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Someone Is Waiting for Me

I awaken with my head on a pillow I think is mine. The bed is made underneath me as if I have taken a nap. My hands sweep over the top of the comforter as I support myself into a seated position. My muscles are relaxed, and my face holds no tension.

My eyes wander over at the loft’s edge where the adjacent windows frame white in the adjoining room, and I hear purposeful, small sounds just below me.

Someone is waiting for me. Was I only napping, or have I been sleeping here for a while?

I ascertain someone has been waiting for me. Someone has been waiting for me, and I am not jolted to hurry down because this person never intended to leave. This person understood the importance of my rest. I grin hearing the small sounds of someone who has a purpose outside of me and the patience to wait.

My hand sleeves the banister as I descend the stairwell. Each foot fall is met with need of comfort, protection, security, and warmth, much like a young girl would expect in a home of kind, loving parents.

As I reach the main level, I turn the corner toward the tinkerings, expecting you to be there.

At this moment, we do not touch, but it’s not because there is a lack of affection. Our affection goes beyond that. It is understood, believed, and embraced in each shared smile, glance, and gesture of care to this home, even in the mundane tasks. It is felt in every sound and pause.

You wait for me to come on my own time, when I am ready, and I love you for this because you trust and carry peace within yourself, the kind that is contagious. It’s an aura that fills this house. There is no waiting for the next thing as the world competes in everything. It is just a neutral state of being. Not that everything is perfect in our world but nothing outside of us is running us or our lives. We understand the importance of others in our life and their place in it, but nothing and no one is getting between us. There is no fear of this in the future either. It’s the actualization of total rest, and there is no fear of what’s to come because we realize it’s not momentary rest. It’s inner rest, undisturbed and untainted by any forces known and unknown. It’s the absolute state of knowing and feeling that everything is exactly as it is and will be. There is nothing in mind, spirit, or soul that muddles it.

This peace transcends all understanding. There is no overthinking–overexplaining– because much is understood between us without the use of words. Though our conversations may deal more in the day to day facts of life, there is a lot of understood emotion by observation, much like holding a kaleidoscope for eye’s catch of all colors, shades, and facets of slight changes in tone and grimaces on one’s face, and even in one’s stillness. We know each other as if we have known each other, our souls holding memory.

I wonder if it has always been like this with you. Regardless of having a definite answer, it doesn’t matter. If in your gentleness, even your kindness, I have attacked you with my words or rejected your acts of love toward me, you have not held it against me. You understand it was only fear, not hate, that held me back. And I hold space in the same way for you. We hold no record of wrongs against each other. The world has been harsh to both of us, and we both understand this about the other. Our nurturing love breathes life into our places where there have been little deaths: You’ll know the weight of my deferred dreams, and I’ll know how to find you when you want to hide from the world. This is love, and we’ll never need convincing nor the shoeing away of doubts because we’ll never question if we deserve it or are worthy of it.

One man’s “I just wanted to make you happy” is that man’s own folly! Maybe in my 20’s that might have been a viable assumption. No, no sir! I was never looking for someone to make me happy. After all these years, I know how to do that on my own. I know what God has for me cannot be done alone. To be with someone means I have to find something greater in and of myself, something more useful to this world: Solace. With that, I am healed, and in my healing, I can heal the world.

To my future love:

I need a slow yet ever-burning, passionate love that develops with time and space and presence. If it is forced or too fast, I won’t believe it is genuine. Even though all that would be nice, this will be my reality. When you find me, I may not be all that you envisioned. Be patient with me and listen to the words I say because I don’t speak idle words when it comes to love. Give me time– give us reasonable time– until we become one. It will be worth the wait. I will be your love of a lifetime, I promise; I know this because I know what I feel in my heart. I may not be able to articulate my emotions fully in the moments as they come, but you will know it more readily in my touch, my kiss, my embrace, my vulnerability, and even in my anger lest I lose you. I will know you are the one when you consider my wishes and warnings– when you believe in me.

Thank you ahead of time for loving me well, just like Him.

With deep appreciation and love,

Melanie

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

December 10, 2023

It’s Just a Mess-of-Yarn Kind of Writing Day

The heart is deceptive above all things.

I thought to write you a lover’s lullaby. I drafted it– was unhappy with it. But it had a good message: To help ground you and give you something (someone) to think about when life becomes overly muddled with self-ambition, discontentment– I– a place to rest your weary self when you are tired.

I used to make wishes on falling stars. I don’t anymore. I think I am just grateful to have witnessed it because, after all, what are the chances my eyes happen to be in the right place at the right time for such a wonder! (Or maybe just the sight of it is all I have allowed myself… because I never thought I could experience something else.)

Oh my wishes have become even more powerful than that as I’ve grown up. I make wishes that stream through conscious and unconscious thoughts that weave tight together– woven by needle and thread kind-of-tight– where it is hard to tell how one came up with a pattern to make what looks like another to the eye, unless closely examined.

The kind that is hard to unravel stitch-by-stitch with the impossible hope there would be anything worth keeping or salvaging once the undoing is done.

