Straight to the Source

My mother came over last night and started reminiscing about all the wonderful things she'd done for me as a child and I just said "hey, let me tell you MY version of history" and I did . . . for a long time, a really long time, I have sort of driven around in neutral because my parent's expectations for me could only really be met by slamming myself in to reverse -- and much as being a crane operator or working in a paper mill may have seemed the pinnacle of achievement to the rest of the family, it just didn't have that same charm, somehow, to me.

Anyway, to cut to the moral of my story, over the years I have had many a golden goose miraculously land at my feet. In every instance, I have found a way to either (a) kill it or (b) piss it off enough to for it leave on its own. A pattern -- a learned pattern . . . and one, you might imagine, not particularly useful.

But in the conversation with my mother I felt, somehow, as if the light bulb went off and she really understood, I mean REALLY understood, what my childhood was like. I could continue to be angry but I had tried that -- for about 45 years -- and it also didn't seem particularly helpful, or useful. Understandable, yes. But helpful? Not so much.

One of the ways in which my family dysfunction manifested -- and there are several -- was, as you might imagine, in relationships. It had actually been pointed out to me several times, even sometimes in the relationship I was in, that I needed somehow to "rebel" and, after thinking about it for a while, I eventually realized there may have been some truth to that. It did seem as if there was a pattern: I attracted some beautiful woman (because my mother, although not exactly Einstein, objectively is a very attractive woman, even at 85) and then found a way to "escape", so as not to be "smothered" a la Jacqueline Brewer.

Not a particularly useful or helpful way to operate.

In my current relationship, with Alicia, once again (unconsciously) the self-destruct Houdini in a box boyfriend approach started to surface after I first went to Canada but rather than go down the co-dependent fiery adrenalin thrill ride I usually hopped on with me, she simply refused to play . . .

Grow up or go home.

This was sort of an unexpected turn of events.

Perhaps Alicia wasn't really clued in to just how "fabulous" I really am. I was confused, and annoyed, too so I was really not too happy with how things were coming down. I loved Alicia but she just wasn't reading the "script" properly. But the truth was she was simply smarter and more evolved than I was, but I didn't see that at the time and my usual "tricks" from the "stud bag" that had worked "so well" before (and really the only one getting fooled here was me) simply did . . not . . work.

It was quite possible that the "value" of those tricks had expired long ago anyway and what worked at 26 or 36 simply doesn't come across the same way at 56 . . . Of course, had they "worked", the relationship would have likely been a fiery roller coaster ride with a crash landing and, thankfully, that is not the way it's worked out.

Alicia, as she has in so many ways, helped me -- in spite of myself and I figured out pretty quickly what was really going on. Thank you :)

Fast forward to today:

This evening I went to the gym to lift weights. It seemed, for some reason, as if I was particularly strong and I was really getting in to it. I had been there a little over on hour when I looked down at my right arm and noticed it was parallel with my leg, i.e. it was straight. For many this would not be a particular surprise nor reason to write some big long confessional about my issues with my mother but, for me, it was something akin to an earth-shattering revelation.

Because the last time my right arm had been perfectly straight was August 25, 1985. Twenty-six (26) years, two months, and sixteen (16) days -- kind of a long time.

On that day, a day that other than the death of my daughter I look upon as THE tragedy of my life, I broke my wrist and shattered the radial head of my right elbow. A cast for 13 weeks. All my pretty muscles . . . vanished. My athletic career, such as it was, essentially over. And the ability to stretch my arm to its full length . . . gone.

Seemingly . . . forever.

It was also the beginning of what would soon take on an ever greater role in my life as time went on: my distrust of doctors, soon to turn to hatred and feelings of victimization . . . but up until this day, my thoughts about doctors and, really, life in general was fairly optimistic. The elbow didn't heal properly and the doctor-patient "trust" thing, as a result, went adios.

Alicia does this magical thing called Jin Shin Do -- a form of body/mind medicine, it is actually a form of accupressure, where points in the body are activated through touch and "stuck energy" is released. I am not really doing Jin Shin Do full justice, but in essence one of the beautiful things with Jin Shin Do, at least for me, is that it helps eliminate physical pain through releasing the memories that carry the pain and keep it localized within the body.

My shoulder stopped hurting, at least while I was still in Canada, as a result of receiving Jin Shin Do treatments and I am sure the reason my arm finally stretched out to its full natural length this evening is because, just as Alicia's treatments did with my shoulder, my "forgiving my mother" -- and, as a result, forgiving myself, somehow released those memories holding my right arm in such a rigid space.

I let go of the negativity of those emotions and the physical storehouse for part of that pain, my right elbow . . . symbolically kind of a big deal in terms of power and flexiblity . . . decided, as a result, to let go of me.

The mind is a powerful thing.

Emotions are powerful things, as well. I couldn't heal my elbow through any other means but forgiving my mother for "ruining my childhood" did. I released some of that anger and, as a result, the anger released some of me :)

There's a lesson here . . . somewhere.