dichotomy: survivor v. whore

This painting was titled "Survivor" when I completed it last autumn. It was Archer who named it. I was playing around with generic names like 'dancing girl' - names that just described the picture, without speaking to the power or emotion of it. I had painted it, but I didn't know what to think of it, yet. Then he suggested "Survivor." That's what it made him think of. He saw me in that painting. He saw me as a survivor.

It fit the painting. The name, once spoken in front of the painting, latched onto the artwork like an acrylic seal, forevermore inseparable. It stuck.

~

Archer bought that painting from me last November. He loves it.

~

Then, it happened. That thing, which I've mentioned before but never been able to talk about. Yeah. That.

Last December. I had flown to Iowa, with my child, to visit my mother. Archer was supposed to follow a few days later, so he could meet my family. I still am not going into the nitty gritty on this one. In a sense, it has become another blocked memory. I recall vividly the pain, the fear, feeling-of-rock-bottom, and sound of Archer - angry, righteous and drunk, his voice turning the phone into a weapon. He was right; I had lied to him. Earlier in our relationship, I had cheated on him. I had excuses, but not reasons. I had been fearful. I hadn't trusted him. I hadn't believed that, if given the truth, that he would understand it or believe it, or love me. And maybe he wouldn't have, I don't know. But of course he deserved to decide that for himself. At the time, I was in a furtive sort of survival mode; I was reeling from ending my second marriage, and reeling more from having been in that marriage at all. I didn't trust anybody. I didn't yet believe he loved me at all. I suspected I was an experiment to him. He was embedded in the traditional, vanilla, straight-man, suburban mindset, and he expressed a desire to understand my very-different background. His interest was guided by a genuine desire to understand the woman he already loved, but at the time I thought he was only interested in dissecting me. When he was done, when he had passed the negative verdict I expected, I would be yesterday's news, just another fucked up kid with no future and no value. Someone to tell jokes about at the next suburban gathering. I didn't believe in his integrity. I didn't believe in his love.

All these: excuses, but nothing that actually excuses the act. There is no reason for treating a person the way I treated him. Even if I had been right about him, I should have been right in my own actions.

I was too weak.

In the night before Archer was to fly to Iowa, these things came to a head; he decided not to come. Our relationship seemed unlikely to survive the week. Devastated does not begin to describe what I felt, having finally been forced to face how my fears had affected my treatment of him. I realized, then, that I had finally found a lover who was everything he said he was - trustworthy, true, driven by his ethics, and in love with me - and I had pushed that lover away in the most dramatic, decisive way possible. He should have left me then. By some miracle, he didn't. I considered leaving him, for several days. I believed he should have left me, and I was prepared to leave him if he lingered. Not because I couldn't bear to face the shame of being with the person I had wronged - if there's anything I am accustomed to, it's shame - but because I believed it would be right for him to leave me, and I wanted very much to do "right." I have never been so blessed as I was in the moment he decided to stay, and I lacked the courage to leave. Maybe it wasn't so much a lack of courage as a realization that this was my chance - he actually understood why I had lied, that I did love him, and that I was very, very wounded; he actually Loved me. I wasn't an experiment. I wasn't a project or an orphan to be saved. He wanted to help.

I came home from Iowa the day after New Year's Day, spiritually bloodied, literally shaken, and completely fearful. But also, stronger. Not stronger yet, but with a glimmer of hope that I could be strong, and that I could be the person I wanted to be. I don't remember having ever been so certain that I needed to and would work to become me. It was a tenuous start, but I knew I had to do it. I was afraid of doing it alone, but would have if it had been necessary. I'm very, very lucky that it wasn't necessary. Archer has been there, every step of the way, and his support has become stronger and more capable as he understands more of my psychoses.

~

This was written shortly after Archer told me he had renamed my painting "Eala the Whore."

Eala is me. That's my spiritual name, and the name I sign my paintings with.

Eala the Whore. He renamed it while I was Iowa, when he was angry. Three weeks later, he told me. He mentioned it casually, like 'yeah, that's what I was thinking when I was angry.' It wasn't a big deal to him. I cried when he told me. Fresh salt on a grave wound that had hardly begun to heal. A reminder of the pain I had caused him.

I don't think he still thinks of the painting that way. He's gone back to calling it Survivor, I think. But I can't. Every time I see it, I think of the new name, and I cringe inside. It's a symbol of the pain I inflicted on him, and myself. I can't look at that painting anymore. It hurts too much.

~

Somehow, I have to find a way to face it. I have to find a way to rectify that dichotomy. Am I a survivor, or a whore? This is the next step on my journey. I don't know where my foot will land.

I asked my cards how I go about healing this hurt.

This was their answer:

1 Fire Dragon
2 Otter
3 Owl

Remember, the first card is the instigator, the second is the emotional manifestation, and the third is the concrete manifestation. 

The Fire Dragon energizes us and encourages us to overcome obstacles; he ignites inner fires to give us the energy we need to face problems and solve them.

The Otter is an invitation to stop worrying too much, to relax and let life happen. Remember to play; it's ok to 'be a kid again' sometimes. Try not to force things to happen unnaturally.

The Owl's story is one of overcoming obstacles, but not just overcoming them - the Owl turns disadvantages into advantages, and by so doing, succeeds.

I'm not sure, yet, how to use that advice. Am I worrying too much about how Archer saw that painting when he was angry? Can I really just - let it go? Or... can I overcome this hurt by embracing the memory of what happened as a stepping stone, rather than looking at it as a weapon?

... I'm going to sleep on this one. And ask Archer. I need his wisdom right now.