Last week, I initiated a breakup with a lover.
We hadn’t been seeing each other super long — only two months before she left the country for the spring and summer. I knew that I loved her, the way I love all my people. I didn’t hesitate to show it in my actions. I even said it a few times: “whatever happens, you should know I love you dearly.” it wasn’t a movie moment, it was a true one, a benediction of sorts before she flew 14 hours, 4 time zones, and an ocean away. I always want my people to know how I feel about them, especially when we are going to be apart for some time. She seemed buoyed by it. I saw a thousand sunrises in her face. I was sincere in that moment and still am. I imagine that she was, too. Everything changed when I said I was done, though. The other day, she took everything she knew about me and made it her ammunition. I had to laugh, though wasn’t shit actually funny. “How silly,” I thought, shaking my head. “I was never ashamed of those things.”
I have talked extensively on public forums (including an interview with my local PBS affiliate) about my reproductive health. I have publicly, and unabashedly, talked about my mental illness and PTSD. Some of my best writing, I daresay, comes from healing. An ashamed person cannot heal. A healing person cannot progress when neck deep in shame. We don’t have to make friends with our shadows and sins, but we should know them, because they are us. We exist with them, they live within us. It’s when you try to be better than or above your own “bad” self that you get tripped up. You’ll spend forever running from yourself. You can be your own medicine, your own nurse and nurturer. Shame keeps that from happening. I dissolve my shame with tenderness toward myself.
That tenderness flows from and through me, into my interpersonal dealings. It’s an always present part of me that I haven’t always understood or been comfortable with. It was and is off-putting to some folks, as if there’s something wrong with them because of how I move. I have often ignored those reactions, often to my own peril. I’ve pretended it didn’t bother me that they were bothered. I now recognize that they probably expected — or perhaps demanded — that I feel shame about something. it wasn’t always my tenderness; it coulda been any number of things about my appearance or personality. Traits and quirks I may not have known to be ashamed of until/ unless someone brought it up. I learned self betrayal from those moments.
Self betrayal runs on shame; shame is an extension of fear. Shame directs us to hide from our inner light, from the light of the sun, from the light of love. Some lessons can only be learned in relationship, as some skills cannot possibly develop in isolation. After a while, your training wheels come off and your balance has to be tested. When you swerve or hit a bump, how do you recover? Shame doesn’t teach you to be brave, or to trust yourself. Shame’s opposite is not confidence. It is compassion, opening you to yourself even at your lowest point.
I couldn’t have had these realizations without that breakup. That doesn’t mean I love how the process feels. I am gathering myself back together, disentangling myself from that relationship with as much care as I can muster. I don’t regret any of this. One day it won’t hurt nearly as much, and I’ll take what I’ve learned here into another phase of life. I don’t have to suffer through this loss. My grieving nourishes me, as I lay shame to rest.
“Gonna lay down my burden down by the riverside, ain’t gonna study war no more.”