strange confidant

While I was watching the Harry & Meghan documentary series there were a few things that stood out to me. Disclaimer: this is not a review of the series rather some things that had me thinking after watching some of the episodes. One of the things is when Meghan was remembering how she had never met Tyler Perry in person and yet he was the one whose home they sought refuge in before they found their forever home in L.A. She said that the only time they had spoken was when he had sent her a note amid the chaos saying that he would pray for her. She describes how she had called him and was in tears and she just broke down but what spoke to me was when she said that sometimes its easier to open up to a complete stranger, someone who is on the outside and has no personal connection to what you’re experiencing. In a way, I guess that’s kind of what a blog is, isn’t it? I’m here writing to some people I know personally, but hopefully and most likely there’s bound to be lots of people reading what I have to say whom I don’t know. A few years ago, I would find that absolutely terrifying but now, like Meghan, I can see how that’s comforting.

Last time I was in Paris I stayed there for a month and a week. A lot of that time was spent alone and in solitude. It was spent in cafes, mostly at Cafe Courcelles which was right down the street from my apartment. I read Bukowski and wrote in my journal. I was really unpacking a lot of emotions and trying to unravel what felt like knots and knots of negative programming. I don’t think I untangled all that I wanted, in fact, I think I may have made it worse. Well, at least that’s how it felt when I got home. Sometimes when you’re alone like I was in those cafes you come across others who are complete strangers but you feel like you can open up to them and disclose your most shameful feelings and thoughts. It’s like for just a moment in time you’re sitting with an angel of sorts and they leave with your secrets and you don’t know where they’ll carry them or if they’ll keep them but it’s still comforting nonetheless.

One of my “secrets” that I was unpacking was how you can really leave your home and fly five-thousand miles or more around the world but your problems that haunted you at home will find you. Distraction is only a temporary solution and it’s not even guaranteed to work for as long as you might think it should. I was trying so hard to lean away from these feelings of loneliness and lack and it wasn’t until I returned home that it clicked: you have to lean into those feelings. Its only when we embrace and face that which makes us uncomfortable that we can work through it and get to what’s next. We’ve all heard the saying, “what you resist will persist.” Well, it’s exactly that. I think that we came to this planet to experience all of the emotions that this human plane has to offer. We want to badly to only experience the joy and the bliss and the insurmountable happiness which is all great but I know that all my life I’ve been trying to convince others that there’s light in the suffering too.

Having Bipolar Disorder, I always felt like I should, in a way, be ashamed or starve off those darker sides. Not that I felt that myself but I kind of got that impression from family or just our society in general. I’ve always described my condition as being an “old friend” and as an entity that’s more familiar when he’s around then when he’s not. Trying so hard to convince others how actually there’s some beauty to it, I think I was always trying to convince myself to just accept myself, or at least maybe that was part of it anyways. Who knows if I’ll ever finish unpacking that but I could be onto something. My point is that once I just allowed myself, key word being allowed, to feel and ride the wave, and stop trying to justify light and dark, it felt like my human experience got just a little bit easier. I think that’s what “living without judgment” is getting at.

We just have to lean into the wave and appreciate it because even that suffering, that heartache that I felt while in Paris was beautiful. I could find the beauty in the tears cried by my apartment window while I was listening to Leonard Cohen and drinking red wine. I rode the bus all around the city and listened to my music and read my books and I just let my mind go here and then there. I spent hours in the park writing and drawing and smoking. I walked for miles and miles and got lost and tried to remember how I got there without using my phone. I allowed myself to think the most absurd and ominous thoughts and I gave myself the grace to mourn my ache and I gave space for my heart to yearn for something or rather someone that doesn’t belong to me.

It’s not allowing space for discomfort in the hopes to eradicate it because that’ll never happen. I could have all of my desires in this instant but there would still be suffering. I think it’s important to allow space because it would be a shame to live this life and miss out on experiencing everything that it has to offer us, including the despair, the yearning and the heartache.

xx Kailyn