Eye Contact in by degrees

This racing heart.

I have been working on it.

I have been steeping myself in support. In practice. In counseling and meditation, NVC practice (aka group therapy) and time with friends.

I have been experiencing moments of acceptance, compassion, clarity and loving kindness, for me, and for him. I have also continued to experience anxiety, fear, self doubt, grief, pain, and sadness.

Today, for the first time in 6 weeks, I dared to make eye contact with him. We were only about 6 feet apart. It was only for a few seconds. And it was overwhelming.

We have been in very close physical proximity many times since I blocked all communication with him, due to the fact that we share a community. Due to me knowing I need and value that community and I’m not willing to leave. I have taken some breaks when I didn’t feel I could share that space. But every time we have been there at the same time up to now, I have done everything in my power to make sure my eyes did not inadvertently meet his. I have rushed past him, I have looked at the floor, I have turned by body the other way when I have had to be nearby without other option. And over these six weeks, it has gotten easier to be there with him. Not fully “normal,” but easier. Avoiding his eyes has felt like a necessary safety precaution, however much plenty of not good feelings went along with it. And so, I have been careful to avoid them.

Until today. It wasn’t by accident, but it wasn’t entirely on purpose either. In recent times, when I have known we would be in shared space, I have toyed with the idea of allowing this to happen. Tried it on. Tried to feel what that might feel like. I have thought on my intention around it as well, and given my heart space to feel its needs. I know he cannot read my mind, nor my gaze, but my hopeful intention is that allowing my eyes to meet his, even for a moment, could communicate some compassion. In some small way, it could say to myself, and to him, I still see you. I am hurting and so are you, but I wish the best for both of us. I don’t blame you. And I’m still the same person I’ve always been. The one you used to see so clearly.

I also know part of it is feeling like I don’t want to hide. I don’t like living in fear, and I want to reclaim my power. I want to stand strong and true in knowing that he cannot take it from me. And I want him to know, I can’t take his away either–and I don’t want to. It seems a little much to think that all of this could be communicated in simple eye contact. But there has been so very much communicated in the very same between us in the past. So much I can remember in his eyes. Which is in part, why it has felt not possible until very recent days. So many memories are held in that seeing. And I risked it today.

The immediate experience was this: Racing heart. Spiking anxiety. Fear. Pain. Also: concern, compassion, sadness, regret. From the moment our eyes met until I left the space (which wasn’t too long) I felt tremors in my hands, shakiness in my body all over, tightness in my chest, and incredible self-consciousness in my every movement as I prepared to leave. Perhaps I wasn’t quite ready for it after all. Since then up to now, even as I lay in my bed, I have been experiencing a higher level of anxiety, tightness in the chest, and shortness of breath, than in awhile. It came on very strong with a different set of stimulus last Wednesday when he unexpectedly showed up at a new class I’m taking, and Robert led the “I see you” exercise, but that was not a situation that I created. This one, I chose.

I don’t know how this will be moving forward. I only know that with time, I wish, deeply, to learn much from this. To accept. To grow through it. To let go of wanting it to be different; wanting him to be different. To accept that I absolutely cannot help him. That I absolutely can reground and anchor myself to my needs and my heart. I hope to come through the other side of this knowing my strength, and having a much deeper capacity for compassion. For all who have been though anything like this–and so much worse. With a greater understanding of what it really is to live in this place beyond our own control; to understand and accept that the mind is a wild frontier, and it cannot be tamed, only witnessed, and either accepted or resisted. I am already seeing how each of those feel as they unfold. I want to chose acceptance. I also know, as is true of each of us, I am doing the best I can. It is all I can do.

For now, it’s like this.