She's a lady of leisure of the upper east side.
She's a two-time widow, twice Mrs MD.
She has a shaky gait and a tendency to fall, but, otherwise she's quicker than most of the 20 and 30-somethings I know.
We met when i was 24, in "love", and incredibly unaware.
It's been a blessing to have known her these past 6 years.
She has a keen wit, a brazen sense of humor, a well-earned sense of entitlement and an outlook about life that leaves me smiling each and every time we part.
She has lived.
She has learned.
She imparts her wisdom.
Today we were talking about her new home, an assisted living place in Battery Park, very classssssy, and very much suited for her Chanel suits and her pearls.
I asked her if she'd found some friends there and she responded in a way that taught me a valuable lesson and made me aware of something I've been searching for in my life.
She said, "No, no friends. There are five women I eat with every night and we watch movies and do other activities, but they are just acquaintances.".
I asked her what she would define as a friend.
She said:
"a friend is someone that you can share your worries with an you know that they will always be there. You don't have to do a thing with a friend but be and they love you. Like you, Audrey, you're my friend, who I've been happy to know for quite some time now. I like to watch you grow."
I have a tendency.
No, wait, it's not a tendency, it's a defining trait:
I am in a good place and I love myself.
I probe and dive deep with people easily and quickly, as I am on a constant drive to find other people who are just in love with themselves.
I don't mean in love in a conceited way.
I don't mean love with a sense that everything is perfect and wonderful.
In fact, I love people purely because they are not wonderful and, oftentimes, highly imperfect.
It's gotten progressively more obvious that this is what I naturally do, but it's not how it started...
This girl used to be closed up like fort knox.
I put up a steel door with 10000 bolts and locks and alarms and locked my lips just to feel safe.
As a result, I had some terrible "friendships".
I was so scared to let anyone know that my life was far from perfect.
I let them ask me for whatever they wanted or needed and gave them advice and support without asking for any return.
I was a rock.
I was the one who everyone went to, because I was so together.
I wised up.
I started asking for that kind of love and support in return and one by one they walked away.
I had "friends" who liked the same things, who read the same books, who laughed at my jokes.
I didn't have anyone who was willing to acknowledge that I might not be OK.
There's been a change.
I've let down my guard and, in doing so, found that I desperately wanted to lead with those vulnerabilities and to have people in my life who would open up the same way to me.
It's been scary of late realizing that a lot of the pain and hurt I have felt in my life was a result of trying to be giving and loving to closed people.
People who WERE exactly like what I was pretending to be:
Emotionless, sarcastic, flippant, and "cool".
Nothing phased me to the outward eye and nothing could stop me or bring me down.
I was steadfast and supportive and everyone who wanted to take from me, they were the best of friends.
Except when I needed someone.
This was rare.
I had even fooled myself most of the time.
I was selfless, but I was also unapproachable.
I didn't have friendships.
I didn't have love.
The me I was hiding was very lonely.
My first rude awakening was when my mother died. I went home for her funeral. I watched a casket close. I heard prayers and anecdotes. I watched people cry. I listened to my father. I watched my younger brother slide away and disappear into a cold, hurt man. I was empty and scared and hurt and angry and broken and alone.
But I just got drunk and told everyone I was fine.
I went home. I went back to dancing and pursuing my career.
No one called.
I had developed a rationale that was haunting me and killing me off from the inside out.
Audrey was not allowed to not be OK.
That's when I started to change.
My first attempts made me keep that persona up for a long time after I realized.
Those people I gave so much to had left.
They were gone, telling me I was being selfish or was too depressing.
That I was turning into someone they didn't know.
That I was so much not myself that they were through.
But this was me
I lost everyone.
So I went back to the old OK ways, gained a few back and made some new, unavailable friends.
Two years ago I split in two. I killed off OK Audrey and found a brave place to start over from, as me.
The hardest part about being open is that most other people aren't.
I have become aware of the struggles I experience because of this only recently.
I'm breaking a habit.
When people leave me, my go-to has been as follows:
I blow a fuse
I make up a story about why they are cruel, deceitful people with hearts of stone who were sent here to break me.
But...
They aren't.
In fact they are beautifully vulnerable. So vulnerable, in fact, that my openness is frightening.
This defining trait poses a problem.
I'm in a world where people are afraid to be anything but OK. It takes a lot of time and testing to get to a point where most people can share just a little.
I can't wait that long.
Because I am afraid of being that made up Audrey.
I'm afraid of putting on that familiar "cool" persona.
I can function in that person so well but it is so dark and lonely there that I just have to strip it away and be me.
It's a beautiful thing to be yourself.
I've made this a mission of late.
The interesting thing I've found is the people in my life that I've grown close to love this openness.
They are impressed by my courage and strength and they have risen to the occasion and opened all their doors as well.
I had a new friend ask me if it would be OK if she told me when things weren't going well for her and when she thought I was not being true to myself/putting on a front, she reserved the right to tell me so. She asked me if we could be that for each other. I was so excited to agree.
After my talk with my wise old friend today, I realize why.
She's staying.
She's a real, nitty, gritty, down and dirty friend.
This unrelenting openness is helping me heal too.
Tonight I announced to a whole room of dietitians that I had a severe eating disorder in the past. I said it outright and followed with the fact that I am better and that I am here and pursuing my new vocation to pay it forward and help other people. I am coming from an honest and whole and empowered place and I think that this is just acceptable as those who are there because they love to calculate tube feeds. In fact, I think I have an even better, more fulfilling reason to be on this track.
I would never have admitted that before.
Becuase I was cool and OK and no one needed to know about my pain and suffering. Too bad that pain and suffering has played a major role in defining me.
I wouldn't be the amazing person I've grown to accept I have become without that experience.
Since I've opened myself, I've been approached, day in and day out by new people. I've grown closer to keepers, as I like to call them.
I've been rejected by people too, but it doesn't hurt like it used to.
I understand that they are scared to not be OK.
Now I'm working on seeing that upfront and not spinning back into the finger pointing and feeling abandoned. People who stay are open and loving and wanting to have me in their lives. It's not a bother to lose people who don't want those things.
So, tonight I write with the hope that readers will grow in their courage to be themselves and to just not be OK.
People are truly beautiful for their flaws and idiosyncrasies.
I love you all.
XX
Audrey
No comments:
Post a Comment