Hearing that I won’t be able to get financial aid to attend music school catalyzed something in me that has been waiting a lifetime to awaken.
Before I had even finished reading the letter, my mind was whirling with alternative plans- something that could make up for what was lost so I wouldn’t feel the pain of losing it. I am consciously holding off my grief until this news is confirmed, but I had actually given up on it the moment my brain processed what I had read… and maybe before. I saw “regret” and “loans” and already the inner voice ‘… not so bad, it was a nice idea but it doesn’t really matter, we’ll do something else just as awesome so it’s not such a big deal…’.
That’s a lie.
Going to music school, no, not just music school, but this music school and the city and country and area of the world and the university clubs and housing and language and proto-friends I have already found there- these are extremely important to me. They motivate me throughout my day. Even the tiniest daydreams of my life there are woven close to my heart. For eight months I have put everything into making this happen. I began to sing and listen to music again, worked through my inability to tolerate my own talent and promise as a musician, learned how to listen critically and lovingly to my own voice and performance, allowed others to support and acknowledge what this meant to me and for the course of my life, and most of all, I let myself dream with an audaciousness I had never tried before. Dreaming ‘big’ has always been natural to me ever since I was child, profoundly lonely and utterly alone; those dreams were my solace. But the dreams I am finding now are of a different sort- they are precious, fragile, tender creatures hidden in the shadows of myself that drive so much of my fierce integrity and love of life that to share them with others, let alone look them in the face, makes me afraid they will shatter simply from the knowledge that if I die without these experiences I will be incomplete, I will have missed my destiny, I will not have become myself. And going to BIMM has many, many of these precious threads woven into it. I was somewhat aware of them, but when my going to BIMM was suddenly threatened they stood out like lightning against the black.
These dreams are not ones that can be substituted for other adventures. I can’t just let BIMM go because a seemingly insurmountable obstacle has appeared. Maybe I will not be able to reach the summit in time to attend this year, and if so, then I will figure out the best way to preserve the preciousness. But what really interests me is how I responded to this threat. When China turned out to not be what I had hoped, I changed my plans to Japan and executed them with only a relatively minimal amount of processing and was happy with the result even though I am not actively doing martial arts now. But there is something about what I associate with BIMM being threatened that elicited submission from me. It was as if the secret of what really mattered to me had been discovered and would be utterly destroyed as a matter of course until it was lost to me completely, with no chance of salvaging the essence of why I loved it so dearly and what it meant to me.
I know why I have been conditioned to feel that way. I have spent the last six years working to understand why I carry such darkness with me in such contrast to my innate brightness. But now, having watched my reaction to this threatened loss, I am more interested in the effect than the cause. When I immediately began to imagine substitutes for that irreplaceable something, the feeling in my body was one of letting go after something has been yanked out of your grasp, turning your back on someone you want to embrace, apologizing after a fight when you think you were right, saying ‘I love you’ under coercion, forced smiles when you’re devastated, standing back up after getting knocked down only to walk away. It was giving up, surrender. These sensations live in my belly, my breasts, my shoulders, my buttocks. But there was a secondary feeling enveloping the surrender; one of inhibited running, punches held back, tears stuck in throat, tightness everywhere as if I need to hold my organs in with my muscles alone. These sensations run cold over my skin, and if I am very quiet in myself, I can feel the strength in my limbs screaming to be freed. I want to run, hit, yell, explode- but I hold perfectly still, perfectly unthreatening, perfectly tame. I am frozen, trapped between flight and fight with no hope of either resulting in greater safety. On the outside I am trying to morph myself into whatever the other needs me to be in order to decide I am not a threat, so they will go away, leaving me to deal with the debris of my dreams.
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend I am not a threat to fragile people. I can’t cower under the scrutiny of people who don’t see who I am. I can’t sell out what’s important to me for fear of being mocked. I can’t live my life like I have something to be ashamed of. I can’t compromise away the essence of who I am. I can’t morph myself into an extension of others. I can’t step down when my life is on the line. I can’t settle for pale comparisons of what I want. I can’t worry about offending assholes. I can’t treat myself as if I am unsafe person. I can’t lie to myself about what I am willing to fight for. I can’t spend energy on convincing others that I am a good person. I can’t talk myself out of working my ass off for the things that matter to me. I can’t confuse myself over the difference between violence and movement. I can’t give up anything else. I can’t. I literally can’t stand it anymore. I can’t deny that I am fire, and if you get in the way of my destiny, you are going down in flames.
I am done fucking around. I am not a nun, I am a warrior. I am not lawful good, I am chaotic neutral. I am not waiting, I am living. I am not here for you, I am here for me. And I AM a threat to assholes and cowards and bullies and authority and denial and tradition and morality and religion and stupidity and repression and arbitrary limits and ignorance and spiritual bypass and hate and boredom and ambivalence and excessive virtue and silence and ugliness and evil and propriety and shame and cruelty and apathy and labels and abuse and laziness and fallacy and liars and tyrants and false empowerment and selfishness and negativity and asceticism and people who are easily startled. I will rock your worlds and I will not apologize.
There is no fucking way I am going to look back when I’m dying and regret not doing the things I could have done if only I had summoned the courage to step over that line between comfortable and audacious. I can SEE the uninhibited life right in front of me. Even if it means leaving everyone else behind, I must do this. I must find out what it’s like when I get out of my own way.
So I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to BIMM in the fall, but it will not be because I accepted defeat.
I am not frozen, and I am not fleeing.
I am fighting.
And here is a painting of my rainbow fire aura to remind me of it.
Rainbow Flames, the aura of the fighter.
