I was reading Grace’s The Wild Pomegranate this afternoon and something she said really sparked a post. Grace, I hope you don’t mind that I’m pasting a bit of your post here.

Now – some might say this willingness to be so transparent and non-self editing isn’t necessarily…wise. As Hawk said in a comment recently, I pretty much bust my chest and head wide open so you all can see what’s inside. HOPEFULLY, you don’t mistake these little peaks into my psyche as ALL of me. That would be a huge mistake. At any time, when we blog, we are simply flashing facets at each other. Some glimmer, some gleem, and some are gross. Funky, even, and I’m not talking Stevie Wonder. (”Superstition” has been playing in my head for days now!)

Wow. And this is part of the crux of the matter when it comes to leaving a friendship of such long standing. There were so many reasons, not just the one incident. So many, none of which I was “allowed” to discuss without getting a Dragon Reaming. Yes, that is a technical term.

One of the reasons I deleted my old blog was because of something I was told in the very beginning by several people who were reading it. “You MUST filter your posts! Don’t say such things to the general public! You never know who’s listening.”

hahahahahahahaha.

There was a time when I would have laughed in their faces and shook my head at how sad that was. But my rebel had been severely wounded and damaged over the course of my life. My running with wolves had ended. My Wild Woman Self was sleeping in a deep dark cave, “flow morphia slow.” When I got sober I had to fight so hard for my sobriety. I thought my rebel was nothing but trouble and I voluntarily squelched a big part of that rebel. So when they said that to me I was so hopeful that I might have a chance at fitting in their world that I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. No one to blame but myself. But little bits of HER kept creeping out, little glimmers of who I really am and what I was really thinking. And what bullshit I think our censors are.

When a big chunk of my world blew into smithereens because I slammed the plunger home (Fire in the hole!), I decided that I had no more interest in hiding who I am. And I didn’t want to play with people whose advice was comprised of entreaties to present myself and my ideas and thoughts with great care and heavy locks and bars and filters. And yet tell me in their next breath that who they think I should present to the world should be my authentic self. Talk about mixed messages. Talk about bullshit. And they said to do that for political reasons in the group we played in. I know they meant to be helpful. Even now, they probably think I’m insane. I can’t blame them one bit for that because clearly, for awhile, I listened and believed. I’m so not a believer in my heart of hearts. In the parlance of a church that a friend’s son attends, I became an Unbeliever overnight.

I opted at that time to blow everything to smithereens and pick up the pieces for a new view. Just like this Samhain collage that wasn’t working for me, I took the paper cutter to my belief system and friendships and from chaos created a new, stronger, healthier, beauty and rhythm.

This next bit is why Grace’s comment really sang for me. When I told the friend that I didn’t want to continue in the relationship any more, and why, she tore me apart. Said that she’d been waiting for years for me to attack her. That I was being a bitch. Oh, and had I checked my meds? I received at least 10 paragraphs of this acid over the course of 2 emails. At first I tried to address some of it but decided that it just wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t worth it. No one is. If that is who she really thinks I am then there was nothing to say and my aim had been true. If that is all she thinks I am, then she never knew me. Truth though, I think she was just truly hurt by my decision and that she simply bit back. I don’t begrudge that. But I think that in those bites the truth lay. Her secret opinions of me came out in her anger and they set me free.

See, she thinks she knows why I was upset. I’m pretty certain she doesn’t. Part of that might have been my inability to fully express the nut of the matter and only speak about the straw that broke the camel’s back. If that makes sense. I was pissed because, when it comes to what was our public relationship, I was invisible to her and so was my work. Simple. Don’t treat me like I’m invisible or that I don’t have a right to be angry about it. After years of being treated in that way, in public, I was done. I am glad I finally blew up. I am glad I finally stood up for myself. Let her think I’m imagining it. Let me be the bad guy in her world. It’s not my world. Not any more. (This is assuming she thinks of me at all, she very well might not)

How is it that someone who is your confidante and who listens to your hurts and angers and successes and glories only sees your anger and think that is the whole of you? Do I not also give to others with joy? Do I not also make beautiful things? Am I not more than what I tell one person when there is no one else to tell?

Why, yes, Jim. Yes I am. I’m more than my confidences. I’m more than my anger. I’m more than my blog. MUCH MORE.

These days? I have no filters on this blog. Even the person who is not a friend any longer can read this blog knowing that I have never divulged her name, her blog, or the details of our disagreements. She is welcome to share her views of the matter any way she chooses even as comments in this blog.

I hope she is well and happy. I hope one day she sees her part in the failure of that relationship. I hope one day she realizes perhaps I’m not entirely crazy and that I am not solely responsible for how things turned out. That she could have done some things differently too. But I don’t want it for me, not to make ME feel better. To make HER feel better. To heal herself if that still needs to happen.

Some folks might, perhaps, think I’m bitter. (Not that it matters what they think) And there have been times in the past when that would be accurate. I was bitter over some things. But I was mostly bitter about the choices I had made for myself and why. I was bitter and upset with myself for falling into the trap of thinking other people’s belief systems were more valuable and worthy than my own. And in my heart? Not even close. Not my own system at all. I used to be a rebel. I used to say whatever I thought. I do try to temper that these days but only because some of the things I think are only my opinions, not actual facts. I used to say that if I tell all, there is nothing to blackmail me with. If I’m an open book, I’m free. In the words of Shirley Valentine, “I used to jump off our roof.”

Sometimes our Itty Bitty Shitty Committees are internal. Sometimes the IBSC consists of other people. Either way, they have no power that I don’t give them. Either way, they don’t speak to my heart, my spirit, my joy, my worth.

I’m not invisible any more. I have freedom from that particular chaos. I’ve found strength I thought I’d lost and couldn’t have back. I’m jumping off the roof and it feels damn good. The Crone is cracking through her shell. She might keep a few things in the dark bag at her belt but it’s a small bag and they are things that make her smile. There is no room for secrets in that bag, just treasures.