Oracle 2 - Message 2

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that you shouldn’t spend too much of it in your own head. But I get it. It’s a fun space where you can do a whole lot of things that may not be acceptable or even possible in the broader world. But there are practical limitations, you know? There are things that aren’t possible in your mind simply because you don’t have the tools for them, not just for things in and of themselves but for certain processes too.

For you, I’d wager that the most severe issue you have is your inability to see that you could be wrong. Now, hey, I did not say you were wrong. I may have thought it loudly , but that’s different. And not what you accused me of. So point to me on that front. 

But look, if you stay in your own head, you’re locked into one perspective: yours. Other people could give you new perspectives and new input, but you have to be willing to take them. Otherwise they fall flat. Or how about this:, picture a gift bag being held out to you. The gifter expects you will take the handle, so they let it go in the vague vicinity of your hand. However, your hand did not reach for the bag, so instead of finding a new resting place firmly in your palm, it has dropped to the floor. And maybe you hear a crack on the way down. Or not the way down. At that point, you could have reached for it, assuming you had quick enough reflexes, but with your sporting background, I like the odds on that one. So you could stop the bag, but once the bag hits the ground, there’s no going back. Impact may not be permanent, but it changes reality a bit.

Don’t bring up Kintsugi, okay? Or that’s what I think it’s called. The thing where a ceramic object is repaired with gold along the cracks. I get your point. But it’s a touchy subject for me. 

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I had a therapist bring it up once. Part of some grand scheme of hers. She wanted me to try some DIY version of it with a bowl from the local thrift stop. She wanted me to let it drop and to then fix it. But I threw it down too hard and turned a large part of it it to dust. And you can’t turn dust into pottery. Or okay, maybe you can. But that was far beyond my pay grade. 

I just-- You know that was a great way to derail therapy: making me think that I couldn’t even break something, right, you know? That’s how pathetic I was.

But here’s the thing. That therapist had something akin to a point. There are breaks that need to happen, and she probably should have just said it rather than going through that whole exercise. ‘Cause it--it worked so well for me. There are breaks that need to happen and breaks that should not ever happen. So okay I needed that break that bowl to feel some sort of therapeutic catharsis or to have a revelation. I needed to break the bowl to pull it back together again. Good break. I did not need to turn a large part of that bowl to a dust I could not even sweep off the uneven asphalt of her office parking lot. Bad break.

I get it. There are consequences to what I do. Or how I do it. There’s a break that I cause, but it’s not a bad one, right? Or it’s not the bad one. And no, this isn’t the lesser of two evils situation, I--- (Sigh)

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I wasn’t my girlfriend’s first partner. But I was her first girlfriend. She wasn’t out for the longest time. She told me it was okay to say this, for a variety of reasons, so I’ll tell you right now, she’s bi. She is bisexual, and the thing about being bi, as she told me, is that there’s a chance you can still find some level of happiness and not have to go through the potential trauma of coming out. It’s what she thought, accuracy aside. She thought she had a chance of an easy and yet happy life. For some people that comes so easily; they never had to risk it. Why couldn’t she be one of them? Simply out because she saw me. 

I could never believe her when she said it was love at first sight. Because I am remarkably unremarkable, and she is the most beautiful woman in the world. But she says it was. It was love at first sight. And then came the break. Suddenly, she didn’t want to live other people’s assumptions. She wasn’t what she had wanted other people to think she was. It was only through a break that she could become whole. And what was the alternative but to fall into dust. Not immediately but eventually. 

I know you hate that example. You also don’t particularly enjoy when I talk about my relationship because it seems like I’m boasting, but come on, you don’t see it? You don’t see that one of the reasons you get so frustrated with me and my relationship is because you are insecure about yours. You struggle with a sort of intimacy, I’ve noticed.

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There’s an intimacy in the act of disclosure much like the act of exposure but more subtle. It’s the sort of thing the recipient may not fully understand right away. And yeah, I think including my girlfriend wasn’t entirely understood. Here and before. But I wanted to be seen. I wanted certain people to see me to know that this possibility existed and to know that I existed as I am That I was finally being true to myself in ways I had previously avoided. And that sort of thing is hard to convey via voice. 

I actually ran into a highschool friend a year or so ago . Or not ran into. We did arrange to meet via Facebook because he was moving and needed his furniture disassembled to be taken out of his apartment with a small elevator and smaller stairwell, which is something I’m stupidly talented at. So in exchange for a free lunch and some catch-up, I agreed to help. We waited at the train station for each other for a full twenty minutes before we realized that the other person was only seven seats away. We just couldn’t recognize each other. Now obviously we weren’t going to look exactly like we did in high school, but that wasn’t why we didn’t recognize each other. There was a completely different air around each of us. We were different than we had been. We had been two high school oddballs who had become ourselves. Not exceedingly ordinary, just ourselves. 

We had our struggles, our breaks, and through it all, we had pulled ourselves back together. Trauma sucks, yes, because trauma can turn us into dust. That’s why it sucks. But sometimes, you just break and then come back together. 

So, to answer your question, finally, I do know what it is I’m doing. I do know there are implications to my actions. And that this disclosure I talk about doesn’t work so sweetly and neatly when I’m disclosing things about someone else’s life that I wasn’t meant to know. I get it. The writing’s on the walls, and I’m reading it right now. I know I have caused genuine distress. I exposed something from a distance where I could not offer comfort or really face the consequences of my actions. Sure, I would see it in my dreams, but that’s about it. And by it, I mean, motivation to finally compartmentalize all of this so much better. Create mental barriers. Or lines. Breaks, as it were. 

I get it. Breaks hurt. And we should wish that others have as pleasant a life as possible. But pleasant isn’t always right. And if you could step out of your head for a moment, you would realize that. But it’s not my door to deal with, is it? It’s entirely yours.

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The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?