Truth changes the quality of a relationship

I had to learn this the hard way.

For a long time, what was true for me was discounted as irrelevant.
Looking back now, I can see how quickly my brilliant little mind reached a conclusion:

My thoughts, feelings, desires, fears, and dreams weren't important to anyone except me.

I internalized life as "me versus them."

I knew I needed to leave home as quickly as possible so I could finally begin living my own life.

But that's not what happened.

Instead of learning how to bring myself into relationship with other people, I became incredibly skilled at leaving myself.

After years of stuffing my thoughts, feelings, desires, fears, and longings into a compartment, I eventually lost the key.

People would ask simple questions.

"Are you okay?"
"Did I hurt your feelings?"
"Did I say something wrong?"

Those questions felt almost offensive.

Of course they were not intended to be.

I just had absolutely no idea how to answer them.

I remember my ex-husband asking me one day,

"Are you okay?"

Immediately, a wall of ice spread through my chest.

My mind went blank.

I started scrambling.

What's the right answer?
What is okay to say here?
What would a normal person reveal?

I wasn't trying to tell the truth.

I was trying to figure out which version of myself felt safest to offer.

So I wouldn't reveal a damn thing.

I'd shrug.

"I'm okay."

Or I'd change the subject.

Or I'd point out something about him instead.

Anything but stay with myself.

At the time, I thought I was protecting the relationship.

Now I can see I was abandoning the only relationship I couldn't afford to lose.

My relationship with myself.

There was another strategy I became incredibly good at.

Cynicism. Sarcasm.

If conversations turned toward religion...

politics...

love...

marriage...

romance...

I'd make a joke.

I'd dismiss it.

"That's ridiculous."

"I'd never want that."

I thought cynicism was part of my personality.

Now I wonder if it was camouflage.

If I could make fun of everyone else's convictions...

no one would notice that I had no idea what I believed.

It became so automatic that eventually I couldn't tell the difference between what I actually believed and what I had learned to say in order to stay protected.

It isn't surprising, then, that at twenty years old I married the first man who seemed genuinely interested in me.
Not the version I performed.

Me.

My thoughts.
My dreams.
My feelings.

I felt like I had somehow won the lottery.

It also isn't surprising that four years later, we divorced.

Because although he was capable of being in partnership with me...

I wasn't capable of being in partnership with myself.

That sentence hurts to write. Because it's true.

I scared me.

I didn't know me.

I didn't trust me.

The entire marriage felt like an audition for a role I wasn't prepared to play.

I wanted desperately to be a good wife.

I wanted people to believe I knew what I was doing.

Truthfully...

I was wearing a costume.

When the marriage ended, I felt two things at the same time.

Enormous relief... and devastating rejection.

He had helped me step a little farther out of my emotional shell than anyone ever had.

But I still spent most of our relationship protecting him from seeing who I really was.

Because I was convinced that if he saw my deepest insecurities... he would leave.

Ironically... the person I kept leaving was myself.

As I write this, my nineteen-year marriage is coming to an end.

I have many thoughts about that season of my life, but they aren't ready for the page yet.

I suspect they will be someday.

For now, this is the part of the story I know how to tell.

I'm only beginning to understand what truth actually is.

Truth isn't simply saying difficult things.

Truth is remaining in relationship with yourself while you're in relationship with someone else.

Sometimes we discover truth through conversation.

Sometimes through conflict.

Sometimes through love.

Sometimes through separation.

Sometimes through grief.

The quality of every relationship is shaped by how willing we are to orient ourselves around truth... our own, another person's,
and the truth of what the relationship actually is.

I'm only really learning this now, at fifty-two years of age.

I'm beginning to see that hiding behind a version of myself that feels more acceptable isn't actually truth.

It's a mask. And masks require enormous energy.

The work of uncovering what is true isn't glamorous... at all.

It's sweaty. Messy. Raw. Exposing.

Sometimes it feels like digging through years of compacted earth with nothing but a shovel.

And yet... underneath all the layers I've spent a lifetime building... I keep meeting someone I genuinely delight in.

She is far from perfect.

She is far from finished.

But she isn't pretending anymore.

She knows that every version of herself has served a purpose.

She knows that none of those versions were the whole story.

And somehow... that realization brings more freedom than certainty ever did.

Being human isn't for the faint of heart.

Neither is being in relationship.

The two continually mirror one another.

I've spent much of my life trying to figure out how to stay connected to other people.

Now I'm learning something much more important.

How to stay connected to myself.