Roll Away Your Stone

“I found out at an early age I could make anything or plane disappear or cease to exist if I turn my back to it.” Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard “One Fast Move or I’m Gone”

When you go through trauma as a kid, turning your back on the reality of your situation is a defense mechanism that you have to employ to survive. Your brain literally can’t process shit that’s happening. It’s so far out of the realm of what’s okay that there’s no chance for the brain to make sense of it. Adults are supposed to be trusted. But, when adults let me down when I was a kid, I did what I had to do.

I turned my back. I blocked all the shit out. I ran from it and hid. Missy Higgins “Sugarcane” talks about that kind of situation. The kid hides in a corner where the “torches cannot find her.” The little, innocent kid finds safety in back turning and corner cowering.

But, if you keep choosing those types of defense mechanisms into adulthood those torches will continue to look for you. Your past doesn’t just stop fucking with you until you go on the offensive. Picture that. You running. Your past holding a torch chasing you. It looks scary as hell, but it’s because you have your back to it. You’re scared of your own shadow. It’s time to turn the fuck around and see the past for what it really is.

I was listening to Mumford and Sons “Roll Away Your Stone" today and essentially it addresses avoiding our past by saying now we’re adults. The time to be childish victims is over. The song says, “Stars hide your fires. These here are my desires. And I won’t give them up to you this time around. And so I’ll be found with my stake stuck in this ground marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul.”

We were weak as kids. But, we’re strong now. It’s up to us to put our stakes in the ground…to protect ourselves…to snuff out the fires or torches from our past that try to chase us down. Boundaries were crossed when we were kids, but it’s our right to set them back up again now…to not let the torches reach us and fuck with us.

I see so many great people try to go through this life like I used to…continuing to live like that heartbroken little kid. They close their eyes. They cover their ears. And the shout, “Lalalalala.” And there’s a damn good reason why they do that. What happened is scary is hell to face. But, it only gets scarier when we don’t face it or talk about it. We have to bring in someone else and let that shit out to move on in a healthy way.

“Roll Away Your Stone” says it like this, “Roll away your stone. I’ll roll away mine. Together we can see what we will find. Don’t leave me alone at this time. For I’m afraid of what I will discover inside.” What’s back there? Who the hell knows? But, I know it’s been easier for me to face my shit when I’ve had company. Doing it alone is fucking impossible. It’s too intimidating. We have to roll away our stones together.

And what happens? We realize we’re not alone. We realize that other people went through the same type of fucked up shit that we did. We were left alone as kids, but as adults we don’t have to remain that way. And when the truth comes out…when we actually look at the pieces of our fucked up pasts that we can remember…it doesn’t seem as overwhelming. We don’t have to be afraid of it anymore.

The fear of my past manifested itself by making me feel like I didn’t deserve to be loved. I remember very little of the shit I went through as a kid, but what I was left with was this constant feeling of inadequacy. No matter how smart or funny I was, I remained uncomfortable with me because my view of myself was shaped by shitty events from my childhood.

But, once I started looking at it…and not all at once, just little bits at a time…I found that I could take on the past and be better for it. Grace opened my eyes. I was given a newly impassioned soul and the ability to put stakes in the ground and shed light on all the fucked up pieces inside me.

Before I started facing my shit, I couldn’t love myself. I think love is essentially being completely known and accepted as is. If I kept part of the truth about me (my past) hidden then I couldn’t really ever love myself. Our past is a part of us. And there’s so much to learn from looking at it honestly.

I’m so much more at ease with who I am since I started being honest. I’m a fuck up. But, why am I a fuck up? Well, let’s take a look. Holy shit…there are actually good reasons why I ended up like this. It’s so refreshing. I don’t have to live in a constant state of “I don’t measure up”. Instead it’s “I’m not supposed to measure up.” I don’t have to be anything other than me.

And once I was completely honest about myself with myself and actually liked myself anyway, that’s when I feel like I became capable of loving other people. I’m not forcing myself to be something so that I’ll be liked. I’m just doing what comes natural.

And that makes me think of how unnatural relationships used to be for me when I hated myself. There’s a couple of songs that came to mind today. “I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab for Cutie and “To Make You Feel My Love” by Adele.

Both of them accurately describe how I used to feel. In both songs the singer is singing about someone who doesn’t love them back or at least is indecisive. And in both songs there’s this need to earn or show the other person how great they are. “No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love” or “How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me.”

Both songs like that just reek of an aroma I’m all too familiar with…desperation. When I didn’t love myself, I tried to latch on to any female who showed the slightest interest in me. And do what I thought I needed to do to get them to love me. But, it was impossible, because I didn’t love myself.

It’s crazy now to see how easy relationships are. I’m comfortable. I’m not going to change who I am to get someone to love me. And really, looking back at the girls I tried to love, the whole love equation was fucked up, because they did love me, but couldn’t convince me of that, because they too didn’t love themselves. And I couldn't believe their love, because I felt unlovable myself.

I have a friend that I talk about life with quite a bit. It’s so damn refreshing, because it’s just so easy to be ourselves. We’re coming into our own at the same time and love who we are and as a result we don’t need to prove ourselves to each other. It’s so natural.

I wrote yesterday about the clean white page. And that’s what Christian from “Moulin Rouge” was faced with. He knew he was a writer, but until he experienced love he had nothing to write. God, that’s me. I wrote a screenplay about grace before I had a fucking clue what it was. But, like Christian, I’ve found that mutual love is the only real love. “The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

It’s so fucking cool when you have mutual love after you spend a lifetime experiencing one sided or at least lopsided love. It makes you appreciate real love all the more. No longer do I have loved ones turning their backs to me or doing things to me that make me turn my back on them. What I was taught about love growing up was bullshit. But, I’m getting another chance. And that’s exactly how this grace thing works.