"So let the words slip out of your mouth"

Life can feel like a roller coaster. Last week at this time I was feeling a bit "at the ever living end" of myself. Tried to help someone out & it seemed to go sideways. Which is part of the reason for the X-men post. Yet as I talk to a few other people.... it seems like I write or speak the words others couldn't find. It's "scary encouraging". I'm trying to help a few struggling friends. Trying to speak into their lives.

...& the whole time remembering a scene from TWLOHA movie. On the rooftop, Jamie & Renee talk.....

Jamie "Sometimes I wonder if I could've said something. I want to be the guy who knows the right thing to say."

Renee "I think sometimes, people need more than words."

We do.

While I want to be helpful. Some of that help seems to end up being me sharing my story. At least parts of it. And/or how it effects me. I learned from my abuser that I couldn't trust people. Long before Sameen Shaw of Person of Interest said it, I said it to a friend. "Trust is overrated." No, it's not. Under appreciated, perhaps. Not overrated. So it's difficult to share about myself. Certainly to do it without feeling like it's going to bite me in the rear. So sharing deeply can be a process for me. A not so fun one, at that. Yet I yearn to be helpful. To speak healing into people's lives. Don't we all? Partly because I think when we help others, we ourselves end up feeling helped along the way. While I love Jazz music, Progressive music, among others. I like unique approaches to it. Classic ways of doing it... I guess I enjoy good musicianship... yet, I also want music who's lyrics speak to the human condition. All of it. Love, joy, pain, sorrow, loneliness, silliness.... the range of emotions & experiences that we all have. I don't want to avoid any. Yet, some, like sadness, I don't want to become a "permanent residence" either. As I write to a friend or two. As I share things that at first are hard to type.....& then hard to hit "send" or "post"..... I am struck by the words of a song.
The Words by Christina Perri.
"I know that we’re
both afraid
We both
made the same mistakes
An open heart
is an open wound to you...
And I know
The scariest part
is letting go....
I promise you
the truth can’t hurt us now
So let the words
slip out of your mouth"

Which is hard to do. It's easy, putting on a "hard outer shell". To play tough. Though I've never really liked tough guys. Partly because they want to fight. Either you, or they want you to go with them to fight someone else. Boring. I've fought. I've fought for my life. Truthfully... I have come to within millimeters of killing 3 people in my life. No... it isn't cool. The last 2 were by accident. That hurts to type. Because it means one was on purpose. The first was my abuser. When I was 11. I had him. "dead to rights". Just twist his neck a few millimeters further... What bothers me is how bad I wanted to. I crossed a line that day. A very dangerous line. For one thing, I held a life in my hands. If you can avoid doing that... please do. It does something to you. Also, more than before, I truly didn't care if I died. I had lost the fear of death. I wanted it. Living, at times, felt like being punished. Living felt like a prison cell. A side effect of that was, you don't want to care about anyone. Because it means they can hurt you. I'm reminded of a scene from Star Trek: Voyager. Jerri Ryan played a borg. Named Seven of Nine. She didn't feel much. She was "emotionally challenged", seeming more like a cross between the Vulcan Spock, & a robot. Yet in one episode, she bonded with another borg that, like her, had been "separated from the collective". She began to have a mothering relationship with him. She was with him as he lay dying in sick bay. Suddenly, she breaks the painful silence with a childlike response as she holds his hand & looks at him lying there, slowly slipping away. "Stop it. ....you are hurting me."

It was powerful. At least to me. We wouldn't say that to anyone we love who was dying... but we'd feel it. Loudly.
The scariest thing about loving someone... is we give them the power to deeply hurt us. To leave us bleeding on the floor. Physically perhaps, yet more likely emotionally. Obliterated... ribbons of who we used to be. A pile of shards of broken glass.

Yet... without love..... we won't break....& no one, not even we, ourselves, care. It is in being fragile, breakable, that we can be helpful to anyone. Healing to anyone ...and... in helping others... we strangely find ourselves being helped... being healed. It does not make any sense.

I don't think it's supposed to.

You don't have to understand why chocolate tastes so good,

to be able to enjoy eating it.

