You are that army

Love comes in many forms

I’ve been a little overwhelmed by *looks around* everything, lately.

Not bad stuff necessarily, or bad-overwhelmed either. But the last couple of months have felt like my attention keeps getting split into tinier and tinier pieces.

And the more that happens, the less grounded and good I feel.

I like being able to focus deeply on things. I like diving in. Lately I’ve just been splashing in the shallows of about 27 things. Sometimes that’s necessary, but it’s not rewarding.

This newsletter has been such an important and safe little place for me. I took a five-month break at the end of 2020 - beginning of 2021. I needed to retreat. There were too many heavy things and I didn’t know how to talk about them, and I couldn’t talk about anything else.

Then I needed to start processing. I needed to start saying things out loud. I needed to find little pieces of myself and put them together. I needed to talk about everything and talk about nothing.

I needed to be heard by people who were intent on understanding, who would listen for the meaning, who would read with grace.

I have safe people in my life who have listened and continue to listen. And I have this outlet, this trusted group of readers. There’s some overlap. It’s a Venn diagram of loving attention.

It’s so important to be heard, and to know you’re heard. Not just when there’s a crisis, or a wound, or a big change. We need to be heard. It’s a core need. It’s why we sing songs, make music, write stories, tell jokes, make art, design products. Sometimes it’s also why we lash out, get aggressive, get mean — because we forget, or don’t know, how to make ourselves heard in a better way.

We need to be heard because to be heard is to be recognized and valued. I don’t want to be valued generically. Who wants that? I want to be valued for myself, for the shape I take up.

One of my most difficult lessons has been this: some people aren’t able to recognize and value you for who you are.

My husband could not, did not. Maybe he did at first. Maybe he lost sight of me somewhere along the way. Maybe he never had it. I don’t know. There are puzzles I don’t get to solve because I’ll never have all the pieces.

I do know that the idea he had of me, the shape he created around me and expected me to fill, became so real to him that he couldn’t see past it. He couldn’t see me. He couldn’t hear me.

I remember telling him that I felt like I had to run after him, yelling and jumping and waving flags, to get his attention. If I let the urgency level drop, his attention slipped away. And as soon as his attention slipped away, his memory of the moment warped, shifted, reformed in his mind so it could fit into the shape he’d built to hold it.

I don’t think he did this on purpose, at all, or even knew he was doing it. I think there are unresolved, diagnosable issues. I think this story, my story, the story of a broken marriage, is just one version of a tragedy repeating in endless variations because our culture teaches conformity and our religions teach repression, and we are ashamed.

Ashamed when we fail to conform. Ashamed when we feel deeply. Ashamed when we fall apart. Ashamed when we care too much. Ashamed when we need help. Ashamed when we’re vulnerable.

Ashamed to be heard, to be seen.

Yet longing for it, desperate for it. We’re so hungry to be known, to be recognized and valued for who we are.

This is the space where so many of us live: internally conflicted, caught between the hunger to be known and the shame of having an appetite.

I often feel a sense of shame when I write personal things. The more real I am in my writing, the more raw and unfiltered, the deeper I venture into topics that cross lines of moral or social taboo, the louder shame roars behind me.

Fortunately, I have a small army of people who have taught me, with their careful and loving attention, that my words have meaning and my stories are real, and that I am seen, I am heard, I am recognized, I am known, and I am valued.

You are that army.

You have given me the courage to turn my back on shame and walk forward. I have felt so broken, so shattered, and you have helped me put the pieces back together into the shape of my own choosing.

Thank you.

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A bit of housekeeping

I’m not going anywhere and this newsletter will keep coming, but:

• Frequency will be sporadic. I’m giving myself the gift of more focus and fewer obligations.

• If you’re a paid subscriber, your subscription for the next year has been comped.

• I’m mostly withdrawing from social media so if you’re here from Facebook, I won’t be posting there anymore.

• To unsubscribe: click the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. We have to be choosy about what gets our attention. I’m grateful for yours up to this point; if it needs to go elsewhere now I understand.

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