Last Night on My Own
Tonight is my last night on my own. And, of course, I’m not sleeping.
©Susie Stonefield 2019
It isn’t a surprise, really. There is still so much to pack, so much to organize, so much to let go of. But that’s not it.
It’s really about this l͓̽i͓̽m͓̽i͓̽n͓̽a͓̽l͓̽ ͓̽m͓̽o͓̽m͓̽e͓̽n͓̽t͓̽ . The ending/beginning of two such enormous chapters in my life.
You see, it happens that this is also an anniversary of another impactful moment in my life story.
This week is the five year anniversary of the beginning of my coming out, the moment when I began a relationship with my catalyst and realized who I was, who I’d been denying all these years, and who I needed to be. A moment that was the ending/beginning of two other chapters in my life.
It didn’t occur to me when Mary and I settled on January as my move-in month, that these two thresholds would overlap. But I’m conscious now that the level of emotion that I’ve been feeling over the past few weeks as my moving date approached was high not just because moving is hard (and I’ve done it a lot recently), but also because I’m reminded continually as the calendar (and Facebook) sparks a memory from the past five years. These dates are embedded in my experience now of January. And with each date is an entire universe of experience.
Five years ago, I let a genie out of a bottle. I met a side of myself I’d never encountered before.
The moment she was free, I can remember the recognition. I remember feeling like I was looking over at her (my Self, my TRUE self) and saying, “Who ARE you? Why have I never met you before?!” and then realizing that part of my Self would never go back in the bottle, I didn’t WANT her to go back in the bottle.
I’d tried, valiantly some would say, to NOT meet her. To NOT let her out…because I think I knew, in some very central way, that she was indeed in there and once out, my life would change. It would HAVE TO CHANGE. And oh, that was SCARY. (You see, I’d kept her hidden away since I’d first noticed a glimmer of her existence about 22 years before.)
FEAR kept her at bay. Fear of turning my life upside down. Fear of who I would hurt or disappoint or shock. And then lose. Fear, even, of what it would feel like to open the door to her and embrace all that she was telling me I needed to embrace.
Maybe you’re wondering why I was in such deep denial.
I had just stayed in the crosswalk for so long, it was hard to imagine how I, me, this girl, could do something so unexpected and big, so exposed, so vulnerable, and cross the street outside those lines.
It wasn’t like me.
(I’ll also say that coming out in a homophobic society is not easy, whether you’re 16 or 56. There are so many messages. So many expectations. So few models…There may be more today–in some places–but it’s still potentially life-or-death risky and scary.)
And yet. Five years ago, I ended/began something. I crossed a threshold not knowing what would happen, only knowing that I had no choice anymore. That keeping a part of myself in that bottle was not possible any longer.
It wasn’t really a choice, if I’m being honest. I mean, I suppose I could have said no longer. But it’s like Anais Nin wrote: “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Those words had never meant more to me than they did five years ago this week.
Tomorrow, I head to Chico, where my love, my future wife, is waiting for me. Where we will be building a life together, a studio, a circle of friends old and new. I’ve already begun to put roots down there and am finding so many signals that I’m meant to be there. I’m excited for what will unfold!
We’ve been laughing, Mary and I, about how tonight was our last “single” night. We toasted, separately: she with a dear friend (“Enjoy the quiet,” she said) and me with my son, Ben (“Cheers…to new beginnings,” he said). And I’ve asked that tomorrow night after we settle in, we mark the moment with some kind of ritual as well. (If you know me, you know I love rituals.)
This moment is huge. I’m not just moving in with my girlfriend.
It’s huge because if I hadn’t taken the step I took five years ago–and all the steps in between, the upheaval and tears, the boxes packed and unpacked and packed again…and…hahaha…again and again!–I wouldn’t be taking this step tomorrow.
And, if I hadn’t take THOSE steps I wouldn’t have found the me that was longing to be brought out of the shadows. I wouldn’t have had the chance to experience all the LOVE, my friends. The love of my family, friends, communities...my partner. The love of my SELF, fully now.
And I wouldn’t have had the chance to notice that FEAR kept me small.
If you know me, then you know I’m blooming now, in ways I never thought I would.
So, tonight, as I sit here in my jammies in the dark, spilling some thoughts on the page, I am honoring myself and my courage to be uncomfortable in the liminal moments…because without them I would not be where and who I am today.
