Desperation and belonging
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Last night, an idea came to me. I don't think it came from my own mind as it was just too perfectly formed to come from my imperfect thought process. The discussion was about how sometimes people come to us and at other times they seem to run from us. I remember when I first came out back in 1989. I had met a woman named Tammy and fallen HARD! The mental, emotional, and physical sensations were greater than anything I had ever experienced in my entire life up to that point. In just three months our intensity managed to burn me out and I ran away. I didn't know what to do with all that feeling. It was too much, too soon, too hard. Because the problem was that I was having this deep almost spiritual awakening and I didn't think I could tell anyone. As I said, it was 1989 and being a lesbian was just not something one did at the time. At least not in my experience. Up to then the only gay people I had ever heard about were the "freaks" decent people talked about in hushed whispers or Billy Crystal's character on Soap. I wanted to stand at the top of the mountain and scream my love for this woman but I was stopped by fear, self-loathing, self-doubt, SELF. It was the gossamer prison of my own making. True, society would try to punish me for being deviant but not nearly as much as I punished myself.
I made a geographic change and tried to be the good heterosexual I was supposed to be. I dated a few guys, one of them named Adolph. I carried a knife in my purse because I was afraid of the potential for violence from these men. I kept them at arm's length because I wasn't able to accept them into myself in any way. When I finally made the decision to accept myself, my life changed but it didn't become better. I began to feel comfortable in my own skin but I still didn't feel comfortable in the world. I still felt other.
I had numerous meaningless encounters with women I met in the bar, drunken grasping for something more intimate, more fulfilling. None of them made me whole. None of them made me feel better. None of them provided more than fleeting cold comfort. I was desperate for someone to love me. I was desperate for connection, for belonging, for something I was unable to identify. The only time I felt better was when I drank so I drank with a vengeance. I was working full time for the state at the time making good money but I didn't have two nickels to rub together because I had no idea how to manage my life. I spent money on cigarettes, booze, gas, rent, electricity, and food in that order. When I went to the bar, which was the only place to meet other gay people, and drank that first of many beers I felt better. I suddenly felt free to be myself, to act out, to talk to people, to flirt, to dance, to seduce. It was like armor I put on so that I could walk in the world without being wounded by others but also to contain my insides because they always felt as if they would tumble onto the floor if not held tightly in check.
What I didn't learn until years later was that intense sense of desperation was the reason people ran from me. I chased after them screaming "love me, fulfill me, make me whole" and they hurt themselves getting away from me. I sought out damaged people and tried to fill them, to fix them, but of course I couldn't. It took me a long time to realize that no material person, place, or thing outside myself can make me whole.
Nothing of the world can fill that void inside me, can cover that hole, can make me whole.
Eventually I had to make another geographic move because things were changing around me and my philosphy was, "Leave them before they leave you." I moved to Witchita Falls for three months which was an unmitigated disaster and then back to Austin.That's when I met Star and graduated from chain mail of drinking to the stainless steel armor of drugs.
Which is a story for another time. It's 12:22pm on Sunday afternoon and already approaching 100F so I'm going swimming!