How I Became Me Chapter 40

Twelfth Component: Space For the longest time I have argued that if you say that you need your space separate from your mate, then there has got to be something wrong with you. I said this for many years and even argued the fact. How could you possibly want to spend time away from someone you love and adore? My friends would look at me with a stare that seemed as if they were thinking, “You are so new to this relationship thing”, and how right they were. I guess you can say I was wearing my love goggles and I couldn’t see the truth behind being under someone constantly without having any time alone, time to do what you like to do, being able to just get up and go when the moment hit you. I was so totally caught up in the romance of a relationship and not realism that comes with giving your life and your love to another individual. I experienced that feeling with Eugene. It got to a point where we couldn’t stand being in the same room with each other. I would leave whatever room we were in together and find some other part of the home for a break from seeing him, hearing him, and just knowing that he was around. My relationship with Eugene was not a good example of what space did for a relationship. Our space was filled with negativity, ill feelings, and that unbarring need to just keep our distance from one another. After Eugene died I realized the importance of space and allowing each other the time to restart those brain cells and allowing some time in between love and life to just focus on you for a chance. We were under each other constantly and when you have a relationship that was as turbulent as ours, that was never a good thing. I would want to hang out with Jennings and William but I felt guilty because Eugene didn’t have any friends he could go out with, hang out with, or vent his frustrations to. I would invite him to everything I did with my friends and it started causing a strain on my friendships because we were always taking those moments we spent together as a way of recharging our batteries and talking about the irritation we were experiencing in our relationships. You can’t really do that when the person you want to vent about is sitting right next to you, and you can tell when your friends are fed up with this extra person being in our circle which left them feeling like they couldn’t let their hair down and cut loose since I couldn’t. During my transition from being a widower and then becoming a spouse, I actually enjoyed the space and the time apart from people that I was seeing romantically. I could plan a date, we could hang out, we could have leisure time, and we could have our moments of relations, then the time was done and we went back to our lives. I started really loving the control and dismissal of those pesky feelings wanting me to snuggle and strap on to a man. I no longer had that urge to see them and I definitely didn’t give into the feeling of wanting to be in love. So I started making my life different, I started feeling the wealth of happiness that came into my life once I realized the rhythm of separating the romantic me and the independent me. Around the time I met Chase, I was really getting into my routine, though I started running into a lot of scrubs, I still had this feeling of serenity that showered over me when I got to my place, ate my dinner, watched my shows & movies, shot the shit with my boys, got comfortable, climb in bed and got to sleep. My mornings started to feel like that of a Walt Disney movie. I would wake up expected raccoons and dears sitting at the edge of my bed, flowers swirling over head, and blue birds bringing me coffee and a newspaper. I found peace in the solitude and I found that part of me I had detached from over the years of ups and downs. I realized that my old saying, “I love me, so when I am alone that isn’t a bad thing” was so true indeed and after all that I’ve done in my life for my family, my friends, my job, and even people I didn’t know, it was time for me to be all about me. I would feel so guilty if something was going well with my life but things weren’t good in my family and friend’s lives. I couldn’t feel joy when I was always surrounded by such negativity and despair. I do not believe in the act of sweeping your issues under your carpet because eventually it would tripped you up and you’ll be face to face with what you have tried running from. I knew that all too well and now that I was on my own I had more time to think through my personality, my choices, my aspirations, and this undying need to feel needed by my family. Chase was living in Macon and I was living in Atlanta. It would be such an exciting feeling when I packed up my bag to go and see him. It was more than just me falling in love with him, it was that he was my get-a-way from what I had going on in my life. I knew eventually I would share with him my dark past, but the times we spent together made me forget about them. Absence from one another built up this urge and craving to be around him, at first I was afraid that I was putting myself right back in the hole I was in before. When I was invited to outings I would bring Chase. When my friends wanted to come over to hang out I had Chase with me. The nights we use to hit the club would be off and on since I was with Chase. I not once felt that I made a bad decision because it was the beginning of our relationship and I wanted him to experience me in every aspect of my life. I knew that once he saw my life he would understand the people that were most important to me and why, he would understand why my personality is the way it is, and he would understand why my heart was so guarded. Space gives you those times when you need to self evaluate your life and your path. I had so many ditches ahead of me and my legs were sore already from the many jumps I had to make to get