Scar Tissue
Aug. 9th, 2006 04:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinema_babeLike anyone over 30, I've had a series of dings and setbacks in my life; some minor and some traumatic. Each one left a wound on some part of me that was tender and soft; after each one I grew scar tissue over that part. Tough, inflexible and highly protective.
I enjoyed the company of friends and the things that move me like movies and light. I laid in the arms of a friendly lover and savoured the sweetness of desiring and being desired. For a long while, though, there has been a distance, a selective barrier. I have retained the ability to walk away from an interpersonal connection with a certain amount of sadness and nostalgia but no actual pain. Or longing.
Here I am at 42 a mass of tough, protective scar tissue running from my neck to the soles of my feet.
It was a good life. I was comfortable.
I met someone; a man who was fun and made me laugh. Someone brilliant and sexy and everything that I, or any woman, would want in her life. I thought he'd become another member of the "He Harem" a friend, someone to share a laugh and occasional good (okay, outstanding) sex with.
Instead, he found a secret that I didn't even know. There was a tiny zipper tab hidden in the tangle of wild curls at the nape of my neck and when he pulled at it I found out that my scars weren't fused to my skin and soul slipped off of me like a Lycra cat-suit. He unzipped it, without even knowing, and I fell in love. He laid me bare and vulnerable and I could taste my vulnerability at the back of my throat, feel it in the sweat at the small of my back. And then he turned a knife in my belly.
He was in love with me too.
I say this without being flip: This is more frightening to me then having cancer. When I look in his eyes and see a me reflected that I thought I would never see again; I am filled with so many feeling all fighting to rise to the top. But amongst the joy and the peace and the love is fear; always the fear.
The thing I fear the most? Hurting him, disappointing him, pressuring him, not being the best person I can be.
Crazy huh?
The first giddy weeks of exchanging "I love Yous" when we end a call. Now? I walk around knowing that I am the more vulnerable then I've been in many, many years. Certainly I haven't been this way since I was in my 20s and I can't imagine going back.
I am in love and I am part of a loving dyad, connected to a man who has my heart and trust. I am surrounded by constellations of friends some of whom are men I care about and sleep with; I jokingly call them my "He Harem".
Yeah, that all sounds pretty good.
I enjoyed the company of friends and the things that move me like movies and light. I laid in the arms of a friendly lover and savoured the sweetness of desiring and being desired. For a long while, though, there has been a distance, a selective barrier. I have retained the ability to walk away from an interpersonal connection with a certain amount of sadness and nostalgia but no actual pain. Or longing.
Here I am at 42 a mass of tough, protective scar tissue running from my neck to the soles of my feet.
It was a good life. I was comfortable.
I met someone; a man who was fun and made me laugh. Someone brilliant and sexy and everything that I, or any woman, would want in her life. I thought he'd become another member of the "He Harem" a friend, someone to share a laugh and occasional good (okay, outstanding) sex with.
Instead, he found a secret that I didn't even know. There was a tiny zipper tab hidden in the tangle of wild curls at the nape of my neck and when he pulled at it I found out that my scars weren't fused to my skin and soul slipped off of me like a Lycra cat-suit. He unzipped it, without even knowing, and I fell in love. He laid me bare and vulnerable and I could taste my vulnerability at the back of my throat, feel it in the sweat at the small of my back. And then he turned a knife in my belly.
He was in love with me too.
I say this without being flip: This is more frightening to me then having cancer. When I look in his eyes and see a me reflected that I thought I would never see again; I am filled with so many feeling all fighting to rise to the top. But amongst the joy and the peace and the love is fear; always the fear.
The thing I fear the most? Hurting him, disappointing him, pressuring him, not being the best person I can be.
Crazy huh?
The first giddy weeks of exchanging "I love Yous" when we end a call. Now? I walk around knowing that I am the more vulnerable then I've been in many, many years. Certainly I haven't been this way since I was in my 20s and I can't imagine going back.
I am in love and I am part of a loving dyad, connected to a man who has my heart and trust. I am surrounded by constellations of friends some of whom are men I care about and sleep with; I jokingly call them my "He Harem".
Yeah, that all sounds pretty good.
