It was a great album by AeroSmith and something I’ve been thinking about for several days. I feel a theme coming on it’s about transformation I even created a new page about a transformation I’ve been going through over the past year, actually since I started blogging and during the time I took off from writing on here. I always write, sometimes it’s stories and that is what I have been working on a story of transformation. A lot has occurred to me over these months and some of it is worth posting.
I have scenes that play over and over in my mind, like old movies and these have kept me stuck in the past. I think we all do. 2 such scenes involve interactions I have had with significant men in my life. One day as I was walking down the hallway when I was 10, I looked up and saw my father in his usual seat at the kitchen table, eating. Seems he was always eating, or preparing to eat. A big man. An Old man, and still just a man, he was in the habit of saying whatever he thought without censor. He was also in the habit of extending his pinky whenever he held a cup. He was dark skinned with hairy knuckles and black rimmed glasses. I didn’t like looking at him and liked his manner of speaking even less. Often his tyraids went on for several hours, during which I would zone out. He liked to call me unconscious and felt a strong urge to get my attention by slapping me in the back of the head.
On this particular morning as I walked down the hallway towards the kitchen I averted his glance, said good morning and attempted a bee-line down the front stairs. He barked out, “Your getting so fat you look like the broad side of a barn!” Your mother and I are going to put you on a diet and I will pay you $1.00 a pound for every pound you lose. From then on I was feed pre-specified meals and could not eat what my brother and sisters ate. I lost 30 pounds. Thus began a life time of self recrimination and stupid ass diets.
Fast forward to the second scene that plays over and over in my head. My Ex on the eve of our decision to part ways and a night I spent crying. I wrote a post that highlights the beginning of that evening called, “The Vagabond and The Poacher“, but what happened next is not something I have been able to write about until now. You see when we came home that night he informed me that he had compiled a list of pros and cons to help him decide whether or not we should stay together. When I asked to see his list he said it wouldn’t be a good idea and that showing it to me would be in a word, mean. So I asked him to tell me what his conclusion was and he said that pros and cons were about equal, except for one item, basically a deal breaker. He told me that I had a beautiful face, but that he was disgusted by my body and could not have sex with me. I was, of course, devastated and spent the rest of the night on the couch with a box of kleenex. He spent the night sleeping soundly in our bed. I had already been replaced with a younger, slimmer model, and while I had a strong intuition about this, it took a while to confirm it.
There is a reason I am sharing all this and it is about getting your wings and transforming into someone who can look in the mirror and see themselves as the best thing since sliced bread. It’s about transforming into someone who doesn’t give a shit about what other people think. It’s about transforming into someone who can fly, finally, after years of crawling along in a cocoon of victimhood, self deception and denial. You see while I recognize how awful the men in my life were, I also recognize that they gave me a gift. This may sound odd, but something in me rose up against what they were saying and said, this is more about you than it is about me and if you don’t like me you can leave. But, and when I did it I was blaming them. I was taking it all personally and so I got hurt, even though I knew deeply that it had nothing to do with me at all.
People often believe that transformation is something that should just happen, you know you wake up one day and you are better, but I’m here to tell you that this is the furthest thing from the truth. Transformation is a harsh, ugly, painful experience that once gotten through will leave you feeling refreshed and alive. Yes, do think of the butterfly who must knaw it’s way out of it’s shell, or the baby chick, or reptile. They fight for it and if you are looking at it via time lapse photography it might even seem quick, but we don’t know what’s going on inside that shell, nor do we have any concept of what time feels like for that being.
Getting your wings is all about acknowledging those distractions that keep you in the cocoon. Is it food? Is it alcohol? Is it drugs? Is it Coffee? Is it sex? Is it television? What the fuck is it? We all know what it is we just don’t like to admit it, but it’s back there scratching away at the shell whispering. It says if you stop doing this you will fly!
