Something going on inside me head at the moment, but just can’t quite pin it down. Something about church? Something about a depressed friend? Something about Al-Anon? Not quite sure.
Coming home from church, a few weeks ago, I was aware of being somewhat in awe of the new presbyter, a sort of fear, more negative than positive somehow. Wanting to keep my distance, and yet also drawn to her - maybe a bit like with Mum - scared of her and yet wanting/needing her.
Then, again - like when I brought Trudi home and for a long time I expected her to be just like Girlie in what she did and how she did it! But, they were two very different cats!
Maybe expecting the new presbyter to be just like the previous one in what she does and how she does it?
Maybe expecting the women I am drawn to to be just like Mum, somehow?
Caught between two extremes - the utter neediness and demandingness of the friend with depression and the utter confidence and serenity of women like the presbyter?
Maybe moving between the two extremes in my self, in my own life?
Coming into my own power?
I want to say a bit more about the friend who is depressed! She seems to know everybody’s business - and that does not feel healthy or safe, to me. I need to have my wits about me, to use my wisdom to keep my self safe from her. I also need to be able to respond from the heart to others, like the presbyter.
It seems like a push-pull sort of situation. Pulled towards women like the depressed friend, almost as if they represent my ongoing experience of my mother; and pushed away from women like the presbyter, almost as if I have no right to be in their presence or to have anything to do with them.
Something to do with my self - something to do with my self in relation to my mother, somehow. Like I am not really a free agent at all - I bring with me into any relationship my feelings and attitudes about others developed in that very early relationship with my mother - one of dependence and need and yet also of not being able to fully trust and relax with her.
The friend who is depressed is not unlike several of my ex-partners in many respects - damaged women, angry women, maybe even manipulative women.
How to break that enchantment? That magnet? How to become more my own person in relation to others, rather than a wounded child constantly meeting her mother in others? And desperately wanting to be able to really connect with women more like the presbyter? Maybe in a fantasy of my own making, somehow.
Something like the distinction between God’s whore and God’s mother, in my mind - maybe idolising both forms of women and not really able to relate to either?
Who am I? Lusting after women like my ex-partners who were not really healthy for me.
Why do I think I need to be like anyone else? Why do I think I am not good enough as I am? Why not just accept who I am and go from there? Like trying to find a r ôle model for my self as I strive to become more the woman I would like my self to be - although that is not quite right, either.
Wanting to be self-sufficient like the new presbyter, which actually means distancing my self, somehow, from others; and, yet, seeking abusive, manipulative women like my ex-partners for partners.
Maybe two sides of the same coin - like the depth of sadness and the heights of joy - propensity for one as a mirror of a propensity for the other?
And the imagery of a mirror perhaps not so far from how I understand it, with the object in a mirror as far away from the mirror and it is deep into the mirror, when the mirror is flat. Distortions arise with convex and concave mirrors, but even then, measurements can be made and distances calculated.
A metaphor for my life, perhaps.
Maybe I am not looking into a flat mirror, but, rather, into a convex or a concave mirror? Distorted images of womanhood? Maybe needing to be more aware of my self, more honest with my self, more diligent with my self, in order to continue moving towards the person I would like to see in the mirror?
Other women just do not interest me. As rôle models or as anything else I might wish to strive for - sort of wishy-washy - neither really basic nor really solid.
Sort of caught between two extremes. I don’t see much of my self in other women - but I do see my self in women like my ex-partners on the one hand and like the presbyter on the other - like that false distinction between body and mind, sexuality and spirituality. A struggle between the two, as if the two should somehow never meet. As if one would contaminate the other. A splitting in two of my essence, somehow?