through a day. The toll my life was taking on my spirit was close to unbearable. There were nights I didn’t think I would make it. I was terrified of going on and I also was terrified of giving up. The moments Chase and I were together made me see the light beyond the pain. When he left to go back to his life I felt that I got that jump start I needed to face another day. Eventually that jump start went from facing my day to facing my week, then facing my month, then facing my year, and now facing my life. Not being tied to the hip was healthy for us and it brought about a new approach to our future together. I felt that Chase experienced a death as well I did. My ex was actually dead but Chase’s relationship with his ex was dead. It is totally realistic to approach your relationship ending like a death because that is exactly what it is. You go through the same cycles: Shock: You either didn’t see the end coming or you shock yourself because you decided to end it. Denial: Because everyone around you feels that it isn’t over you eventually think to yourself, “There is a chance we can make it and get back together.” Anger & Guilt: You become angry at both your ex and yourself. You try to look back to see where it all went wrong. Then you start feeling guilty because you feel you may not have fought hard enough or you feel that you were the blame for the failed relationship. Despair & Depression: During this cycle you start fearing that you won’t find love. You start feeling like you will be tagged with this failure and no one will ever see past you pain because you can’t. Eventually you start falling deeper and deeper into despair with no light to guide you out of it. Acceptance: This is the last part of the cycle but doesn’t mean you won’t experience the previous cycles again. When you truly hit acceptance you feel vindicated from the relationship, you accept your part, and you apologize and forgive yourself for what you brought to the relationship. Once you forgive yourself you then forgive them as well. Walk away from that relationship not feeling that you are owed any explanation. It is when we still feel horrible we make bad decisions for our future. Chase’s guilt for what he did in his marriage broke him and he lost his self-respect and felt he deserved any ugly retaliation he received from those he felt he hurt. You can try to move on and even if you eventually do, there is still that shred of guilt that lingers in your heart and in your mind. The key to allowing the shred to remain is to know what the shred represents and why it is important and necessary for it to remain. You take everything you did and everything you didn’t do, process it and then let go off the guilt but hold on to the lesson you learned from it. It isn’t always the easiest thing to do. When Chase was faced with that process it was way more difficult than most. You have to think about it from his perspective and as I always say, “Put yourself in his shoes and try to walk a straight line”, his life was turned up-side-down and it wasn’t from him opening up to everyone, his ex destroyed his chance to make right what he messed up. He didn’t get the chance to approach his kids; his family, his friends, and his church to let the truth of his life leave his lips. The information came by way of bitterness, anger, and determination to destroy his life. The space that came once Chase and his ex split up made her bitter but it made Chase feel that his life would never be the same. He started experiencing the fear of losing his children, losing his family, losing friends, and totally destroying his high standing in his church. When space is used wisely you find calm and a better focus. You take the time you had to yourself and you realize what you need to do. Space is a form of meditation and reflection. You take that time away from distractions so your mind can process things and get you focused on what needs to be done from the point you are in. The brain is built for that very reason but so many of us would rather empty our pockets and pay a shrink to tell them something they could figure out on their own. If you ever paid close attention to a therapist, they make you think harder and deeper than you may be used to. A therapist isn’t fixing you; they are showing you that you can fix yourself. Psychology is a field that I have a great passion for and that is because I know what it means to find the answers on your own. If you live to be told what to do then you aren’t living your life, you are living a life paved out for you. When Chase and I became serious we experienced what those moments of space would do for our relationship. Creating the time a part even though you live together gives you this individuality that is needed to become a better partner. We can stop what we normally did to make us relaxed and able to cope because we feel that it takes us away from our relationship. I actually felt that, even though I knew better, I felt that if I introduced our relationship to the need for space during the time Chase was going through such a life altering experience it would only make him feel alone and that I wasn’t willing to stand beside him in his time of need. I made a conscience choice to put myself aside and focus on him. I didn’t want to move too fast and at the same time I didn’t want him to move too slowly. Processing the past is at times a lot quicker than processing for your future. The past is gone and done; you cannot reach back and redo any of it. As Chase’s partner I had to be his therapist, I had to guide his hand so he could see why it was important for him to fix certain things that he had the power to and release those things that were damaged beyond repair. Good hearted people always feel responsible for whatever. When you have intentions that are pure and as positive as you can make them, it can become your “Akeley’s