Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
GRAHAM GREENE
For some reason, beyond the obvious one of having just lost a mate, I feel incomplete. I have had a lot of time to reflect on what happened to me in that place, and have come to the realization that somehow, it was necessary. I am not sure why, but it was.
I left something there. I think it was my innocence. And by that, I don't mean that part that blushes when something a bit off color is said, or makes me avert my eyes at the nakedness of a man, I don't know.
I am talking about the deeper core of innocence. All of my life, for as long as I can remember, I have been shielded and protected by those around me. I have lived by this credo, that if I give honesty, respect, and compassion, that I will receive it back in kind. For the most part, this has been true, but at a high cost to myself.
Now how did that cost me? It all seems perfectly legitimate, doesn't it? Someone takes care of you, keeps you from harm, sees to your basic needs, you do not turn around and snap at them like a rabid sleen, do you? No, you try to become this persona that they are creating for you. You try to be the ideal that they expect you to be. You work hard at it, because that is what is expected of you. It is what makes them happy, and if they are happy, so are you. This is a fallacy.
A fallacy is an error in reasoning. The people doing the protecting may not see the fallacy of the statement that I just made. To them, it is perfectly reasonable that if they are taking care of me, and I am reacting by trying to be exactly what they want, to make them happy, I am doing it because it makes me happy. You see how that twists and turns into something that is not quite.......reasonable?
Fonce once asked me if I would have submitted to Tayco. I was very vocal, very adamant that no, I would not. I was not a slave, there was nothing submissive about me. Then foolishly, I followed it up by saying that Tayco would not have wanted me to submit to him. Those are the words of a very young, very naive woman. At that particular point in time, I did not realize that I had already submitted to him. I had not fallen to my knees, crossed my arms over my head physically. But, I had submitted the essence of who I was to him. And he is not the only one. It was the same with Lochlan, and even more so with Ba'atar.
I think I was beginning to have these niggling thoughts in the back of my head about this, before I was taken to that place. But,it was there, naked, alone and trapped in that cage, with no hope of escape, that I really began to understand. To understand how I had allowed myself to become. To understand how I had lost myself, in my desire to make everyone around me happy. I recognized that my acquiescence to those around me, was no different than a slave bellying to her Master.
Fonce freed me from that cage, he rescued me from that vile place. He brought me back, instilled me back into the place where he thinks I should be. Where I think I should be. But, if I continue to live my life in the manner that I have in the past, are all of his efforts to no avail?
He brought me back, safely. Now it is up to me, to decide if I am truly strong enough to free myself from the chains of personal submission. Am I strong enough, to live my life for myself? Am I strong enough to make my own happiness, and to not depend on others to make it for me?
Am I strong enough to live an authentic life. A life of truth, strength and honor. That is what I am struggling with right now. I have lost that innocence of being able to blindly go through life, unaware, unseeing.
Yes, I feel incomplete. But it is not for anyone else to supply the parts that will make me whole. It is up to me.
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