I am sorry baby, you will probably come across this post. Perhaps you aren’t aware of how inhibit I am talking about this issue through a language I certainly master more than English. I can’t use Italian because it would be too hard to me to analyze the situation without the help of these “cultural lens” that force me to structure my thoughts and feelings in a different grammar. Moreover, writing is better than talking as I take all the time I need to articulate my emotions. Frankly writing you a letter or an email in English is ridiculous and when I think about a place that is totally mine, this is one of first that comes to my mind.
The crude reality is that my life isn’t the paradise that seems to be looking at this white, pink and purple blog. I do have a major problem, even though I try not to think about it. But it’s there and it will not fade away with a blink of an eye.There’s something that lies underneath this strong and accomplished woman. It’s a river that flows toward the ocean I haven’t been able to reach. It’s the ocean of the lost instincts buried under thick intellectualism. I have always pretended to be more interested in my career than in my own private life. The latter is crucial and I always loved so much my partner but I have never told him how much I have suffered because we have never lived together. We still don’t live together, the “we” I sometimes mention here is me and my family. For complex reasons I don’t want to share we don’t live under the same roof.
This is my main problem. I haven’t blossomed with him and my development as a woman has been a failure because of this missing piece. I am the daughter, the niece, the independent and frustrated woman in career who has never lived fully many aspects of a multifaceted personality.
I am the eternal girlfriend who still sleeps in a single bed.
This has an enormous impact on my psychological balance even if everything seems just fine. I live in a beautiful house and my parents love me immensely but I am not a teenager anymore and although I adore them I do want MY family. Basically I have always tried to hide many sides of me and the destruction of my life has its roots in all these hidden but vital parts that struggle to see the light now. They need water and sun, otherwise they would dry out forever. Creativity, sensual energy, sweetness, passion. I am all this and even more! I can talk for hours about theoretical approaches and contemporary history but please hear my soul voice and help me feeding my instinctual nature.
We all have –as Jung argues- the moral obligation to live out and express ourselves.
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Pinkola EstésThese descarted, devalued, and "unaccetable" aspects of soul and self do not just lie there in the dark but rather conspire about how and when they shall make a break for freedom. They burble down there in unconscious, they seethe, they boil, till one day no matter how well the lid over them is sealed, they explode outward and upward in an unchanneled torrent and with a will of their own.
This is one of the most beautiful posts I have ever come across in all these years of blogging. I have "known" you under different nicknames and written to you in italian many times, but now, using a language which is not ours, I feel closer to you than ever.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm intruding a bit, but I must say that I've often wondered about the things you write in this post, and wondered about your apparent contraddictions, the many "you" I have perceived. Your defences, your elusions about certain topics.
I don't know you.
I've never met you.
But I think I understand, and suddenly many bits are falling into place.
Jung is my soul Master. I think what he says about our moral obligation is true. Both for you, and for me. I've got my issues, not so different from yours. But you have more time ahead of you. Work on this. Keep working.
Your fiancèe loves you very much and he will help you. No matter what language you will choose to communicate, he will understand it.
Arte... many thanks for your comment. It makes me feel less "guilty" and more open to share my feelings with unknown readers who actually do understand my attempt to "digg" my inner soul. You're not intruding at all and I appreciate your words.
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed I've always had defences to hide the many parts of me who have been struggling to come to the surface. I have reached the boiling point now.
I know Jung through a book written by Clarissa Pinkola Estés "Women who run with the wolves" that has changed my perspective on my inner nature.
You have time too, don't forget it! We all have time.
We love each other very much and I'm sure we'll work things out.
ps. let me say something in Italian
Il tuo commento mi ha scaldato l'anima.
Lola, it's one of the things that I don't quite understand about Italians, if I may generalise a bit. There seems to be this incredible fear of just 'living together'.
ReplyDeleteI think, as you've been reading my stuff for a while now, you will know that, for me, it's one of those essential things. I cannot fully comprehend how couples can stay together for years and yet, at the end of each night (not quite my case, but you will know what I mean), you go home to different places and sleep in seperate beds.
Don't get me wrong. It's not the sleeping together that is actually the key - and by that I mean the sex part - but it is the waking up together and the doing of the mundane things and the being together in silence and when you've just got home from a bad day at work and the laughing together over some stupid thing and the support and so on.
To me, for me, these are the actual aspects of life that, as a couple who aren't together 24/7, they cannot really comprehend since, without living together, the couple are always, to some degree, on their best behaviour when they see each other.
I think you know, it is my wish that me and my partner should live together - and I am frightened, of course, that the mundanity (is that a real word?) of everyday life will be just that - mundane. But I really want to give it a go, to try it out.
And, OK, to some degree, right now, we are trying it out but, still, it's not quite the same.
And, through all of this that I have written, I think I am saying that I think I understand and that I believe that, being together 24/7 actually enables us to grow as a couple.
And I really love the line
'I am the eternal girlfriend who still sleeps in a single bed' - for here, in Italy, you are most certainly not alone in that!
You're right Andy.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very Italian thing that I don't fully understand either. I think it has to do with the strong tie we have with our family (everything is "weak" outside the family boudaries) but in our case it depends on many aspects which are not related to the relatives.
Yes, being together 24/7 enables a couple to grow and this what I miss the most. We have been together for a long time now but... something is missed because we've never spent together even 2 months under the same roof.
I know it's essential for you and it has become crucial for me as well. Hopefully things will change very soon.