Unless one destroyed it with one cut of scissors! But rarely do we go about destruction like that. Not with our own creations.

We are careful to unweave what was woven. At least at first. We try to savor old yarns, hoping to weave something new with the old we’ve known, we’ve become attached to, that’s become a part of us because we have spent so much time with it, intimately laboring over it as it caught each of our breaths and we touched each length gently as we wound it around fingertips and were careful to use delicate, simple tools that couldn’t split or fray ends.

I’ve woven so carefully as I have unwoven so carefully, just like you have.

I understand that masterpieces take time and so I think in the “making,” all that labor was worth it. But the unmaking takes longer it seems and with less satisfaction is it unmade into its scrambled disarray of a mastermess. Why have I cared for it like this even in that state?

The most tender people at heart are some of the most kind and gentle people. I guess I just hope that someone will do the same with me.

Dear Creator: Be deliberate in your approach. Be direct about your intentions. Never stray from the loyal pattern and with this practice clings honesty to its picture as shown on the cover. (Be who you are. Do as you say. Mean what you do. You know… all those kinds of things.)

Photography art by Elspeth Diederix

January 15, 2023

Boundaries Are Necessary for the Health of Our Relationships

Nothing has caused us more grief, and too, more blessings in our life than being in relationship with people. Where we cultivate unconditional love and forgiveness in some relationships, we litter others with pain, betrayal, and deceit. Even in the mess of it all, we are drawn to connect with others; after all, God created us to be in relationship with Him and each other. For better or for worse, relationship with others is the way we try to make sense of life and ourselves.

Because of this drive in us to mesh with others, it is important to have boundaries in place in every relationship, and we should ponder often who to trust with the valuable pearls of our life, especially since we live in a world where we all teeter on a fine line of both healthy and destructive relational mishaps, differing perspectives, and human blind spots.

Though we want others to feel welcomed and loved around us, we understand everyone has different access to us. I will use a house as an example for this. For instance, you share certain rooms with certain people; some people need permission to use certain rooms in your home, where others know they have that allowance without your permission. An acquaintance may only experience your front porch and the entry of your foyer once you have decided to open the door to them. Your living room and kitchen might be where you spend time with your closest friends and family. The more intimate rooms, like your bedrooms, would be for those who have a more significant place in your life such as immediate family members or a spouse. Everyone, for the most part, has a healthy understanding of the social norms of our homes and their various rooms when they come to visit; thus, these norms do not usually have to be explained to visitors.

Just like with a home, we need safe-walls in our own life with others. However, where social norms of the home are accepted by most without an explanation, personal boundaries within our lives are much harder to define and communicate and may be the main reason why we experience so much tension, friction, and conflict in our relationships.

What might a stated boundary with a loved one look like? I’ll use another visual here.

Two people have agreed to travel life alongside each other, and then something unforeseeable happens where someone oversteps in an area of life. By stating your boundaries, it is like cupping the other person’s forearm with your hand as a way of asking for their attention and pause. Although it may bring about a temporarily awkward moment in the relationship (and for a healthy considerable amount of time), it gives everyone a chance to reset the GPS of the relational direction so that “we” continue the journey in mutual understanding, love, and respect.

I realize that these particular visuals oversimplify what boundaries are and how they should be communicated; in relationship with others, this is all easier said than done when dealing with people live! As there isn’t a set of bylaws somewhere in defining our relationship borders, we usually don’t know what will bother us or need to be addressed as we cannot predict another’s actions toward us in different circumstances. Boundaries can be fluid just as humans are and, at the same time, with the many possible shifts that can occur in our relationships.

Initial boundaries in a relationship should be in place to protect, not to keep each other out. Sadly in the climate and culture of relationships currently, it seems much easier for us to cut someone out of our life rather than navigate the unchartered waters of effective communication and the placement of healthy boundaries. When someone crosses a boundary, we are much quicker to make a judgment of another’s motives than to examine the real underlying problem, and because of this, we start to dismantle our relationships, which ultimately can lead to estrangement.

Both, or all involved, will need to care equally about the relationship and put on the cloak of patience. Navigating life is hard for everyone, and we all come from different backgrounds and relational experiences. Therefore, it is important to make the other person feel safe when introducing boundaries by also communicating that the relationship isn’t easily broken because of this healthy and needed shift; it is for the betterment, growth, and endurance of something important– the relationship itself.

Art by Ron Hicks, Plaza in Milan

January 8, 2023

When Two Stars Collide

Some days I miss you; other days, you’ve never been missing from me.

Art by Rea Kolarova

December 31, 2022

The Writer

It's at night that my heart swells 
like deep waters and in the morn
I draw them out with my pen. 

It's a sweet unrest until, unexpectedly, 
it turns to experiment (or spectacle) like I'm some 
specimen where someone clangs with   
small instruments and custom keys to see what's 
really inside and it's like I'm on the brink 
of death by the mere thought that someone 
will see-- that I will see...  

