Without transparency, I become opaque

These pictures (and yes, there are more of her to come) are of my partner @veganastronaut. We met a little over three years ago, approximately 9 months after my former partner/co-parent and I ended our 9.5-year marriage, overall a 12-year romantic relationship that began the first semester of our freshman year of college.

I can’t and won’t pretend that those 9 months were easy for me. I intend to write about that period someday soon (the what, the why, the how) but for now I’ll only graze upon the subject. I still love her dearly and will always consider her to be family and among my most cherished friends, but one of the roots responsible with our growing into a different sort of relationship is my own penchant for not fully accepting myself as I am, thereby denying my ability to be loved.

I hid from her, from our friends, from our family, from myself. I allowed my fear to prevent our growing closer as lovers and best friends through fuller vulnerability and transparency. For years I kept the fact that I am not a Christian (at least not in the sense that I was raised to understand the term) a secret even from my own inner dialogue. I was ashamed of my sexuality. I was ashamed of my gender. I was ashamed of harboring simultaneous attractions. I was ashamed of how differently my brain seemed to work compared to everyone else I knew.

Instead of being open, I allowed certain realities to build inside of me. I rarely wrote or played music. I used late nights of excessive drinking to ease the pressure some, but it would still build to the point that I would explode at a single pinprick, taking offense even when none was intended. I lashed out. I became verbally and emotionally abusive — a mere reflection of the caustic nature of my own internal dialogue.

It was a troublesome journey to come to the understanding that it was impossible for me to love others the way I knew I could without first loving myself. For me, loving myself looks like not putting things in my body that I know are harmful to me or the environment. It means practicing stillness, being outside, writing, reading, playing music, laughing, sleeping 7.5 hours per night.

Even just the thought that I wasn’t living up to my own standard is enough to unleash the raging dogs of self doubt that prevent me from showing up for me and my family in the ways I know I can.

On the day that my co-parent decided our relationship was over, I revealed some things about my past that I had been hiding. There was no premeditation in this revelation, it simply happened. I spent most every moment of my marital separation focusing on how I can heal myself and unearth in me both the rotted portions and gems alike, not as an effort of saving my marriage but as a means of saving my own life. It’s not nearly impossible for me to hold things in about myself, no matter how dark the detail. Without transparency, I become opaque. Everything within me rejects non-disclosure. Being so open it’s exactly easy. It’s often painful, honestly, but the breeze of clarity it provides is unlike anything else I know. It is truth. It is light. And through those acute vulnerabilities I find myself less alone, less afraid, and more capable of taking deep breaths at the water’s edge with those I love.

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