Hill.” You cannot lead with the same mindset when your life has changed drastically. As a person you must adapt to your surroundings and the people in your life. You must know where the change needs to take place and what parts of you need to remain. When it comes to that battle you must take that journey on your own. No matter how much I wanted to help Chase repair things and get this emotional balance back, he had to do the rest by his self. No matter how long you are with someone, you never truly know them totally. People change like the wind and their emotions do the same. Hell…you can barely say you know yourself. In my past I have regretted saying what I never would do or what I never would say. The truth is we are never finished growing and learning. When we are children we are labeled a sponge soaking up everything around us. Most people think that we stop being a sponge once we become adults. That is so far from the truth and that belief is exactly why we never really learn to be better people. If you decide that you have reached your expiration date to learn, then your future will not mean a thing to you because you never hold on to the important parts of your life. Space is not just applied to a relationship with your mate; space is epic and extremely important for your life as a whole. There is no way possible you can survive if you don’t take time for you and when you take that time for you, there is a need for quiet, solitary moments of reflection, and just peaceful emptiness. You must learn to block out what isn’t important and focus heavily on what is. Today our relationship changes constantly and it isn’t a bad thing, it is showing us that we are taking our lives seriously and we are approaching our future with an equal determination of being happy in ourselves and being stronger as a unit. Division only enters a relationship when you lose focus on what is important and when you forget what made you strong together. Chase and I have lived in spaces where we could be away from one another in separate room to have time to ourselves, we have been in situations where we were stuck being under each other with no room for space and that alone time needed to process and think. Throughout every part of those moments we learned more and more the value of being able to face one another with all of your cards on the table and a plan written out, signed by both people, and followed throughout the relationship. It seems funny though…now that I understand the importance of space, having those moments to you, continuing to do those hobbies that you love and what soothes the brain from the debris of the day and just living period, we have this new found love and understanding of being under one another constantly. Even when we have our spats we still can’t function without one another being around. Most may look at that as co-dependency, but that isn’t what this is. Co-dependency is when people can’t function in life without their other half, it is when the relationship can’t grow and mature because you are connected to each other in the worse way possible and you aren’t being free and allowing your other half to be free as well. Co-dependent relationships typically end very badly because if someone become totally dependent of you, the idea of you leaving them is like someone telling you that everything you own is gone and you are left with nothing. I appreciate what Chase enjoys, I support whatever Chase wants to do. I get that same support in return because we both understand that before we met there was a way of living, now that we are married, it doesn’t mean that way of living must cease and the focus should only be us. The more we branch out and live individually, the stronger we become and the stronger the relationship becomes when you return to the relationship with new found strength. “Space: A continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied. “ This definition explains it in a way that everyone can understand. There isn’t anything wrong with wanting your time to yourself and there should never be a feeling of guilt for expecting your mate to understand and support your need for that time. There isn’t always an answer to what you may be feeling at the time. Your mate won’t always have an answer for what may be pondering in your brain. I have moments where I just need quiet and not distraction, no one trying to fix what I’m dealing with, and no one feeling like they need to be right there with me. There are times when there are no words and no way of explaining what I feel. I suffer from an overactive brain that doesn’t not shut off or allow me to shut it off. Any and everything around me triggers ideas, memories, plans, issues, interests, etc. In that moment I cannot answer any questions, I can’t explain it so that Chase can understand or comprehend. I try my best not to allow that moment to push Chase away and force him out. It is still a work in progress but I’m starting to see that he gets it and he respects it. Chase always feels like if I’m in deep thought he needs to intervene and support me. I love everything about his approach but I can’t really ask him to do anything when there isn’t anything I can tell him I need him to do. I dislike what that energy does to us in that moment, but I try my best to explain to him that I just need that time to me and I can’t actually interact with him when I am working through…whatever the hell my mind is doing. It starts feeling like my brain is a computer that needs to reboot from time to time. As we all know, when the computer is rebooting there isn’t much you can do but wait until it is up and ready for you to interact with it. I also have those moments when we face disagreements; I know I have a temper which was inherited from my parents. As a child I would get over heated and my nose would bleed. I was too young to explain