Is someone laughing inside, watching me watch me? 

The dissection begins: Stick. Churn.    

Urgent: Can someone please clean this up? 
Quickly?  I say.  But what I really mean is 
Can someone put this back together the way it was?  

I wait, breathing heavy, then heavier 
because I know it cannot be done. 

I want to panic, but I know it won't get me 
anywhere.  So I scoop up the remains.  
I am sure I'll never be the shape and shades 
of before, and it frightens me.  

And yet
each time I write, 
it happens all over again: 
My seemingly whole self
becomes fragments, and pieces of me 
remold to new forms... I am not sure I am 

anymore complete than I was before it all began. 

Art by Miles Johnston

December 17, 2022

Navigating the Landmines of Love

First written in winter of 2021– I needed to reread this.

Have you ever wondered if you missed out on a lost love? Have you ever wondered if the circumstances or timing had been different, your life would look much better than you currently perceive it?

I talked with a few close female friends, and every single one of them had a moment in their life where they wondered the same thing when remembering a lost love from long ago.

Matters of the heart, especially when dealing with love, is such a complex thing. It isn’t something that can be shooed away with a simple thought nor can it be pacified with a pat answer from a friend. The heart goes on its detours, and it is hard to wrangle it back on track.

Our journey is full of twists and turns, some of which we don’t see coming. How did I end up here at the beginning of this year with a weighty heart and these questions on my mind?

It all started with looking for a photo.

Our school counselors had sent out an email to teachers over Thanksgiving break. We were instructed to find a picture with Santa, preferably one when we were a baby or small child; we would also provide a more current picture with Santa if we had one. To get our students into the Christmas spirit, they would attempt to match our pictures on the bulletin board just outside the counselors’ offices.

Finding my baby picture with Santa was easy. I had just come across this photo over the summer as I was cleaning out my garage. My last photo with Santa was with a guy I dated years ago. We were in Brookwood Mall. He personally knew the Santa character and thought it would be fun. I knew I had kept the Polaroid; however, it wasn’t in my photo albums. I didn’t think much else of it. I thought I’d just submit the one photo and be done with it.

Around Christmas time, before falling asleep one night, I thought of another photo that was taken by that same guy from years ago. It was a White Christmas in Alabama that year. We have seen very few of those, so it was special. We opened gifts from each other near my fireplace. It was just the two of us—our own special Christmas. Snowflakes were falling, and like a kid, I wanted to run and play in it. I pulled on my snow boots, slipped into my jacket, and draped a scarf around my neck. He followed me outside and observed, taking pictures of me, which he always did whenever he had the chance. He had a good eye with the camera. That one picture of me playing in the snow was a favorite of mine. He had captured my youthful, playful side that day. He was watching me, and I was happy.

Within minutes of recalling that memory, I remembered where the Santa photo of him and me might be. I am a keeper of meaningful cards and writing from family, friends, students, and the few I have dated where there was a meaningful connection. With at least 25 years’ worth of these treasures in one place—about four piles high in a cabinet drawer— I knew finding this one picture wouldn’t be easy.

As I surveyed the piles of memorabilia, my eyes caught a glittered booklet—something he had made for me. As I pulled it out of the middle of one of the large piles, it grabbed everything in that one place that was from him: his emails I had printed, cards he had given me, and one of his guitar picks– it all fell at my feet. The Santa photo was in that same pile. It was almost like I was meant to find it. It was like a time capsule for me, buried by years and found like treasure.

Something in me knew this was a dangerous endeavor, to reread old love letters from him. As I glanced through them in the attempt to avoid resurrecting old feelings, my eyes caught an email about a story he wrote to me in October 2010. For some reason, I decided I would read that one email.

The story was about Orpheus and Eurydice, but he had intentionally written it as if we were the two characters. Reading it was like entering a time machine. It also triggered me, for so much of what he said was a prediction of our future 10 years later. Some of the things he said were a bit exaggerated (after all, it was written as a fictional story); however, there were more truths inside of the story about him and me (gone our separate ways) than I’d have liked to have accepted.

His email read more like a prophecy than a made-up story– his last line being that 10 years would pass and I would look for him, only to find his ghost.

I was almost mad at him. He didn’t finish the story and tell me what to do once I entered these haunted memories– the present void of love.

I realized I had to add to the story for myself, moving forward.

I’ve heard it said that a small part of ourselves is attached to the familiar no matter how painful or inefficient it is. We tend to over-romanticize what really is and/or was. We remember the good memories; we forget the bad. Just like when someone dies. At their funeral, we are not stating their mistakes and mishaps of what they did to or in our life. We celebrate the good parts. God has a surprising nature attuned within us of goodness, grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love: Somehow our brains, hearts with its heartaches, and emotions are hard-wired to those memories of people when they were good and at their best. My good friend Jamie (an original expression of Keats?) puts it best: “Imagined melodies are sweetest, and the men we love are mostly imaginary.” I suppose we make things better in memory where they might not have been as great if we were to return to the actual state of when things unfolded in the present. At least that’s what I’ve been trying to convince myself of.

