those words of Adrienne's I'm so glad to've come across again this weekend

[fflo]

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

 . . . 

It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.

It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you.  That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me.  That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words.  That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.

The possibility of life between us.


-- Adrienne Rich, 1975
 

Comments

Nice!

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

Love it.

[paperkingdoms]

Beautiful.

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful; thank you for sharing it.

[tapho.livejournal.com]

I really loved this. It really spoke to me. I have a difficult relationship with one friend in particular. We both approach life from very different places. I'm very open and I don't really care who knows what about me and how I'm feeling about things. When we first became friends I was my usual open self and I yearned to learn more about her as our friendship grew. As it turns out, she's extremely private and doesn't want to divulge very much at all. There will be times that I know she's angry or pissed and she won't discuss why. If I ask, she gets more pissed because she feels I'm prying. Whereas, I'm just trying to help her work it out.

It's been difficult at times to navigate a relationship with someone who refuses to open up. The best I can do is be me and accept that she's private and not really inquire about how she's feeling. It leaves me a little sad because I feel there's a certain disconnect there her being so distant. But I do understand that's just the way she is with everyone.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I hear ya on that frustration and sadness.

Time was, I was a little like that. As a young adult. Well, not so much that I wouldn't respond when asked. More that I didn't expect to be asked, wasn't asked and didn't ask, didn't even think grown-ups out in the real world (at least if they weren't your lover, or sometimes even then) talked about what was going on with them in those internal/emotional ways, at least not in any direct fashion. And I'm tremendously thankful for the people I came across who knew better, and seemed to care enough about me to see the potential for me to bring forth that part of me, connect to others through it.

I know now there was fear there too. I know now how afraid I have been. How afraid? Afraid. So afraid there's no intensifier (and that's intenser). And I am still often afraid.

People can only do what they/we can do, I reckon. Alas and dammit, and (as long as I'm calling out) Something please give me the strength & wisdom to let go, while I'm hanging in there along with when I'm feeling hopeless and when I have to move away more to protect myself. In other words, O! to let go all the time.

Meanwhile, however that's going, it can do a body good to remember what the struggle's all about. That's what the lines above seem to have come back to bolster me in.

[tapho.livejournal.com]

I live my life moment to moment trying to be present in a state of perpetual "letting go."

I've done a lot of work with this and thought about it quite a bit. It seems in moments of struggle, panic, fear, pain...etc. our knee-jerk reaction to it is to fight it, suppress it, stop it--control it in some way.

It's taken me years and daily practice, to instead, sit with it, let it have a voice, let it flow, release it.

I've made this analogy before to people who are struggling: Imagine you're out at sea, you're lost in the water, no life vest, no boat. Will you survive better by thrashing against the waves trying to make progress reaching some sort of land in which you don't know which direction it may be OR will you have a better chance at survival if you stop, throw up your legs, take a deep relaxing breath, just float, and trust that the waves will take you where you need to go?

If you're certain of death either way, which way would you rather leave this life?

[custardfairy.livejournal.com]

I teared up reading this. Wonderful. Good.