Sexeteria

If everything you think you know,
Makes your life unbearable,
Would you change?
Would you change?

I rented the first season of the HBO series Rome this weekend, and before the first DVD went to the main menu, a little promo clip for all of the HBO series played. It had images from various shows over a soundtrack of this hauntingly beautiful Tracy Chapman song:

The song brought me running right out of the kitchen, where I'd gone to do something while I waited for the disc to start up. It still mystifies me what kind of message, if any, the creators of the promo thought the song had to say about HBO programming, but it did remind me of how incredibly lovely and rich Tracy Chapman's voice is. I liked her very much in the late 1980s, but haven't listened to her in a long time.

But beyond that, the song affected me because it pretty much struck right at the core of something I've been thinking about a lot this a week and to some extent discussing with others.

You know, one of the frustrating things about going to therapy and getting healthy is that you change and become more functional--and the world and people around you do not. So here you are, full of better thoughts and healthier behaviors, expressing yourself better, setting boundaries, whatever it is that's appropriate. And you're surrounded by all you've gathered about you in your life, all of which is full of dysfunction.

And there it is. And there's nothing you can do about that except continue to act healthy, and not succumb to others' dysfunctional models, and hope they maybe get it at some point. That's it. And that can be SO frustrating. You see people struggling, you see how dark it is for them, and you remember being there. And you know what they don't, and you want to say to them: "This isn't as hard as you think it is right now...there's a way out, you just have to want to do it...and it's faster and easier than you think...it hurts less than you think it will...it hurts so much more where you are than taking that step out..."

I'm not saying I'm perfect here. That I'm the supreme example of light and healing. But I can see things now I couldn't, and some things are glaringly obvious. You see them saying and doing things you used to say and do. You see the traps. You see people you LOVE standing in traps. Traps they've walked into, or built around themselves, and the door isn't even LOCKED, and they WON'T LEAVE. And you're standing outside, saying, come out, come out, see, it's possible, and they...just look at you sadly and sit there. Some even get angry at you that you won't sit in your own little crate anymore and lash out at you from between the bars if you come too close or if you try to open the latch to the door.

It's hard. It seems I'm surrounded of late by people who are trapped and hurting and all they keep saying is "I can't...I can't just...I don't know how...If I do that, everyone will/no one will..." Or people who are so hurt that they are angry at me for being myself. Angry at me for refusing to act in ways that used to hurt me--AND them.

I know I was this "I can't" person myself. Sometimes I forget and still am. But not so much anymore. And If I find I need to to make an "I can't" statement these days, I always finish it with "...yet." Because then it's not an "I can't" statement anymore.

But from my own experience, having been there, I know that there's nothing I can say or do to help them. They have to be ready. I could scream it, I could wave it in front of them, but they won't be able to hear or see it...until they do. It's like Charles Allan Gilbert's All Is Vanity. You swear it's a photo of a woman at her dressing table...until it's not. And it's up to you whether you'll let yourself see it.

I couldn't change until I was ready to change. So I know they won't hear me until they are ready to change, themselves.

But what will it take? That's what is so hard. Sometimes it even gets you angry. You want to shake them, slap them out of their stupor.

In most cases I know it takes hitting a rock bottom moment, where there are only two alternatives, and one of them--the inertia one--is just too terrifying to contemplate. And then they know something must be done. And so I stand quietly and I try to just do what I have to do and let them sit still in their pain if they need to. I try to be gentle about it, like Chapman's voice in the song. But it's hard, and even in the midst of my trying to be the gentle observer, I can't help but join Chapman in wondering over and over:

How bad, how good does it need to get?
How many losses? How much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?

These questions I want answers to, for the people I love, and the people I care about, and the people I know are hurting.

How low does your awful need to be to realize you're at rock bottom? Your depth capacity here is terrifying me. How many examples of goodness do you need to see before it sinks in that there's an alternative out there that is nothing like the unlocked cage you're sitting in? How long before you realize hurting yourself is not helping you or anyone around you? That it's not ME who is hurting you, it's you who are hurting?

The best I can do is keep singing Chapman's song to myself and hope that maybe it'll be someday soon.