Never Let Go

I had a great session this morning with my therapist. I appreciate my therapist so much. I really feel that we can both see the evidence of how my work with her over the years -- and my work in general on myself -- has led to real, positive changes in my life. We can also both see that despite these real changes, challenges still lie ahead, and few people are better than she is at really being with me in the very real pain that I both have experienced and continue to experience in my life.

I'm not unique for having to deal with pain -- that's an experience to which all of us are privy. But the extent of the damage I suffered growing up in a family with an abusive alcoholic for a father and a depressed mother is significant, and it's perhaps even more significant because of the extent to which I employed denial as a tool for survival. I've learned not to be hard on myself about this -- I did -- as we all do -- the best I could with what I knew in the face of a very difficult situation. But the subconscious pathways that were created by living in a fantasy world and denying the very real evidence around me are strong, and it takes a tremendous amount of vigilance to consciously choose another path. I'm still learning how to choose another path, only just recently having gotten strong enough to really look at the consequences of continuing down the old one.

As my therapist and I were talking today, I mentioned something my daughter said to me about a year and a half ago after my then-boyfriend announced he would be moving in a matter of months back to the East Coast. We were talking about whether we would break up or stay together when he left, and she said very clearly: "I want a stepfather who is here." I heard her -- I'm very good at taking to heart what my children say -- and I agreed. That was part of how I decided that when he left, we would break up. But then she said: "But I don't know Mom, you don't let go of people easily."

As my own mother would say, "Truer words were never spoken." Letting go of him has been one of, and maybe even the hardest, thing I've ever had to do. But I'm ready now, over a year later. Not in small part thanks to my therapist, who said in response to what my daughter said, "But you've had a history of letting go of yourself. It's time to change that so that the person you don't let go of is you."

I knew she was right, and even better, I knew that I wouldn't let go of myself again.

Today's song is by one of my top three artists on heartbreak (along with Eddie and Bob) -- it just seems fitting that he'd be the one to sing the anthem about my heart in repair, too:

Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Our ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll lose everything
But I won't let go of your hand

Well, Peter denied and Judas betrayed
I'll bail with the roll of the drum
And the wind will tell the turn from the wheel
And the watchman is making his rounds
Well, you'll leave me hanging by the skin of my teeth
I've only got one leg to stand
You can send me to hell
But I'll never let go of your hand

Swing from a rope on a cross-legged dream(?)
Signed with One Eyed Jack's blood
From Temple to Union, to LA and Grand
Walking back home in the mud

Now I must make my best of the only way home
Molly deals only in stone
I'm lost on the midway, I'm reckless in your eyes
Just give me a couple more throws
I'll dare you to dine with the cross-legged knight
Dare me to jump and I will
I'll fall from your grace
But I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand

No I won't, Sarah Jane, not ever again. I'm sorry for letting go of it so many times before, when I thought it was necessary in order to hold the hand of a lover. I know now that I can stay with myself and love someone else, and if that isn't possible, the person's hand to let go of is his...