Now 10 years later when he has resurrected in my thoughts and heart, he would tell me to move on– no regrets– and yet I cannot help but feel an agonizing ache inside that things will never be the same for me. I’ve walked through a rite of passage where I am forever changed. For he was the tool God used to show me what love is and what it isn’t and to appreciate who I am so deeply within my very soul. He’s the one who has pushed me to unbury life’s losses and triumphs, getting to the core of who I am and what I want to be in a relationship.

Like his name, he would live up to it: supplanter and deceiver. You see, I was supposed to be the teacher, but he was the teacher for me. I’d have to say if he learned anything from me at all, I got the better end of the deal. I was the luckier one. I recently reached out to the person that brought us together, which I believe was divinely guided. She explained why, and I expressed the impact the pairing had made. I conveyed my gratitude to her because meeting him changed my life forever.

A time capsule tucked away and set aside until a divine time set by God… as a teacher. I pondered over the findings in the pile. Why now, God? It’s too painful.

That was the point.

Navigating and processing…not rushing from the pain but accepting it, feeling it…

This is important. Don’t move on too quickly from here, or you will miss the lesson.

Be willing to look at the negative feelings of the self without judgment. The triggers too. Sometimes these are just arrows pointing us to unhealed parts of ourselves, steering us in the direction of becoming a better, whole version of ourselves. May we all attain a place where we live more free, surrendered to the aches and pains of life with the capacity to see the hidden gifts within the various life traumas we have been through. Too many times, we see trials as bad and happy times as good when many times, it is through our trials where we learn who we are and who we must become in order to move from surviving to thriving, even when life makes no sense at all.

This life was never intended to rummage through the ghosts of our pasts to see what we can call forth from the grave of the dead. And it’s not the avoidance of old ghosts either. We make the best decisions we can at the time we make them. What is back there for me or you? What’s ahead is where the focus must remain.

Sometimes in sensitive situations, I force hard truths into black and white. Most of the time, this comes from the ego or a wounded place, so I have decided that I will write from a place of intuition, a God-given part of me I have too long neglected and not trusted– a God-given supernatural power that breaks down illusions, mind’s lies, and fabricated insecurities we find refuge in. We want answers. We want a straight “yes” or “no”, and though I believe our lives turn and deal in absolutes of what once was, is now, and will be– for those things, we live in a black and white world; however, it’s the emotions and feelings that deal in ambiguity where the mind overworks to make sense of things and can suffocate the life out of our highest being.

For me, I remember what matters most: I could not hide from him nor could he with me. Even if we tried to, it wasn’t a state we remained in for long. We pulled toward each other in the greatest of ways where this wholly surrender brought freedom of thoughts, even the ones scariest to admit to the other and to ourselves. The truths of our hearts and in our hearts were laid bare before each other and God, but mainly for ourselves.

I could not hide from my beloved, and he could not hide from me. What we had was raw and lovely. I will reflect on what good his memory brings to my life. We are separate yet connected forever, and that is something beautiful I will cherish for the rest of my life. He is a part of my story, and though bittersweet in the end, it’s the tender, messy part that feels like chaos in my emotions yet makes more sense than most things in life. It’s not a black and white story; it was a relationship filled with ambiguity, and I suppose it is the one that will leave a mark on my life like no other. We were supposed to meet. We were meant to meet– this, I believe, by God’s design.

Stars break apart, yet cannot. There is a pull. Maybe he is my North Star amidst the map of vast galaxies where all others will pale in comparison– my North Star where I will find my way to the one who fits me best. Yet scariest of all, my high standards have only become higher, for I cannot and will not settle for less than what I believe was the most beautiful of loves I have known in this lifetime when I could be most myself.

Photo by Apricitasart on Instragram

November 11, 2022

You Can Run But You Can’t Hide

“God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.” Romans 11:29, MSG

A wind of change had rolled into my life. I saw it shortly after my two foster girls left my home that May. While I had them, stress had taken over my physical body as I battled with a long-term sinus and ear infection with a cough that eventually turned into asthma. My main goal after they left was to get well.

As life quieted down, God’s spirit communicated the word “rest” to me. That word created an adverse effect within me. I began to wrestle with God over the word. I didn’t exactly understand what it could mean in my life. At the time, I knew I grappled with some circumstances that were out of my control, and I needed to entrust them into His hands fully. I didn’t inquire of the Lord any further on the matter.

Just a few months later as the new school year rolled in, I jumped back into my same routine of work and taught my girls’ Bible study. In addition to that, I decided to take on two extra responsibilities: I would teach a ladies Bible study group and take a graduate level course at the university to further my education and expand future professional opportunities. I had gone straight into the new school year in exactly the opposite direction of “rest.”

By October, I was exhausted. As I had committed myself to these responsibilities, people counted on me, and school tuition was way too expensive for me to give half of myself to the work demands. I was committed to all that I had agreed to do for at least another two months. By now, I realized I had gone about my own course rather than listened to the polite nudge of the Holy Spirit. What I tried to substitute in place of God’s plan of rest for me fell short in every respect, and it started to show up– even in areas where years of hard work and success were written on it.

