well of ‘too stupid to live.’ Humiliated by the trust and grace of another’s confession. And of God I trust, but still fall victim of my humiliation; “why me?” I’m nothing special just another broken child with a wounded heart scar tissue now.
I pray thee be well & know thy self free of hell.
120909 14:24 friends & confidants
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
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