Playing Small

There will never be an "us"

if I play small.

-Sharon Preiss

In Dante's Divine Comedy, the only difference between the lovers who find themselves enduring Hell and the lovers working their way through Paradise is that those in Hell have no individual center, and so they spin in endless identification with each other. 

Hard as it is, we cannot shrink from our relationships or we simply become an audience or gofer for the dominant partner or friend. Like most of us, I have struggled with this my whole life: fearful of what might happen if I actually voice my concerns and needs, surprised that doing so - while not always easy or pleasant - always enables me to be myself more fully. 

Then, not by chance, I'm always more able to feel and see the world around me. I bring more to the scene and am revitalized more readily by my daily experience. 

The great philosopher Martin Buber, who believed that God is most deeply known through relationship, spoke to the heart of this paradox. He said that before there can be a true relationship, there must be two separate beings who can relate. Most of our life experience bears this out. Unless we work to be ourselves, we can never truly know others or the numinous world we live in. 

-Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Today's reading seems fitting, as I've been spending a little time thinking about relationships lately. My roles in them in the past, my roles in them now, and how I have grown as a person within many of my relationships (and regressed in others). My relationship with my parents is strange. In the past week, I have come to realize just how little my parents really know me. How the distance with my mother is by request. How the distance with my father is due to ignorance and narcissism. My mother says she wants to know, but doesn't really want to know, so she sets up these weird rules and boundaries to protect herself. She's done it my whole life, so this is nothing new. The reaching out is new, but once she does it, she pretty quickly recoils back into herself. She's growing too, so I don't resent her for her efforts, even when they appear to fail. I have always "played small" to my parents, but I find myself speaking up more and more. Pointing out how their preconceived notions of me are inaccurate, letting them know where my strengths really are, not where they think they should be. It's awkward, but I feel like there has been so much less tiptoeing around since I moved back, in spite of my mothers continued "I don't want to know" stance. 

My relationship with my spouse was (and is) all kinds of fucked up. When we started dating, I was proud, confident, and sure of who I was and what I wanted. But then the pregnancy happened and I felt my whole self drain out of my body when that baby did. I fell so deeply into depression that I no longer cared about anything. I was completely hollow inside, but no one knew. I had hidden it so well behind fake excitement about getting married, pretending everything was fine. That I was fine. I grew so small in my relationship with my spouse that I became his puppet. His doll. And that was exactly what he wanted from me. Me shrinking inside of myself gave him this false sense of dominance. I was still responsible for the hard decisions and managing the household, but he didn't have anyone to answer to about his hobbies, his needs, his wants. He was spoiled and perfectly happy. And he thought I was happy too. Which just shows how little he knew (and currently knows) about me. Bitter sarcasm is what he thinks I am made of, and when we got engaged and were married, that was very true. But that's not who I want to be. Not what I want. He can't offer me what I need, and I feel like our relationship has been Dante's couple in Hell, spinning around each other in some bizarre codependency. Him chasing the fantasy of me, and my true self being shrunk down so small that all I could do was play along. 

Not anymore. And not for some time.

I kept putting my foot down, then shrinking back from it (sound familiar? This is a learned trait from my codependent relationship with my mother!). But I really put my foot down when I moved to MN. I made the decision to save my own life and did whatever I had to in order to get there. Moving back hasn't felt like shrinking away from it again, and I'm making sure that doesn't happen. I'm taking the steps I have to in order to wrap this up and get on with living. 

During this process I am rediscovering myself along the way. I have felt more genuinely myself, and my current relationships show for it. I feel more comfortable, more honest, more... present. And I'm not ashamed to show up exactly as I am. I continue to grow, no longer playing small. And as I continue to grow more confident in my truer form of self, I continue to relate to others, to find the "True Relationship" outside of the very broken image of what I thought it was supposed to be. I had it all wrong - no wonder my marriage didn't stand a chance (other than the obvious glaring faults and issues, haha). All of my relationships suffered, not just the romantic ones. But to have this stance, to be true to myself and be who I am in this moment... to be accepted "as is," really feels like freedom. 

Freedom feels good.