When Winter Turns To Spring

Over the past ten years, and especially in the last three, my physical reality hasn’t been populated very much.  I’ve kind of stayed in a cave, away from people.  Part of it has been fear, not wanting to risk again.  Part of it has been regrouping, finding myself.  Sometimes you have to hibernate.  Animals do it for physical reasons.  Humans do it for emotional ones.  Crawl into yourself and lick your wounds.

While I was doing it I was sure my life would be like that forever, it was such a comfort zone.  TV was my safe place.  That and reading crime novels before I went to sleep at night.  And playing the piano.  And writing.   Singing.  All things that I did on my own.  I was also so lonely, it’s hard to even think about it.  And really ashamed at some level that I was still scared of people and didn’t know how to deal with them or myself when I was with them.  Ashamed that I had no friends.

Lonely was hideous but it felt better than the possibility of being hurt again.  And I could distract myself from it with all the things I did.  Some part of me didn’t want any of it to change, because I wanted to stay safe, but some part of me hated it.  The part of me that has always remained alive and kicking behind the walls of my fortress, inside the bars of my cage.  I wanted life to happen, I lusted after it, and I wanted to experience opportunities.  I wanted to be on the move.

“I didn't consciously plan to poke my head out of the cave”

 But I didn’t want to open the door.  The conflict was torture.

I didn’t consciously plan to poke my head out of the cave, but it’s what I was doing when I started my blog and began learning about connecting in cyberspace.  I joined this community – WryteStuff.com - and made friends with people I could easily relate to and easily love.  They loved me and what I wrote, and gave me confidence.

That was the beginning of the end of the cave-dwelling phase.  It was the first time I felt safe in relationships.  I think the truth is, it was the first time I realized that all the work I’d been doing in therapy had actually taken root.  People hadn’t changed.  I had.  Then I participated in a script writing course where I had to fly out of town once a month for 6 months.  I had been totally terrified to leave home, to fly, to meet new people.  Terrified of being laughed at, excluded, failing.  But none of that happened.  Once again I was further ahead than I thought I was.  I had developed real people skills!

Slowly slowly I started wanting to have people in my physical world all the time.  I was still scared though, not sure I could hold onto myself.  It’s amazing how changing and healing happens so slowly and surely that it can escape your notice.  Fears still have power over you, and comfort zones that some part of you knows aren’t healthy still feel fantastically safe, embracing and fulfilling.

I didn’t realize I’d changed in this regard because I had hardly anybody in my immediate world apart from my therapist to bounce myself off.  I knew my fears were old ones, and that I’d once had good reason to have them, but I didn’t know they had actually become ghosts.  My therapist has been reassuring me for quite a while now that I’m much further ahead than I think.  I usually didn’t believe him.  He was right.  It’s nice to have been wrong.

But healing is real when you’re committed to it, and slowly and surely the momentum builds.  At some point it pushes you across the threshold that’s the cave entrance, just at the point where you can embrace  and feel the pleasure and excitement of new life.  I’ve recently crossed that threshold.  Suddenly I’m back in the world, not just in cyberspace, but in my immediate, physical reality too.  I’ve got people in my world and I’m handling it just fine.

It’s a bit unnerving at times, and I’m still uncertain of myself, but I’m not losing my footing, and I’m not uncomfortable enough to make me want to go back into the cave.  And my discomfort isn’t stopping me from enjoying this new life that’s surging through me.  Enjoying touching people and being touched.  Enjoying stretching myself.

I’m suddenly realizing how far I’ve come from even a couple of years ago.  This incredibly long road I’ve travelled.  Now that it’s brought me here I wouldn’t change anything.  But I’m really glad to be out the cave.   It served its purpose and I don’t regret that I went there, but I’m not really a cave person by nature.  I suspect that I’m not really a scaredy cat by nature either.