Sunday, September 6, 2009

Editing an old chapter


Unlovable
Originally uploaded by Joy Wong Photography

"Unfold your own myth." ~ Rumi

I've looked at this quote everyday for nearly a week as it is featured prominently on the September page of my calendar and I pass it on my way to the bathroom multiple times a day.

I'm very aware that for the majority of my life I believed a particular story about myself and I was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was the truth.

I. Am. Unlovable.

That has been my myth. All the evidence was there in black and white that this was indeed a fact. When I reached a certain age, I was able to let go of my beliefs about Santa and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. The story I've had about myself, on the other hand, has been re-told time and time again, not dependent on me reaching a particular age or stage. It was the personal fable that I never seemed to grow out of. Some personal stories are so apparent that they're worn like a badge of courage for everyone to see and take pity upon. In other instances, the story is so insidious and underground yet permeates every action and interaction.

In my drinking days, I was the badge-wearin' kind. Unlovability was my birthright, especially being given up for adoption. If you're not desired by the woman who carried you in her womb for 9 months and bore you through her own vagina, how could you possibly be loved ? Being in the starring role of this sad story entitled me to drink. A lot. And to feel sorry for myself all the time. And to solicit this same level of pity from others for the suffering I bore.

Unlovability was why I was brought into an alcoholic home -- my father's crass comments and dirty looks were proof enough. Unlovability was a reason to be self-deprecating and to drag you down with me into the same black hole. Unlovability was the reason I couldn't maintain relationships and the reason why people treated me badly. Unlovability was my lot in life. That is what I believed and told myself over and over and over again.

When I stopped drinking and did my time in meetings and therapy, I believed I had unlovability licked. And for the next 16 years, unlovability would be in many disguises. The insidious, underground type. It would show up in the form of accommodation and underneath was how I gave myself away. It looked like pleasing and was really fear of abandonment. It was smiles and "we're great" and a 2 car garage and countless forms of denial. It lie dormant under layers of suppressed shame and rage.

When I entered the kabbalistic healing program 3 years ago after having just ended my long-term relationship, I felt like I was given a new set of glasses to bring into focus the volumes of my life. And I felt myself dizzy with each turn of the page. I had been suffocating, drowning, neck-deep in unlovability. I can recall vividly the moment when I asked my healer for a blessing; my words whispered in her ear through a barage of tears were: "I want to change my story."

With each healing session, with every intimate conversation, with every prayer and meditation, with every AA meeting and every share, I am reading the non-fiction version of my story. I am editing the words on the pages. I am unfolding my own myth.

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