(Note: all italicized lyrics herein are from Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World.”)
But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Well, here we are; as of today, I have lived in San Francisco for two full decades. I’ve now called this City home longer than anyplace else I’ve lived in my life, and have been supporting myself in the “adult world” for 24 years in total. Naturally, this milestone urges me to reflect on my journey…particularly, I find myself taking stock of my time here, and what I have to show for it, and musing on “what I’ve learned.”
I’m currently reading the book “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron, and in it, she writes a lot about impermanence; she asserts that our irrational human desire for a fixed point–to find or create some sort of safe and unchangeable version of ourselves or our lives–is not only the source of a lion’s share of human suffering, but also a thinly-veiled manifestation of the modern human fear/denial of our mortality. The general Buddhist belief is that only by practicing compassion (for ourselves and others) and remaining mindful in the present moment (the only moment which truly exists, from a first-person human perspective) can we begin to alleviate not only our own suffering, but the greater ills of the world.
In contrast, with my current therapist I’ve also been making my way through a mind-blowing volume titled “Transforming The Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists,” by Janina Fisher. In it, the author emphasizes again and again that, for people who experienced ongoing early childhood trauma, the most primal brain functions (which are responsible for survival) frequently hijack its more rational capacities when something in the present reminds the trauma survivor of the abuse they survived in their past. As my therapist is fond of telling me, “what happened to you is in your past, but trauma lives in the present.” The “Great Work” of successful trauma therapy (which can be a lifelong process and–as I’m learning from personal experience–is often nonlinear) is to retrain the brain to A) recognize when things from the past are being triggered in the present, B) assert to oneself that in the present, there is no threat, and C) continue moving through life without getting diverted from experiencing joy and safety…in the present moment. Thus, by relegating one’s past to something that is done with–and by practicing compassion for all of the ways in which one adapted in order to survive their traumatic situation–one is able to fully live their life, appreciating that they survived the threats and can now enjoy their present.
The common threads of self-compassion and being in the present moment have been sending a very clear message. I arrived in this city as 24-year-old seeking a life better than any versions of the one I had been living in The South. I didn’t know what I didn’t know; I was still quite naive (even after 4 years of living on my own in Atlanta), but I knew in the deepest parts of my soul that this place had called me to it, and although I didn’t know what was going to happen or what was going to become of me, I knew that being here was going to show me things and open doors which simply did not exist where I’d come from.
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
So it was that I, like so many people before me, came to the West Coast and reinvented myself. Within a couple weeks of moving here, I’d been adopted by the fierce, loving, motley freak family of The Stud Bar; soon I was gogo dancing there, then being asked to appear in others’ drag numbers, then creating drag numbers of my own–and with it, my adult name and identity. In 2007 I appeared in the first “legitimate theater” production of my life (that is, being a paid actor at an established theatre company, as opposed to being in a show that was part of being in school or church), and from there, many more subsequent opportunities and experiences led me to realize that I had indeed fulfilled my lifelong ambition (and I daresay, destiny) of becoming a professional performer. Yes, I also had to work a day job in foodservice in order to survive…but I also get paid to do what I love the most, and entertain people.
It took years and years of therapy before I was ever really able to acknowledge that I am a trauma survivor; violence was so normalized in the time and place I grew up in that I thought I had it pretty easy, compared to many of the kids I knew. Yet, to be able to finally look at what happened, say “that was not okay, it was not right, it was not deserved“…and then the even greater challenge of diving deeper into “these are the ways in which my experiences literally shaped/rewired my brain function and my developmental process, and those learned adaptive survival behaviors & reactions still affect how I move through the world”….well. That is a whole other COSMOS of introspection and transformation.
What is happening to me?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away
There’s never a good time for a global pandemic, but in so many ways, the Coronapocalypse couldn’t have hit at a worse moment in my life; I was finally beginning to feel not only truly safe and established as an adult, but confident that the momentum I’d achieved and the relationships I’d nurtured would surely continue to grow for the rest of my days, leading to greater and greater quality of life. (“The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last”, Pema Chodron writes. “that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security.”) Then my beloved City shut down, and the vast, colorful communities I’d immersed myself in for so long were scattered to the four winds, cowering in isolation, afraid of one another’s company.