Interestingly, when Jonah ran away from the Lord, headed for Tarshish, it was a city about 2,500 miles from Israel. As such, it was one of the farthest places in the opposite direction of Nineveh that Jonah could go (Jonah 1:3a). Isn’t it the same with us? When God calls us to do something and we don’t do it, we end up going in the polar opposite direction of God’s intention for us.

Jonah was called to go to Nineveh, and his disobedience to set sail in the opposite direction didn’t come without its consequences. The ship encountered a severe storm. It almost cost the lives of himself and others. As lots were cast for the cause of this unusual storm, the lot fell to Jonah; the accusations rolled in: “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” and lastly, “What have you done?” (Jonah 1:8-10).

For Jonah to correct-course, it was not a “sunshine and roses” turning point. Jonah literally was thrown overboard by the crew into a raging sea (Jonah 1:15). Others–the crew– had to take matters into their own hands because of Jonah’s continual obstinance, and it was at the discretion and expense of their consciences as Jonah’s actions had not only endangered himself but those with him in the same boat.

Here we see God echo Jonah’s call to mission in his life. God orchestrated the storm and its restoration to calmness once he was thrown in; He also honored the crew’s reckless abandonment to find a quick solution to save their lives as God provided a whale where Jonah would miraculously sit in its belly, undigested, for the next three days.

God holds him in that dark, smelly place where Jonah couldn’t escape the presence of his God. God had to separate Jonah, alone, from others, so that He could perform “spiritual surgery” on Jonah’s disobedient heart. Only until that deep internal work was done did God “command the whale to vomit Jonah out” (Jonah 2:10). The call on Jonah’s life was irrevocable because God would make sure however He had to do it, He would bring Jonah to His purpose regardless of Jonah’s actions or inactions.

By the end of the book, it is revealed that Jonah knew if he complied with God’s mission for Nineveh, the means to the end would be God’s plan would ultimately prevail. Jonah did not wish for the betterment of others as much as himself and what he thought was the right path. Similar to Jonah, I had developed an unhealthy mindset about God and how my current life situation stood at the time: Why hope and pray? No matter what I do, You are going to do what You want to do anyway. In my restless state of mind, I talked to a friend about it:

“I’ve given Him everything He’s asked of me. I’m afraid He’ll ask for more.”

“Whose is it?” my good friend asked me as I aired my restlessness.

I knew my friend was right. “I’ve given Him whatever He wants.”

“For what?”

“For what, what??” I laughed out loud at my reply. “There is no what.”

My friend’s simple line of questioning had drawn it out of me. Up to that point, I knew I had obeyed God in His requests for my life because of who He is. The foundation of understanding was there, but the living-it-out part was cracked with doubts and worries and fears. I was holding onto my plans– though flawed in its corruptible security– rather than God’s purpose for me.

The casting of lots caused the crew members to press Jonah with questions too. His quiet disobedience had become a public appall, but God’s gifts and His calling for Jonah was under full warranty—never meant to be canceled or rescinded (Romans 11:29).

Aren’t you glad God’s mercy runs after us? Oh I’m sure Jonah wasn’t thankful that God was chasing him with His purpose to be fulfilled through him. His mercies are great and unfailing. Thank God He gives us mercy in place of our disobedience when we are “at odds with His purpose” (Romans 11:29-32).

Jonah knew exactly who he was and whose he was: “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land” (Jonah 1:9). Jonah also was aware of his current spiritual condition: “He knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told [the sailors] so” (Jonah 1:10b). Like Jonah, we know Whose we are and where we are. Let’s take close inventory of ourselves and our points of navigation. Some of us may need to do an about-face if we are moving in the opposite direction of His calling on our life. It’s never too late. Our God waits for us with relentless mercy.

A closing prayer:

Lord, the best life we can live is to carry out Your plans and purpose. Help us in our disobedience to that calling when we want to go in the opposite direction of what You have told us. Thank you for Your relentless mercy that never stops short when we do. May we be pliable in Your hands so that Your will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Verses:

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8).

“…for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

September 24, 2022

Two Faces : One Name

As a continuation from Part II of my blog on “What Narcissism Looks Like in a Relationship,” boundaries should make a person respect you, because after all, you have some. Narcissists know you are better for having boundaries; it reflects something about your character– something they seem to lack from a place of authenticity.

As the narcissist works to erode your boundaries, and if you budge on one of those a bit, now it is something they can use against you at an opportune time. To them, changing your mind or changing your thought process on a once held boundary opens you up for suspicion. Even if they know deep down you changed something because of them or for them, it won’t matter. Now you are inconsistent and are not to be trusted.

