compassion

Teu caos me comove. (Your chaos moves me.)

- Jeferson Tenório, O Avesso da Pele

I just started reading this book, O Avesso da Pele, a classic within Brasil that brushes on romance and the complexities of racism here. The entire first chapter is a raw mourning and adoration of a partner recently lost. The pure authenticity of Tenório‘s words moved me in a way I cannot describe. You can feel how much the narrator of this book cherished their partner beyond measure. I was specifically moved to tears when I translated “Teu caos me comove.“ For ones chaos to move another, to emotionally enrich and soften another, to reach within the depths of another…. what a gift. My heart yearns for the same in such a deep and visceral way; even reading these words again as I write my thoughts out sends waves of warm chills all over my body, and a slight pain in my chest. I now know that when I have a particularly intense emotional reaction, paired with these body sensations, something deep within me is desiring to be heard, to be felt, and to be expressed.

I have been blessed with a sensitive, deeply complex, and chaotic nature. I have so many layers, that I have yet to even skim the service of what I can find, within. I do spend most of my presence in my inner world; I like to say that I “visit” reality. I have found that, at least with most of the people I interact with, complexity can be a bit too heavy for the “day to day”. My complexity is specifically enriched by always confronting the darkness within, fully, in order to move forward. It doesn’t make me a super fun person to be around, at least not in the light sense. I’m not that friend that goes out partying (anymore), and I was never a huge fan of partying past the sunrise. I’ve always had several plates spinning at once; drinking always slowed down my mind to an infuriatingly slow pace. It doubles my processing time, if not more so, and I find my days waisted after what I felt was a lackluster night out. And, I don’t know if it’s because I used to be an intensely competitive athlete throughout my childhood, but my body legit does not like to go without sleep or food. No matter what substance I take, both are required at a regular cadence. There’s like this clock within me that keeps me on schedule, whether I intended to do so or not. So light activities like going to bars never captured my attention for long; both my interest and my body quickly drift elsewhere as the agony of superficial conversations unfolds. This is why I find it easier to keep to myself, or at the very least, keep most people at a distance. It’s easier for all involved.

When I was traveling for those 2 years, it began as me running away from a really toxic imploding with my family. Total completion. Done. Nothing left to return to. A permanent pivot in a new direction. This took me on a journey of many, many, ego deaths, a lot of false starts and sharp endings, and a lot of deep, deep, deep healing and re-empowerment. I was so insecure in being alone, and being without the identity of a group, that I was willing to go anywhere and to anyone that promised the guise of belonging. This attracts a lot of …unsavory… experiences. I have deep gratitude that I went through these experiences with unspeakable privilege, since i had both money and the freedom to pivot immediately out of these situations, situations I initially chose, when the initial sparkles and warmth decayed into rotting maggots. I eventually learned to be independent, to the most extreme sense, where I no longer sought out others to help guide me. I became my own guide. My life has taught me how to break free from my own damning cycles of co-dependency, but now I believe life is starting to teach me how to break free of my corrective hyper-independence.

Being in any kind of friendship, or partnership, means being willing to be dependent in some ways. To be willing to defer to another, and trust that they will hold the other side of the rope as you cross it. Both of my coping mechanisms, co-dependency and hyper-independence, are linked by the same fundamental belief that no one will really be there when it matters. That has been the running theme of my life experience, for better or worse, equally in reality and contrived imagination. It’s a big shadow that I’ve been working on, and the first half of that work truly is an inside job. However, after some time, I began to realize the edges of my own ability to self-heal. How can I heal interdependence issues if I won’t allow myself to be interdependent with others?

Pan back to being moved to tears by O Avesso da Pele. As much as I have reached a high level of success and fulfillment on my own, especially in comparison to where I started, I have come to understand that this is but a shadow of what I can accomplish in the partnership with another. I am a one-on-one person, so this partnership isn’t specifically restricted to love dynamics, but if I’m fully honest, a big part of me is incredibly obsessed with love. Not just “love for the sake of love”. That Divine love. That Divine partnership. The absolute unity and collaboration, partnership, and dance of life with another. That’s why I am so moved by reading how deeply one can be loved for who they truly are, within, darkness and all. I yearn for this level of connection in an unspeakable way, yet I also know that when it does eventually enter my life, it will truly cost be the life I have now.

I do believe that “Everything happens for a reason”, but only is you make it so. You have to be willing to go through the fire, and transform, in order to make our darkest life experiences into golden seeds for the future. I feel like I’m still in the fire, or maybe fresh out of it. I also believe that it’s not my role to go out and seek this level of partnership; it will find me in the right time. It’s just not the right time, yet.