"Love has it's reasons,

which reason knows nothing of." - unknown

And again... I sit here. Should I post this?

Is it helpful? Was the therapy only in me writing it out?

Getting it outside myself?

Or... is there a use for you? Is there something you can use in this?

If it's for my glory... then it's a waste of time for you to read it. I have no glory.

I am not the sun. I'm the moon. I don't give off light from myself. I reflect it from another.

So... that said, is this reflecting that light? Or just pretending to?

These last questions are just some of the thoughts that I have right before I hit "post".......

If nothing else, remember that I'm learning. Just as you are........

The other Christina Peri song that has been stuck in my head some of you may be sick of hearing. I like the song... & I hate it. I hate... how true it is. Most of us can fake being ok. Make others & even ourselves laugh. We can smile & say we're fine. Yet.. like "being tough" it pushes people away. Creating barriers to community. Being honest is messy. It allows our flaws to be seen. Our weaknesses to be revealed.

.....is that as bad of a thing as we think it is? 

Isn't the reason the song is so popular, 

because so many of us can honestly sing it? 

After all...... 

we're all 

only 

Human

[...and yes, for some of my friends... I'm going to pay for this late night writing. Fri is going to be a bit long.]

May His grace drip from your fingers,
B

My three favorite X-men.

They would be: James Howlett III, also known as Logan, & The Wolverine.

The thing is, I see the X-men partly from the standpoint of flaws made to look attractive. Wolverine gives you an idea what it's like to have PTSD. He's always waiting for someone to try to kill him. When he feels threatened, his claws come out. I so get this it's not funny. Probably because my abuser always surprised me with his desire to "go down that path". Wolverine also wasn't born with the steal on his bones & claws. [called Adamantium] It was an experiment done to him later on. I also felt "experimented on". So I have felt like him a bit. Like if he were real, we'd understand each other.
It's why I "jump" sometimes at LW when people touch me. My "jumpiness" is my mind overriding my body's natural desire to defend itself. I learned to do that because of the negative, abusive touch I used to get. It doesn't always happen. Yet it can happen when I least expect it to. I almost broke a friend's neck in a grocery store checkout line, once. Not fun. Though, he never walks up behind me anymore... So I'm nervous about myself at times.

I mentioned talking about Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler, when I posted a drawing of him on Pinterest. Nightcrawler is the one X-man who believes in God. Ironic, huh? He looks like a blue devil.

I've often felt like I might as well look like that when I've been around some people who are Christians or believers, worshipers of God. Not all of them "get me". I'm "out there" as far as they are concerned. I like things they think I shouldn't. I hang with people they don't think I should even acknowledge. Honestly, I tried to be what they wanted... & I never felt so far from God in my life. So I stopped. I just tried to become what ...[it's a bit scary to say it like this. Though I don't know how else to say it] I simply tried to draw close to him. To be what he wanted. When I walk alone in nature...I feel like he walks with me. Ok... that was weird. yet still true. Same with the movies I watch, music I listen to....

I also liked a line from X2 [the film X2: X-men united]

"You know... outside of the circus. People were afraid of me, but I didn't hate them. Do you know why? Because most people will never understand anything beyond what they can see with their own two eyes."

Then there is Dr. Hank McCoy. Also known as Beast. Lately I feel a bit of an unusual connection to him. See, he's been drawn differently in comics. From series to series. Even within a series depending on who draws him. He was originally Caucasian. Just like in X-men: First Class. Then he was blue skinned. Then he tried to change his skin color back, it didn't work. He became "cat like". He has been described as having a sort of fluctuating DNA. So every so often his appearance changes. Thus the 3 different versions of him from X3, to First Class, to the last film Days of Future Past. These are 2 of my favorite versions of him.

As my life goes on, I feel like there are times of "monumental change". Though more thought process, emotional, behavioral changes than my body becoming wholly different. So I feel a connection to these 3 X-men. Strange as that may seem.

So I think that'll be it for tonight.

I wrote a much longer intro to this... yet I'm not sure I like that part. I want to write to Jamie about a post he put on instagram...yet, I'm not sure how good of an idea that would be.

May His grace drip from your fingers,

B