The goal is to move you closer to who they are, double-minded in thought and action. This is so that once you confront them about something they’ve done, they can bring those inconsistent things up about you, and in turn, nothing is ever truly addressed or resolved about their questionable behaviors. Hence, you will never get anywhere with a narcissist when you try to bring up something that they have done. Your questions will be dodged, your concerns and feelings won’t matter, and you will feel depleted after you’ve engaged them on the subject. However you go about trying to engage the narcissist for answers, you will never get full transparency. They will make you feel like you don’t deserve it nor that you’ve earned that rite of passage into their life– and all because of your doing! You will always be held at arm’s length as they must protect their persona at all costs.

As in the case of a narcissist, they work undercover as they are two different people in one– who they present themselves to be versus who they truly are. They juggle these two faces within and of themselves. It is the epitome of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One version seems kind and charitable; the other is a stark contrast of the ugliness most wouldn’t want to associate with in their life. You can’t risk that the good side of them is greater than possibly the bad side as you will never know who you are dealing with on a moment-to-moment basis. Who wants to live with that? In the battle of self in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde’s evil side eventually overpowers Jekyll’s good side, the one he had practiced for the majority of his life. In other words, mix in a little evil and know that you have turned over your soul; you’ve signed up as a member and accomplice with the devil. The devil is the author of confusion, and I have found that nothing is more confusing than being with a narcissist.

There is no way to sugarcoat this: With the way a narcissist operates, they are bound to a sort of enchantment and trickery. They use their deceptive charm as they work their craft, one person to another. In my case, the narcissist was able to navigate through many women at a time with the help of social media and dating apps. These means of technology only highlighted and, eventually, exposed his problem. With the handy options to hide and/or restrict bio information, comments, and followers, he played me and regulated how I showed up in his social media life; anyone from the outside looking in would surmise that he was single, available, and unattached to another. Of course bringing up any of this made me look like the jealous, controlling girlfriend as he called me “petty” for focusing on such things, although his deliberate actions were proof that he knew what he was doing.

If anything, narcissists deal in barriers, not boundaries. They will plugin phrases to program you into thinking more like them on certain things or by way as a warning to condition you so that you don’t do certain things they find disapproving:

-“I didn’t like it when my ex…”

-“Can you take trips on your own? My ex got so upset when I didn’t travel with her.”

-“When visiting family, do you think the other always has to be there, because I don’t.”

-“Most women want a boyfriend but can’t understand that I need a lot of alone time and want to be left alone.”

What a negative approach when revealing one’s self and starting a new relationship with someone! Instead of building fresh with a new person, narcissists reveal only those contentious moments from previous relationships. As far as their past, you will only hear of negative mishaps, never the positive that brought them joy and fulfillment because, truly, I don’t think they experience those components of a relationship. They can’t. They lack true intimacy with another person because they aren’t acting from a place of authenticity about who they are nor in their intentions in the “said” relationship. And as they are who they are, I believe that because of their own shadiness, they believe that everyone else must be just like them! They already enter into an arrangement not trusting you because they know deep down they are not to be trusted! Because of their chosen lifestyle, they lack the ability to connect to other humans and can never experience true oneness with another fellow creature in the world.

Photo downloaded from Unsplash

May 30, 2022

Part II: What Narcissism Looks Like in a Relationship

Supposedly, there are three common stages that someone will go through with a narcissist: idealizing, devaluing, and discarding. From most of my reading on the topic, it is defined as a cyclical pattern that will continue in those order of stages as long as the other party chooses to stay on that hamster wheel.

In my experience, it is hard to say that each stage had a start and end period before it moved to the next phase. For me, the three stages seemed to work so closely together, all three could happen in any given moment; with a narcissist, a seemingly joyful, happy moment could quickly turn into one of the most upsetting encounters you never saw coming.

Instead of referring to this next part of my blog as a particular “stage” that the narcissist cultivates with a vulnerable party, I want to focus on what seems to be the narcissist’s strategic goals or motives in the initial stages of the relationship: 1) to establish a connection as soon as possible to keep you around, and 2) to test and eventually erode your boundaries so that they have control over you.

First, I will give an example of how the narcissist quickly and strategically works to establish a connection with his or her target.

One day after work, the guy I was dating rushed over to my house on his way home. He sat down opposite of me for eye contact and held my hands in his. Without pause, he jumped right into the subject matter that was on his mind: what might be our hangups. He shared having some debt and not making a lot of money. I found this very endearing, that someone trusted me with their private affairs; I appreciated his vulnerability.

He asked me what I thought might be other hangups, to name my top three. Of course this whole conversation caught me off guard, but I already knew what mine were with anyone I might hold a future. At the time, I was not ready to be as vulnerable with him, but I reiterated the only one I had already shared with him– that I couldn’t have children and understood if he did not want to continue in a relationship with me since he didn’t already have children of his own. He accepted this. With genuine smiles and loving eyes, he rested in his attempt to “proclaim his love” of a highly foreseeable future together.

Just to be clear, the narcissist will “insinuate” marriage within a matter of weeks. We had only known each other for six weeks when we had this conversation.

