The Hellraiser.
{source}
“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” ~ Rosa Luxemborg
“I wasn’t brought up too well,” I told Bonnie, mom to my significant unlabeled love, “My parents married very young and they struggled with it.”
“Well, you turned out pretty well,” she said.
I said, “Oh, maybe it’s because I grew up with my grandmother until the age of 12, and she was Margaret Thatcher.”
“She was?”
“Yeah, with the iron fist. Unwieldy.”
When she passed away, I was 18. I knew I had to bring myself up. But I thought it simply meant graduating and getting a job. I didn’t know I’d leave my folks’ home at 19, an undergrad, to be carried away from one cause to another — adopted by socialists. They taught me a lot, but I’ve already liberated myself from their ism.
I remember staring into the streets at 5am, not knowing where to get my next meal. Homeless, no sleep, and waiting for the grocery store to open early so I could shoplift a can of tuna.
I remember not eating just so I could afford renting a music studio to practice the drums.
I remember not buying clothes for years and wearing my younger sisters’ and brother’s hand-me-downs just so I could sustain the low salary of a non-profit worker.
I refused to look after myself. But I also refused nurture at every turn. I wanted to need nothing. How many lovers’ hearts were broken because I could not be attached to them in the ways they wanted?
One day, I saw a monster. When I looked in the mirror, there was a stranger staring back at me. I literally felt the strangeness of me, the reflection staring at me so unfamiliar. I was smiling, she was not. And that sent shivers to the back of my neck. I froze. It is possible to be afraid of yourself.
This person was totally unaware of herself, of her needs, of how she was to be kept in the world. She might have taken her own life many times with self-righteous hellraising self-denial. Instead of looking for her purpose, she adopted the purpose of other people. Mothers lose themselves that way too, I guess. Instead of feeling her own heart, she let other people’s hearts bleed so she could be reminded of hearts. Instead of liberating her soul, she imprisoned other people’s souls in her fiery ideas and exciting confrontations with authority.
It was quite insidious, losing my self. There was a heightened feeling present of being swept away by something. Something that made me feel significant — like I could make a hell of a difference. The concept of social change was, as my well-doubted mother put it, a messianic pursuit. I was looking to save something.
But I was the one that needed saving. And so I succumbed to the idea of love saving me.
Drifting as a serial monogamist, no marriage though, reveling in being torn between two beauties. I didn’t want control, I wanted the power of being needed — to be a significant force in some movement. If it wasn’t for God, then for the common good, or justice, or rights, or what is right, or the Left. It could have been anything, like Pi keeping the tiger, Richard Parker, alive to have a purpose to live for. I wanted to maintain something and I still do. And it’s not that bad.
Needing is a human experience. I should accept that. If a person does not need anything, that person will be disconnected to others, a danger to society on many levels. I will try to need good things like carrying out a worthy purpose made up by me, not by someone else.
I don’t need any other savior. I need to save myself. I am the one who chooses the doors I enter. For those destined for Hell, should it be said that God did not save them? Or was it that they did not save themselves?
“You cannot amputate your history from your destiny, because that is redemption.” ~ Beth Moore
Isn’t it more apt to say, they did not think of themselves, their souls, their hearts. They did possess the clarity of mind needed for this journey called life? It’s easy to be an island — ecologically friendly, peaceful, self-contained and highly self-aware – but where will all this navel-gazing lead us? We need to need others as well and we already do. We just need to be aware of that.
We are deities in our own right, but nonetheless only sparks of a grander scheme where, though we are mere specks of dust in the bowl, we may nonetheless shine through nights uplifting and through days unheeded.
Right now, as always, I pay for my station in life with blood, sweat, and tears, maintaining a job I’m beginning to tire of, while touching base with my soul as often as I can. Becoming a minister is not a self-sustaining job here in the Philippines. It is exhausting tending to your being like this, but movement is key. As long as I keep moving, I’ll be closer to me.
“Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unencumbered, into the morning.” ~ Tony Kushner, Angels in America
Two nights ago, I went to a fringy art studio and played drums to the music of strangers, got hit on by a lovely german school teacher and got a call from a sexy intelligent woman saying it’s her birthday in a few hours and she wants to meet up. My love is far in Fiji and resisting temptations didn’t use to be second nature to me. I would really be turning my back on myself if I strayed, even when she requires no commitment from me. I’m committed to my truths. I know that now.
Now the mirror speaks to me so eloquently. My reflection is exactly as what I see inside. Nevermind how exhilarating that feels, before me is the deity I have found to guide me. Being in that presence is an honor. Inviting someone else in her presence is love.
***
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Tet Gallardo
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