recovering a sense of saftely - pt 2

i want to preface this post by saying how much i love my mother. i know so many other amazing mothers and i can't think of one that i would rather have. i wouldn't trade you in for anything, mom {all of my posts automatically are emailed to her}. so, okay, i'll stop writing to her and start writing my piece.

.............................................................................

my piece. it's about recovering a sense of safety in another part of my life. and this topic is one i have been meaning to write more about. to reclaim it from the quietude of shame, which, looking back, has always been an symptom of my lack of safety.

it's late and i've just scratched all i've written because i am getting too caught up in telling a story and perfecting the words. here are the simple facts:

i have carried my mother's shame about her own sexuality for too long. i see now, how for so long i blamed it on my religious upbringing, having close family and community members being molested, a natural maternal protectiveness, etc. i have had many excuses, but now, i see how much i have inherited my mother's skittishness. internalized it. incubated it. and now i'm forced to face it down and own myself. whether on stage or in real life, i have a history of physically flinching away at the mere thought of being seen as a sexual being, or being witnessed as having the audacity to believe myself attractive {even in the humorous play, the man who came to dinner}.

shame. how much it burns. mom, how you have burned me with your own shame.

i could go into more detail, draw out all the symptoms and their parental causes, but i'm going to keep it simple, get to bed early and move on: mom, i give you back your shame. keep it. do something constructive with it, ideally move on from it yourself, but i've learned all i need to learn from it and it's time for me to be able to explore the full range of myself as an actor and a human being who is sexual in nature.

{eek...i still inwardly cringe from writing it here...what if someone reads this!?!?! which shouldn't discourage you from doing so :}.

so i affirm: it is safe for me to consider myself as a sexual being and it is safe for me to be witnessed doing so and to share that sexuality, deliberately and safely with another.