to people that I just wanted to be left alone so it only made my temper worse when people wouldn’t just leave me be for the moment. I now have a reputation of being mean, short tempered, and mean spirited. This reputation was always made into a warning for the man in my life. Everyone in the family would tell my mate how serious of a temper I had and they would need to look out and not push my buttons because I would explode on them. That message was not received by Chase, he saw right through the stories being told about this horrible side of my personality. Chase eventually understood my triggers and how not to get me to that place where I can’t calmly end the conversation be it heated or otherwise. He now understands the process better and he even knows when to step back and allow me to have my moment of peace and quiet. He does understand it and he does respect it, but there are still moments when the temper is tested and it explodes. We have our moment but now we have found this ability to let it marinate for a minute, come back to discuss it, analyze it, and then put it to rest. For me that was a huge step in the right direction and it made me realize that I could control my temper. It wasn’t my inability to have emotional control; it was the people surrounding me at that time. It’s something that is well known in families and even more so in large families. No one feels that need to heed your warning for space and separation. My family in particular wants the battle but not the prize. There are members of my family that want to test the theory that I have this overpowering temper that scares people, so they want to test it and slay the beast so to speak. The problem that they face is I am not this person that can’t control his emotions, I know exactly what I am doing and saying. I never believe in apologizing about what is said in the heat of the moment because it was said, I meant it, and I wanted them to know it. This separation from my family is a form of space that will do wonders for my future and will give me that peace to have my children and give them all of me with no distractions. The space that has been created has made my life so much better. I know full well what I am upset with, I know what I am angry about, I know what is pushing my patience and working my nerves. For so long I held in my true feelings towards certain people. It became obvious that holding it in took a toll on my delivery to other people that may have said or done something I didn’t appreciate, but they didn’t deserve the wrath that is my temper tantrum. I see so clearly now and I have not debris or blemishes in my mind when I’m facing down a incident, circumstance, issue, or a person that just isn’t getting that they need to step off. It has been so long for me to get where I am now. I have taken back what was me many years ago and I let go of the person created by his surroundings. “Listen” by: Beyoncé is truly my testimony; the part that resonates with me is this part of the song: You don't know what I'm feeling I'm more than what you made of me I followed the voice you think you gave to me But now I've gotta find my own, my own The first time I heard that song I broke down and cried but I didn’t know why. I figured it was because I loved Beyoncé, but the more I listened to the song I realized that it was my story she was singing about. I gave up my space, my dreams, my plans, and even my relationship for my family. That was a sacrifice that wasn’t difficult for me to make. In my heart I just knew that if the tables were turned they would do the same in return. I was painfully slapped in the face with reality. I was only as important as what I could do for them. I was never heard when expressing my feelings. I could never take credit for my accomplishments because if you hear them tell the story, I was this blank canvas that they painted which made this person I am today. There is a thin line between space and distance. Space is that need for a break, a retreat to your own little universe to get yourself charged and put back together again. Distance is when you separate yourself from being near the people that cause you strain and stress. In the process of distance you totally shut out what isn’t positive or helpful to you and your life. At times it isn’t a particular situation but more of the actual people. I am in the distance process with most of my family. I realized in the space process I saw all of the issues I carried and what caused me to always feel less than happy about anything I did. No matter how great a triumph I had they found a way to lessen the excitement. If I shared my accomplishments they would throw up someone else’s accomplishments or their reaction would be dry and emotionless. I found my voice again, I found my purity of heart, and because I severed ties with them I gave Chase the love and attention he deserved. My families influence altered my relationship with Eugene. I can’t blame them for it, but I can recognize their reasoning for making sure I wasn’t happy. I use to think that being gay was the reason we were not getting along, I now know that it is being happy in love with someone that creates the jealousy, the damage to their egos, not having me at their every beck and call, and the constant be raiding of my happiness. Thanks to the space I was able to see the truth and thanks to Chase I was able to separate from them but still love them despite their problems with whatever it is they feel is wrong. I feel in my heart that things will work out for us all, but not feeling that it will necessarily mean we will have our relationship back. It takes everyone involved to notice where they need to compromise and change. If you attempt to do so and then open that door again just to get the door slammed back in your face, you walk away, say you love them, and continue on with your life.