Boys

After the storm, I sit in the garden, sip my coffee, and think about boys.

***

“Meredith, I don’t like you that way.”

His public declaration carries across the table to the listening ears of my 5^th grade classmates, who look up, surprised and intrigued by the developing scene. My cheeks burn red.  

I’m too shocked to argue back, because I don’t like him either, I like Ned sitting next to him (a tall and gangly youth who has probably gone on to become a multi-millionaire techie). I had simply asked if he was part of my group for a social studies assignment and instead, I got fired off with this response.

I am mortified into stunned silence, and spend the rest of the afternoon chewing on unspoken comebacks while coloring in Christopher Columbus and his voyage to the New World.

This is the first time that my sweetness is mistaken for a come-on.

This embarrassment joins a sequence of experiences where I feel misunderstood and don’t attempt to advocate for myself to clarify my truth.

This incident I internalize as shame, and this public shaming cautions how I interact with men, particularly how I choose to express genuine romantic interest.

This is a root of an issue unearthed, and I follow the energetic influence through a timeline of crushes, loves, hilariously humiliating experiences, heartbreaking devastations.

My patterns with men are illuminated, and I hold them in clarity.

If I like a guy, I feign nonchalance and disinterest, while my inner world shimmers and seethes with desire and blazing emotions.  

If I like a guy, I decide to make a move by asking him out first, and I do so as an attempt to exercise control. 

If I like a guy, I send mixed messages as a method to minimize hurt, so as a result I don’t express my enthusiasm, my adoration, my affection, and I suppress my disappointments, my frustrations, my grievances.  

In order to self-protect from potential rejection, I do not show up in dynamic authenticity.  I strive to prove my worth through my doings, my passions, my causes, which I will throw myself into once and when the rejection inevitably comes because I’m not allowing the full-fledged expression of my vibrant self.

And being myself, and loving myself, and advocating for myself are the unexpected gifts men have given me. The times of heartache, rejection, bitter disappointment direct me back to claiming (and reclaiming) and strengthening my relationship with myself.

Grief deepens my compassion and nurtures the implementation of self-care rituals, healing routines.

Anger catalyzes action.

Rejection reinvigorates a stronger embrace of all aspects of myself.

I’m an emotional expert at managing the waves of my heartbreak, but only when there’s memories of love or tenderness to gently carry me through to the shore of another chapter.

There are no memories of love, of even genuine care in the boxed up package of my last romantic entanglement. His narcissism is carefully concealed under a painstakingly crafted façade of good-doing. I orbited around his charisma curious for an answer that when revealed shifted my understanding of humanity. The truth burned, and my vocalization of his real self was promptly discredited and silenced by a web of cleverly designed gossip.

I move to Texas with little thought of him until I start watching House of Cards with my roommate. She and I are balancing our late night comedies with dark doses of the Underwoods. As I watch (mesmerized and horrified) Frank Underwood connive, lie, and charm his way to the presidency, I see in entirety another man whom I was once too dangerously close to, and the burn from our encounters has healed, but the memory keeps me cautious and guarded.  

It’s not just my Frank Underwood past steering me away from romantic endeavors, it’s the entire history of them, and the hurt that accompanies the stories which blur into an overarching theme of being vulnerable with my feelings, not knowing how to behave with my feelings, perhaps offering my heart, most of the time not speaking up, and being left emotionally neglected, betrayed, used, hurt.

The old wounds flare up when the boy calls me sweet. He calls me sweet, and the compliment catches me off-guard, and I swoon at the loveliness of his voice, the energy behind how he looks at me, and I indulge in the replay of the scene until the fear arises.

The fear warns against being hurt. Again. I feel concern about how I could brace and bravely handle another blow.

I take my head full of thoughts about boys, and my heart questioning men outside to the garden.

I sit in the company of towering trees beside a bed of ginger and a family of basil. Sunlight caresses my skin.

I sip chameleon vanilla cold brew from an exquisite cup where glossy hummingbirds fly along the rosy rim. The summer heat is beginning to dissipate, and there’s a softness to the air, a sweeter clarity to the light. The storms from the weekend have cleansed the garden, and I recognize the feeling of heartfelt relief, of illuminated release that arises after a much needed cry.

The lifting of the oppressive heat reopens possibilities. I have missed walking, and suddenly, I am looking forward to the coming weeks, the coming fall, where I can read on the lawn of the Capitol, walk to downtown coffee shops and visit the ModCloth boutique, and tour around the Modern Art Museum.

I savor in these visions soon to be a reality, reinvigorated by ideas for future Austin exploring. My new city. My new chapter. My rising to responsibility to create and curate a life

I soulfully relish this morning, the stream of pure light caressing shoulders and my hands gently cupping my favorite Austin coffee find.

I drink in this scene of my life, a life I worked hard, a life I only want to be effervescently alive in, and love it.

And there’s the answer. The answer about the boys.

I yearn to love my life. I yearn to continually rise to create and curate a life that aligns and nurtures connection, creativity, compassion. I yearn to love myself.

I crave a deeper belonging and ease in my skin, in my body, in my manner of being. I crave a romance where I scoop down and lift up aspects of self neglected and taught to stay silent.

I yearn to love myself so deeply and completely that I advocate for myself with ease and in the same breath keep myself open to receiving and experiencing the richness and vitality of the life circling around me, one that I am responsible for curating, creating, spinning forth into purposeful action.

I crave to revel in my own sensuality. I love getting swept up in style, in acts of self-love and self-care: the glitter I trace onto my eyelids, the red lipstick I paint and kiss onto my lips, the mala beads I cradle as I breathe, the Lovely perfume I spray onto my wrists in the morning and rose water I spritz in the afternoon, the downdog I stretch out into to let go of the day and soften into evening.

I restless to harness and utilize my creative energy toward higher forms of service. I want to be brilliantly alive in living my purpose. I manifest a life robust in sacred, celebrated connection – to friends and family, and to the earth, to myself, and to men.

My relationships with men will shift and change as the relationship I have with myself evolves.

Instead of wondering why that 5^th grade boy said what he said, I focus on how my 5^th grade self felt and her response. That episode in time teaches me the vital importance of standing up for myself, and not giving my power away to boy. My evolution involves shifting the interest not to the boy, but to me, my feelings, my reaction, my response, and learning to voice my truth in that moment.

In my past relationships, I sacrificed myself. I neglected my shine. I swallowed my concerns, and hid my affections.

Now, I choose myself.

If I like a boy, I let myself like him. I let myself stay close to my needs, my wants, my feelings.  I go back to my breath, to how I am feeling, to how I am really feeling, and trusting the wisdom of the body to communicate a knowing that transcends words and informs with a language that is energy, sensation, feeling.

Sitting in garden, drinking my coffee, I bask in the promise of a late summer morning. There are butterflies of excitement for what will be, gratitude for what was, and a deepening of appreciative contentment for what is, for who I already am, and this spark of love for what is readies me for the day, for the Austin journey ahead.