I think it is worth putting a startling fact and thought here about this very thing on marriage when you’re in a romantic relationship with a narcissist. The words “marriage” never came out of his mouth once in the year and a half I knew him. The literature on narcissism that I have read refers to this as “future-faking.” I believe marriage was the furthest thing from his mind and plan for us. This was more a bite for, Do you value me as worthy enough? Of course this is speculation, just like so much of what I will write here; for I cannot begin to fathom how or why a narcissist thinks the way they do, except I do believe they are seeking out a moment’s relief from their own self-loathing, grasping for anything to satisfy their hunger of affection, attention, and acceptance because of their own deeply rooted insecurities.

To continue with my story, this nature of conversation did pressure me to share very intimate details about my family a lot sooner than I might with another individual. For me, someone earns that privilege, but in order to bring balance to the relationship, I fearfully shared my other two concerns, which were related to my blood family, for when you marry someone, you marry their family as well.

All of our greatest fears where a partner might think twice before continuing something serious were out in the open. Sounds great, right?

It is all part of the narcissist’s manipulation ploy. Think about it like breadcrumbs. We are all hungry for companionship and intimacy. These types of intimate conversations and disclosure of the most intimate parts of us bond us together, for better or for worse. Naturally, we eat up those “breadcrumbs” thinking more is to follow only to find that everything from here on will be a challenge and wrapped in a continuum of conflict. You will never know true peace with this person going forward, and the short-lived moments that are somewhat good will run on their timetable until any bit of happiness and comfort you may have found in the relationship is destroyed.

You see, they have an agenda, and it is not in the name of love. Love wishes to make the other person happy. Your happiness is not even on their radar. In fact, they are incapable of bringing any sort of peace and security to the relationship so that a healthy foundation is established.

They intend to use you for what they need out of you to feel good about themselves. That is their only goal. They are like sucking vampires. They live off of your light and what affections you shower on them. You are an extension of them– a lifeline– where they can feel some worth within themselves.

They see themselves as a victim in the world– of the highest kind– so much so that they cannot see that they have actually bought into a victim-mentality cycle where they are doing the very thing to someone else! Hence, they are unable to reflect and see themselves for who they truly are.

And don’t you dare try to point any of this out to them, for they are highly sensitive to constructive criticism even when it comes from a place of love. They have no problem dished it out but cannot stomach what is served to them! It will be an unmatched, unequal, nonmutual “give” and “take” type of relationship in every respect. You will never be able to have healthy conversations nor given the chance to be understood.

Because of their tunnel-visioned goal, they have a short fuse– little patience and easily angered– for what needs you may bring up to them at any given time if they have not obtained that main goal of theirs! For any needs you might have or the need of reassurances —because you will question when their words and actions don’t line up— will be of no concern to them. In fact, this is where the gaslighting begins: They will defensively react to your questioning of them and tell you, “That is your problem. This must be coming from someone else that hurt you, and that’s not my problem to fix.” This hiccup of you expressing yourself (i.e. communicating) will irritate them so badly, you will wonder if the relationship is over, brewing more unrest within yourself.

You will replay what or how else you could have said it, thinking that things would be so much better had you not brought it up at all. You will take into consideration what they say (as any person does when in a relationship that matters to him or her) and will more than likely see a similar wound, happenstance, or pattern within your life (I will address later in more detail as it is very important). You will acknowledge and accept there is some truth to what they are saying about you because, after all, if you are broken in that area within (as we all have areas), you will wonder if you are healthy enough to be in a binding connection.

Sadly, while you were trying to learn and love this person through their own hurt and warped mindset of themselves (Sidenote: In this one particular case, he was a covert narcissist– one whose self-deprecation can be mistaken for humbleness), the narcissist has studied you and learned your triggers. They save it up in their arsenal, so that they might use it against you when you confront them about something they’ve done. They turn the tables in EVERY argument, so that they do not acknowledge or resolve any problems you have with them; you will begin to believe you are the broken one and that everything wrong in the relationship must be your fault.

By calling out their puzzling, inconsistent behaviors, they go into overdrive because things aren’t going as planned and their patience runs thin. They must have complete control of you but will make you feel you have lost control of yourself to think such outlandish things with your lack of trust in them and your doubts with their hot-cold attitude toward you. They will test every hard-line boundary you hold to be true in your reality. The ploy is to wear you down until you remove those boundaries all together. For the narcissist, this isn’t about mutual compromises. This is an assault to your rights and morals. Each day, for weeks, maybe even months, you will have to restate what the boundaries are and why, just like you might to a toddler. They will act like they didn’t hear you all the other times and think that a different day, situation, or circumstance means that the boundary is no longer in place and will test it to see if you really mean what you say. They will work relentlessly at eroding your boundaries, especially if it’s in their interest to gain something that they really want.

The interesting thing about this is when you first meet them, they seem to have NO boundaries. Personally, they will have none of their own. They will seem very open and carefree with just about anything. Anything goes for them! However, things will not stay that way. All of a sudden they will have new, established boundaries in the relationship, except there will be no discussion or communication of what those are and when those went into effect. This is where the insecurity seeps in. It will make no logical sense why the boundary has been put in place. As soon as you question the boundary, they will use this to control the relationship or enforce punitive measures, especially if it is something that seems to upset you.

