Secrets

There are three people out of the entire human population on Earth who know the whole story, and one of those people is directly involved. Well, if one counts Percy, that would be four. 

However, and I quite often forget this, even the people directly involved don't know the whole story. Thus, how it can be the case that unexpected things happen. As with music, the story needs time and memory in order to exist. In the present, there is no story. Of course, consciousness itself has the same requirements. Past and future. Except that we're also sewing together all of these nows into what we end up remembering and hoping for. That's the paradox that old Tommy Boy Eliot was ruminating on in Four Quartets. 

I have been trying to think up a new, non-revealing blog moniker for the loml, since the singular truth of that epithet seems to get watered down by repeated use. THE is the key word, and some people peripherally involved seem unable or unwilling to grasp the definite article. And I am tired of revelations anyway, and not trusting of much understanding. The most difficult thing about discussing private matters with others is that they tend to bring their own story to the discussion. "Oh yes I have had several lomls." No, by definition, you have not. Important loves, intense connections, landmark relationships, plenty of love and probably even some intimacy of the real kind. But the concept of the loml is that it is singular. I never used to believe it. Well, I guess I thought my first love when I was 17 was The One True Love of my life. And then, when reality did not conspire to make that sustainable, I was completely disillusioned, and became cynical, and of course there is plenty of rational support for discarding the idea of the loml. There is always plenty of rational support for discarding a lot of romantic or mysterious ideas, sometimes wisely.

Did you know there is an entire religion based on 11:11?

Anyway, expecting outsiders to simply accept at face value that the loml is a reality in the singular is too much to ask these days. I think it is even the case that the loml herself doubts it now, or talks herself out of it. I think we imagine that if there is a thing like partnership destiny, it will also be met with practical support. I doubt that we can very easily tolerate the combined knowledge that the loml is real and that the complete inability to be with the loml is real. I think we prefer our star-crossed lovers to be fictional, and the narrative of our lives to not be excruciatingly painful. Like those bowdlerized versions of Romeo and Juliet where she wakes just in time and they end up together and the families are over their feud haha, nice. 

Anyway, I think old Percy will leave behind the loml and come up with a different descriptor. I think it will be Ulmus americana for...reasons. Too lazy for the required italics. U for short. Not UA, since that has drug test connotations. There's too much tied up in the singular quality of the old label to put it out there. Not trusting that it would meet with understanding. Tired of the tale that only a very few people know. We live in ice cold cynical times. 

A cultivar of Ulmus americana called "Beebe's Weeping"

The only problem with U is that, when referred to, it will bother me, phonetically. "U is having a hard time with etc." Is U is or is U ain't my baby? etc. Hmmm. Not sure I can get past that. Time will tell. 

Secrets exist for a wide variety of reasons, some delusional and some as solid as a brick. Some people, especially people in recovery, including myself at times, go to an absolutist place where all secrets are bad and there is never any good reason to live a secret life or keep secrets. I get it, and there is of course great wisdom in the saying "we are only as sick as our secrets." There are all of the shame-based, fear-based reasons to keep secrets. There's the one or two things we have done that we have sworn we will take to the grave, those things that Bill W says are the most important to put on our 4th and 5th steps. 

Practically speaking, secrets that make a compromise with the universe to enable a crucial experience that is not possible in the open have a rationale all their own, not always transparent or ethical, but a rationale nonetheless. There is also a valuable sacred place where secrets and privacy overlap. There is a value to protecting something fragile and irrational from those who would never understand or who would be jealous or judge for other reasons. 

There's also some odd agreements that people make, often not even consciously. Keeping it a secret that I know the other person's secret, for example. Pretending to not know that they know, while they pretend to not know. One of the layered forms of denial that makes avoidance possible. I think some partners allow this vague space to go on for a long time, biding their time, out-waiting the true situation, prioritizing just staying together but not making a big scene or ever having to make a painful choice or decision. 

The Lovers, Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot

The above tarot card at first seems to be only about romantic love, intimacy, connection and the meeting of two people in mutual understanding. But it has always had the additional, more general meaning of The Decision. The choice. The clear and sometimes irreversible choice of partners, for example. In times when such a clear choice is not possible, there may be more wisdom in letting things be grey, in waiting to act or choose, or in secretly choosing but not acting. 

I think we underestimate the weird collective projection power of revealing our situation to our community. With A, we waited almost a year and then came out very publicly. There was a lot of ill will directed toward us. I got fired, for example. That ended up being a great thing, but I'm convinced it would not have happened if we had stayed secret. But keeping a relationship a secret also adds strain. 

I'm feeling protective of the story with U. It's time for it to sink into the shadows for now. I'm dissertation writing, starting a new CoDA meeting, teaching, trying to find a post doc or job for next year and dealing with a lot of other ideas and issues anyway. After a certain point, there's nothing more to say about a situation, until or if there's some kind of profound change in the narrative. 

Into the dark with it.