I found this phrase written on an index card in my journal, while searching for a poem I wanted to revise.
It is a note I made during a therapy session almost exactly two years ago. I had started doing this only recently, probably as a guard against the combined effect of age and chemo on my memory.
"Don't collude whit his shadow-self. Asking for help/telling the truth is letting him in, taking the pressure off. The good parts come from sharing"
I find it such a striking phrase today, two years further into our relationship, two years deeper into my life, two years of growth and experience under my belt. How easily our sick parts seek companionship with the sick parts of others. how quick we are to let the small, broken, damaged bits of ourselves link up with the small damaged bits of others, replaying those old, hurtful patterns again and again because they are familiar, even though they are destructive.
Don't collude...
Like it's a secret, yet powerful meeting between the hurt child in me who does not trust and the hurt child in him who grew without tenderness. Like they, our shadow selves, are out there somewhere, trying to drive us into self destruction and mutual destruction.
Like there is a me, desperate to keep things the same as they have always been because the hurt and betrayal are so familiar that they've come to feel like home. A me who would rather never admit that I need help or support, and then can rage at the isolation an betrayal with a sense of vindication.
Because to break the pattern, to betray the shadow self, would be to have to live a different life, a different truth. Live in a world where I am worthy of love and so is he, and we can give it to eachother freely, without contempt or compensation.
Because the good parts come from sharing.
