Some of the choices we make in life mark us in ways that we never expected, much like the bruise that wrapped around my leg when learning how to do the Brass Monkey in pole class. I’ve heard some say that those scars we carry around mean something. I’ve heard others ask why we needed to receive them in the first place. I don’t know the right answer, but I do think like many things in life, that two things can be true at the same time, that life is less of an either or and more of an and, and that much of what happens in life resides in the grey space between black and white. What shade of grey is still yet to be determined. I heard there were 50 options to choose from. I’ve actually never read that book series as I prefer my sex to be consensual.
We all have things that we wish had never happened to us. We have things that maybe we wish we hadn’t said or acted on with others. And we can get stuck in both of those places if we aren’t dealing with the emotional ocean of what’s going on inside of us. We hold ourselves captive by trying to logic our way through life all the time. We need both, and we need to learn how to flow between the two. But first we have to get over the fear and come to the realization that we aren’t alone, that we are actually in the majority if people were honest with each other about themselves. I have both been harmed and harmed others. While that doesn’t feel great, it is a fact. And as an adult it thus becomes my responsibility to learn from my own mistakes. My only hope is that others will do the same.
The sad part is that many people will never look at themselves as a part of the problem, not unless something drastic happens that forces them to do it. And even then sometimes they refuse. It took me a very long time to stop seeing myself as a victim in life and to start seeing myself as someone who could be happy in spite of everything that has happened to me. And I spent a lot of money on books, therapy, and drugs to get me there. That is a privilege that many don’t even want to discuss and one of the reasons I share so much of my mental health journey with others. Community is how we got here, and it’s also the thing that can get us out.
I see a lot of people pulling the ladder up behind them when we could be helping each other. On one hand I get it. Time is a precious commodity for most people, and advice really isn’t free when it comes down to it. At the same time sharing things, especially the hard stuff, makes people feel not so alone. My life, and I like to believe yours as well, isn’t a pristinely curated Instagram feed. It’s messy, more like the dumpster fire that Twitter/X has become.
I have to believe that I’m not alone in feeling this way, that maybe sharing the entirety of the human condition is how we bring people together in a world that seems to be broken apart. Maybe it’s naive of me to think that little old me could have any amount of influence on anybody. What I do know is that every time I want to quit doing this work all together, someone out of the blue messages me to tell me that this helped them in some way. That may be small to some, but it means everything to me.
Mad love, Jenna