Your insecurities will bring forth a reaction: clinginess. For me, I am an independent person. I have been single for a long time and do not need another person or relationship in my life to feel fulfilled. I slowly stripped away my boundaries, hoping that if I lightened up on mine, he would do the same. BUT, the boundaries you each hold are two very different things: Yours will be your deep-seated beliefs and morals and normal reactions to protect what feels like a predator preying on you; they, on the other hand, will have boundaries that change and move with ebbs and flows, and the rings of fire will move in height and distance because the narcissist wants to see how committed you are to him or her– a warped idea of a relationship.

Photo by Sander Meyer on Unsplash

April 2, 2022

“Turning Page”

Written Winter of 2021/ First published 31 December 2021

This fiction/nonfiction piece marks the close of old loves. A new chapter awaits…

As I folded the clean, warm clothes from the dryer, music played through my Bluetooth kitchen speaker. I had selected a random playlist.

The pause came between songs.

Within a couple of piano notes, a few words, and the female vocalist’s timeless sound, I was moved. It was a new song and yet was familiar, like my soul knew it deep down. And like rushing waters, you invaded me: I was filled with overwhelming love; memories of you flooded my mind; and you possessed my soul. Something in me knew you knew, too.

And something about that realization sent me into an uncontrollable cry, anxious to rid myself of these feelings. I wanted to escape them and fast, but it was too much. I was a hostage to my emotions. I hurried through a list in my mind of what I could do to flip the moment to it’s just a song playing in my kitchen and I am good and I am strong and…

It was beyond my strength– too powerful for me. Instead of fighting a battle I wouldn’t win, I resigned myself to the moment fully. I surrendered in hopes that in a few moments, I would go through some exercise where I would recover my emotions, clear my head, and move about my day as normal.

I have never prided myself for being creative, but I have been known to underestimate my imagination. It took me to a place where our footsteps walked together once before. Only once. Why this place, I don’t know. I tried to stop this stream of consciousness; to exorcise you out of my system, I stopped my chore to write what I felt was taking place within me.

***

I’m across the street from a corner of a place I know we’ve been before, together– this lifetime and maybe many others. It’s the outside entrance of a quaint store in an artist town where trinkets are overlaid in fingerprints of friends, lovers, strangers. And I stare, not because I think you’ll be there, but because somehow I know our intertwined souls dwell here like ghosts, timeless and suspended between this world and the next.

The sun shines behind a building somewhere, and traffic carries on like the seconds that run to the next on my watch. I feel its rhythmic beats against the skin near my wrist.

I mourn within because it’s like you died– we died; I know I’ll never have that feeling again… when I was with you.

I linger before I turn away in an act of farewell. I know I cannot stay– that our souls will remain and maybe someone passing by will pick up on a vibe of our love’s past and fall in love on that same street corner. Except for them, they will make it. They will make it and will love each other until life runs out of time.

I sit in this moment. I don’t know what this is. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. All I know is I’m drawn to you and I haven’t even heard your voice in so long, or felt your touch, or sensed your gentleness with me– yet you are with me nonetheless.

There at that store corner.

Here in my kitchen.

Ours is a soul tie, and we cannot be. Not in this life. Those are the saddest words I have had to type today. That in finding you again, you would be the “turning page” to my next chapter in this life. Without you.

Ironically, I thought you would be the one to tell our story, where I never knew I would. For you loved me and I froze. At the time, other stories preoccupied my mind; now you’re the only story I want to tell. If I must.

That’s all I have left: a story.

I will tell the story you’ve long forgotten, I’m sure. Like a specially wrapped gift, it’s been placed in my hands. I know it’s mine as I gladly receive it with both arms open. I embrace it with a grin and am satisfied knowing what’s inside. It is appreciated and in my care. It is mine to guard– to watch over– much like I felt with you.

Can we agree we will meet in the next lifetime where we are both ready? And if we do, if we can, let’s love like another lifetime doesn’t exist– like ours is the last. For when we meet again, our young hearts and old souls will know. We can meet on that store corner, but this time from that day forward, never take your eyes off of me again. Place one hand in mine, and pull me closely, slightly into your body and wrap your other arm around my waist like we might dance and watch me surrender into your body’s frame. You will like me better this time.

I can see us now on that day when we finally meet again. I am in your arms, and as you face forward, you tilt your head down as I turn inward where you feel the brush of my forehead against your jaw. You keep me within your gaze. We hear our breaths for one another, and you listen because that’s how you know I’m taken, completely, with you.

Before I turn away from our store corner, I take one last look.

Next time, my love.

As I walk away, under my breath I half-sing, half-say a verse to myself:

“You have suffered enough

And warred with yourself.

It’s time that you won.”

I know you agree.

Original painting by Lorraine Christie

“Turning Page” by Sydney Rose