The rational part of my brain could accept that this was merely something that happened; could depersonalize the experience of aloneness, the loss of access to almost everything I loved to do and almost everyone I loved to be with. However, as a trauma survivor, one of my coping mechanisms to get through the first 17-18 years of my life was to tell myself that there was something fundamentally wrong with me; that I was different than everyone else, so that’s why these things were happening to me; that I was broken and didn’t really belong here. Accepting the blame for my circumstances and assuming that everything is, on some level, my own fault is second nature to me. That grown-up me can (in fits and starts) acknowledge this story as fundamentally untrue makes no difference in how it usually manifests in my life. It is old, and it is deeply rooted, and it will not go without a fight.
Quarantine brought out all of my worst demons and gave them an unprecedented freedom to take the driver’s seat. Worse, just when it seemed like the world was turning again and my personal circumstances were starting to feel more stable…well, February happened…and once again, what I thought was safe and reliable and permanent got thrown into dire question.
Well, now pride’s gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart
When I made a very public post back in April announcing the betrayal my husband had wrought, I was still deeply reeling in pain, spinning on triggered trauma, and struggling to integrate any of the experiences of my life since March of 2020. It seemed like, once again, there was no inch of real safe space, no person who could truly be trusted, and no choice I could make that wouldn’t end in pain and suffering. That terrible old story borne of my core trauma basically took center stage and said “See? I told you.” What’s worse is that I was so deeply and intensely immersed in the torments of this story that I was blind to the effects it had on my ability to move through the world, and how I was (or wasn’t) showing up in life. Essentially, I’d regressed to my worst self–a hostilely guarded 15-year-old who hated the world and hated himself, who had been convinced by his life thusfar that no person in the world was sincerely kind or trustworthy, even as he desperately hungered for not only companionship, but a genuine experience of feeling seen, and loved for who and what he was.
(“A life after trauma has to include some sense of pride, respect, or just awe that we have survived”, Janina Fisher writes. “We might have to thank those parts of us that contributed to our survival, even if how they (or we) survived is not pretty. The sense that we have been through a dark time but now have made it out of the darkness is important for recovery.”)
I am not proud of a lot of my behavior in the first half of this year; I know I burned bridges, and I lost my post-pandemic job because I was so emotionally disregulated. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to use the therapeutic and spiritual tools I’ve attained to accept that the past happened; I cannot change it…that much of my behavior was largely due to being overridden by a resurgence of old and entrenched responses to a world that (in the moment) seemed to dole out nothing but undeserved painful experiences, and showed no signs of a more hopeful or stable future…to subsequently forgive myself, and show compassion for the humanness of my experience…and then, reaffirm for myself who and what I am, and what the life is that I’ve built for myself since first leaving “home” for good at age 20.
The world is still opening up again, in many ways; but I’ve already had a wealth of performance opportunities, with more on the way. The social environments of the world have been falteringly reestablished, and communities have tentatively reemerged. I get to see people again. I get to go dancing. I get to be alone in a crowd again, if I want to.
Most importantly, however: with time, distance, and copious psychological and existential perspective-seeking, I came to the decision that Andrew making one mistake–albeit a grandiose and infathomable one–could, would, and did not undo the prior 8 years of relationship, which was built on a firm foundation. We are in couples’ therapy, he is making financial amends, and I continue to attempt the often very challenging practice of living in the present moment, and trying not to let my toxic old stories run rampant. I did not rush into marriage blindly, and I am trusting myself enough to believe–just as I trusted 20 years ago when I packed up my life and came to the opposite side of the country–that I have made the right choice.
The past cannot be changed, and the future cannot be known with any certainty, and nothing lasts or lives forever, and impermanence is the only reliable constant. In 20 years here, I’ve already lived countless lives. In the COVID times, I was indisputably not living my best life. But the blessing of the present is that, every day, I can decide again who and what I want to be…and I choose to believe in a future that is better than my recent past. Sifting through the memories of two decades here, I recall countless faces, places, and experiences…I see the ways in which I have been loved, and seen, and appreciated. I know that I have indelibly woven myself into the rich tapestry of San Francisco history; that I have entertained, that I have touched (and changed) lives. The world now might not look or feel like the world of January 2020…but change is inevitable.
In fact, it’s the most ordinary thing.
Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Fear today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk
And I don’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Everyone
Is my world
(I will learn to survive)
Anyone
Is my world
(I will learn to survive)
Anyone
Is my world