Sunlight-Colored Roses

There are different kinds of families.

Sometimes people come from a family of origin that nurtures their sense of self, enabling them to establish healthy boundaries and relationships as they become adults.

On the other hand, sometimes people come from families where they are taught complicity and obedience are what is most important, and questioning authority is wrong.

Sometimes people don’t learn healthy boundaries and have trouble establishing healthy relationships because they were sexually abused by a caretaker and taught that saying no and speaking up for themselves is wrong.

That doesn’t mean it is impossible to recover from such distressing backgrounds to become the person that they want to be, but I feel frustrated today about the behind-the-scenes work that goes on, that some kinds of families will never appreciate and will act hostile toward, making more difficult that uphill struggle of recovery that goes against everything someone was ever taught to do or be. You will never get a word of admiration from anyone for doing this kind of work, because those within the family will hate the work that reveals their own weaknesses, and those outside of it will never know that it happened, or the extent of it.

No matter who you meet or enter into relationships with in your life, those who were around you in your childhood, those who raised you, will exert a powerful influence on you unless you consciously examine it. And the more you forget that influence, the more you will remain enmeshed in unhealthy relationships and continue to attract similar relationships.

You cannot replace the family with another family in truth.

There is no quick fix, but instead there is conscious and difficult recovery work if you want to be the apple that falls far from the tree.

The tree will never express admiration or gratitude that you fell far from it. There is just silence and indifference.

But if you had planted near the tree’s roots, nestled close to that origin, you would never have gotten enough sunlight. You might have difficulty resisting diseases because you never left the same root system. You would compete with a much more established tree for water and nutrients for your entire life. And you would not have been able to cross-pollinate in a gene-diverse environment.

No matter how far you manage to fall from that system of origin, you carry not only the genetic code, but the environmental factors that contributed to your development.

Do you know what it is to yearn to be someone else?

To see a person and to be filled with awe at the way they speak, look, and act? And to see that they came from a place that is so different from yourself, and to know that you cannot be that way, not really, except through a very complicated acting process? It would not be real. It would not be what you wanted.

Within the past few years, we saw a moving performance from the singer and storyteller Voltaire at a festival. He spoke about his experiences growing up and being sexually assaulted at home and at school. When he was a teen, he set a date that he would commit suicide, because it enabled him to feel calm and in control. One night, he saw a group of drag queens at a diner, people like he had never seen before, whose confidence filled him with awe. They invited him to sit with them, and their friendliness and acceptance were the first step to his recovering his will to live. He did not commit suicide, but went on to become Voltaire, a goth icon, a singer and songwriter that perhaps most people do not know at all and some people in the United States would rather not exist, because he produces gothic content: he exposes the dark undercurrent of human thought and behavior in his work, he celebrates dark and morbid aesthetics that threaten the status quo of Facebook-pretty.

Voltaire’s gothic music and aesthetics produce truth and beauty by authentically expressing how he has transformed his experiences into art that other like-minded people can relate to.

When some people hate gothic works, I wonder what it is that they really hate.

Do they hate that someone like Voltaire developed beyond one of the most difficult origins a child can have to produce art that reflects their soul?

I identify with the yearning that Voltaire felt as a teen toward the drag queens, because I have often felt that way toward others that are comfortable achieving a theatrical and performative public appearance. But like Voltaire, I don’t think I was really geared up to be quite like my idols, personality-wise.

I don’t feel those stirrings often now, but sometimes they will fly upon me like a milkweed puff carried on a strong breeze, and I don’t really know from where they have flown.

I try to analyze what attracts me to those stirrings. In what ways am I still trapped in old patterns, old ways of thinking? What makes me discontent about myself? That yearning is often a sign that I feel unconfident, unsure of myself.

It is an incredibly difficult time to be in the United States right now for many people. Other people are carrying on as though nothing has changed. Some like the way things are going. They like that peaceful protesters are being murdered in the streets. They make sure to let the officers know that they appreciate them. Because they probably feel so unappreciated right now, with all of these terrible protesters showing how ungrateful they are for everything this country gave them. How dare they.

I recognize this rhetoric, this way of thinking. Be silent. Be complicit. How dare you complain about me. If you do, what will other people think?

I believe in reincarnation, and that our souls are on a journey toward enlightenment over a course of many lifetimes lived in different kinds of bodies.

I respect Jesus as a great teacher, but I have not identified as a Christian for well over twenty years. Maybe the best word for what I believe is “eclectic.”

It has become very clear now that there are people who identify as Christians who care deeply about what is happening in the United States right now. They believe that the teachings of Jesus instruct them to love their neighbors, regardless of their neighbor’s nationality, honor their humanity, and do what they can to protect their lives. They believe that they should fight corruption as Jesus once did when he expressed anger toward merchants at a temple who were committing fraud and discrimination against certain types of people.

Other kinds of Christians believe that to honor the president and law enforcement is the proper Christian duty right now. I don’t feel that I can speak on Christian behaviors directly, because even though I was raised in the Christian faith, as I said, I have identified with different beliefs in the past twenty years. However, lyrics from Michael W. Smith’s song “Secret Ambition,” come to me, from such a different time:

He broke the old rules steeped in tradition
He tore the holy veil away
Questioning those in powerful positions

Jesus did not know 2026, but he engaged in so many similar situations, because, wisely, he knew human error and tendencies, and that the situations of harm in his time would rise again in different forms.

The founders of the United States did not know 2026, but they were clearly experienced with government corruption, because they guaranteed free speech as the first amendment to the Constitution. They knew that in order to prevent a tyrannical government, it must be lawful for citizens to speak out.

The second amendment to the Constitution was to give people the right to be armed because, again, the founders were deeply concerned with preventing a tyrannical government. Coming culturally from a monarchy, they knew what was needed to keep people free.

Our rights of citizens have become endangered because those in positions of power will not speak out against tyranny. Those who protest or bear arms are being shot in the street by federal agents.

Many care deeply and are willing to risk their lives. Engaging in a peaceful protest is a constitutionally-protected right, and yet, each time I have done it, I have been aware of that “other” force.

There are people in these standardized-looking Trump-mobiles with similar-looking flags mounted in the bed of the large, white pickup truck. Driving back and forth for hours on John Jones, over and over, while we stand for hours. Sometimes they lay on a horn so loud it probably is not legal (and is most certainly custom) and blow exhaust right on us. “Paid agitators,” maybe? What if everything Donald Trump accused others of was exactly what he did?

What if that is completely obvious, and many people already know it?

It isn’t easy to find the words in time. It isn’t easy to break your mental programming or subdue your negative introject.

Are you okay with me being my own person and doing what I think I should do?

I relinquish all hopes or fears with the real or implied response to such a question. In fact, I don’t ask the question now, because it is no longer the time for identity development in that way, but the time to do the right thing.

When you honk your horn and blow your exhaust on me from the large pickup truck, I know that I exist, and that may be the extent of identity development for now.