Several Pieces - Last Piece

I do not trust others easily.

What I do is extend the motions of trust, the gestures and type-cast behaviors that signify deep, secure assurance that others will not hurt me, through malice or indelicate behavior. This is because I have been at war with myself, my entire life. To let others in usually winds up hurting very badly, at some point--while I have a pragmatic view of things, considering pain to be an inevitable part of life and not indicative of actual wrongness, it still hurts. There is no way to divorce myself from the experience of it; even suppressing or quietly shoving it aside for the time being does not fail to at least acknowledge the presence and severity of that pain. 

 Conversely, letting others see my vulnerability is the only way to effectively convey what I need. Therein lies the problem. No matter how able I've been able to alter my social presentation, to let the parts of me that sincerely desire the closeness of others take control of my social behavior, I find it much harder to truly extend trust to the people I've bared myself to. The question, asked so eloquently by Reki in the final episode of Haibane Renmei, is one I've often asked myself: "What if I ask for help from the bottom of my heart, and no one answers?" 

 Instead of walling myself off from others completely, I reached anxiously for any sign of compassion or interest. I still do it. A myriad ways of expressing this intense need to not feel alone sneak into my social behaviors, disguise themselves as perfectly legitimate ways of communicating or interacting. I've become more aware of them, and sought to suppress everything I find in that domain, but so far I have only managed to curb the really blatant ones. There is a goal behind this. First off, desperation is counterproductive means to the end of creating functional, healthy social interactions with others (to say nothing of more intimate ones). Second, it is a quiet, growing unwillingness to let myself leak so carelessly into the worlds of others around me. I want to be present to some, to be important in their considerations--but I do not wish to spread my damage across the network that surrounds me, carelessly or otherwise.

 The parts of myself that can actively manage a long-term outgoing, bubbly facade are also the ones that derive so much of their motive energy from this basic disregard for the implicit boundaries between myself and others. I cannot exactly say why this old pattern of mine seems so distasteful, only that I sense the yearning for closeness and safety that underlies my pain prevents such means from ever giving the desired result. My damage is my own, it does not belong to others, and nor are they responsible for my fixing. I do not believe I can ever be fixed; the point is to find a way to simply get by. To behave otherwise feels...sneaky. Wrong. Attempting to cheat, and in the end doing harm only to myself. 

The first several entries of this series of posts were, I think, an attempt to garner attention. One could argue that in a way, this is similar, by mere virtue of having been placed where others can see it at all. I thought to post it privately, or better yet not at all (storing it in a private place such as an offline journal), but there is a degree of reticence to not hold myself accountable for past behaviors of this sort. Rather than displaying this widely as the last entries in "Several Pieces" were, this one is placed where only those I feel comfortable sharing it with can see it. It is hoped that, in doing so, I can stop trying to hide my attention from the behaviors of the past and simply acknowledge, that is what was done. It is not something I am required to repeat, for it serves no purpose save consistency (and consistency, I feel, is a bloody wretched reason to keep oneself trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle).

As to the situation itself, I do not know what to make of it. My assumption, on the surface, has been that I can be "healed" for over two years now. Before that I sought to redeem myself to others. There have been other ways of framing it throughout my life, all of them repeating to the same quiet refrain: Please don't leave. I promise I'll get better. I'll be anything and anyone you want me to as long as you stay. Just don't ket me be alone like I was. I'll show you anything you want to see. I no longer believe I will ever stop feeling this way, except possibly if I reach the eventuality (and it is not anything so strongly-believed as to be a goal) where I have been strongly supporting myself for some time, have proven to myself that I am sufficient to meet my basic needs even if my happiness is low and my loneliness high, and can relate to others from a place of security in myself. 

Asking others to bear such a thing from me is a difficult thing. It does not feel right, and I am not sure how I would react to an actual offer either. It would seem, in my eyes, to miss the point. There can be release, in the confidence and closeness of others, but there can never be salvation. Ultimately, what I seek is simply to ensure that I am more discriminating in how and where I pursue that sense of release. 

 I keep going back to Haibane Renmei and the Circle of Sin. I am not certain one could say I am exactly looking for a Rakka-figure to forgive me and absolve me of this bitterness I carry within myself, but Reki's dilemma is powerful to me nonetheless. To be able to trust, as she finally does, is...well, is an almost impossible dream. And yet that seems to be the point, within the story itself--her sheer aversion to finding out she must face where she is alone nearly destroys her; only when seconds away from her own oblivion does she manage to gasp Rakka's name, to cry for help and thereby release herself from the cycle that consumed her. 

It is a story, and stories can be powerful and life-changing, but they cannot necessarily be lived. Ultimately, Reki finds trust in Rakka not because anyone thusly trapped in that sort of emotional maelstrom can also call out and find, lo and behold, someone was there to tend to them in their moment of utmost weakness...but because, for the story to demonstrate what it attempts to convey, that can be the only satisfying outcome--any other possible ending to that episode (and the series as a whole) is either deeply tragic (Reki disappearing into a pit of her own making, however unfair it may have been from the start to expect otherwise of her) or fictionally weak (such as Rakka sacrificing herself for Reki, which would have been wholly inappropriate and served no purpose whatsover). As it is, the ending, while considerably more light than one might expect from the climax, is also intensely bittersweet. Whatever it means for Reki to take her Day of Flight, she is still gone, from the perspective of Rakka and the others.

 And it is a story. The resolution is achingly beautiful, the catharsis intense, because it must be so. I sometimes envy the characters in such fictional productions; the realization of their worst fates and brightest destinies is orchestrated by a guiding order that often seems wholly absent from the universe I inhabit. Lacking any strong belief in a deity (or deities, polytheistic tendencies in my past notwithstanding), and being unwilling to simply pretend some pretty perspective has got it right because there is hope to be found there, I must deal with my own situation a good bit more uncertain in the outcome. Life does not make use of montage (except in retrospect), compact summaries of the message behind it all (and neither should the best of stories, I feel), or fade-to-black (except at the end, and there are no rolling credits to seperate one out from things and return to a seperate existence elsewhere). My problems are my own, and I must deal with them as such.

 True trust is a very difficult thing for me.