Trust Me

October 3, 2009 Photo credit: Nicole Royal

When we held each other close, Edmond could rest his chin on the top of my head. We fit together like puzzle pieces. I miss his arms around me and mine around him. We belonged to each other and were better together. Maybe we were even our very best together. 

When we were our best, there was no space between us. 

When we were disconnected and at our worst, it was a terrible exchange of pain projection. When this happened, it signaled that more was going on underneath the surface. We had work to do.

We had to wiggle around, back off, and come back together a lot in the beginning. Honestly, we had to do that in the middle of our time together, too. Circumstances changed again and again revealing the spaces that needed tending. These “gifts" were opportunities for transformation that  felt more like punishment and torture. Eventually, these transformations became the gem stones of our relationship.

The metaphorical baggage we brought into the relationship got in the way and made things uncomfortable and difficult. Sometimes, we questioned if we were a good fit without realizing that what was between us belonged to our past and could be resolved, healed, and discarded. 

All of us have unresolved traumas, wounds, and unmet needs from our histories that we unknowingly bring into our relationships. When we do not know what we do not know, it trips us up and has the potential to be destructive to self and others.

None of us could have known that Edmond would be taken from the Earth realm on Tuesday, April 4th. Looking at the photo of us our friend Justin took at William’s baseball tournament just two days before Edmond died, I see how much I wanted him to stay. I still want him here, and grasping at air leaves me feeling like I have lost more than my other half. I have lost him and what we worked so hard to build together.

April 2, 2023 Photo credit: Justin Boggs

He let me hold on tight. My sense of belonging was fulfilled in our relationship. My ability to trust entirely was restored in the way he and I learned to love each other. When we could fill the gaps left behind from the unmet needs of our early development, we did. It was no trouble to allow the other’s anger or provide one more reassurance if it made either of us better.

 We worked hard to know what was baggage from the past. It was a steep, rocky learning curve. We walked it forward and backward, being the hand for the other when one of us slipped. We eventually learned to be each other’s guide more of the time. We needed each other to see what was outside of our own visual field and conscious knowing. 

It is a problem of normal life to have gaps in our development. It doesn’t mean we were necessarily abused because we have trauma symptoms, irrational fears, and trust issues. There may not be anyone to blame or hold accountable for our woundedness. Shit happens. And, we are the only person responsible for healing these hurts from our history.

Our healing is not dependent on anyone else’s apology. We can heal without the participation of those who may have harmed us. In fact, it is almost always a less complicated path to do it this way. 

What is not normal or okay, and is in fact tearing us down, is that our culture does not advocate and provide a multitude of support systems for healing our wounds. We do not value nearly enough the doing of hard things for the sake of transforming ourselves and our world. We usually need to be prompted by desperation and pain. Perhaps, a relationship requires it, or we value ourselves enough to dig deep. Maybe we take care of our partitioned parts because we do not want to miss out on the possibility of trusting and belonging fully. 

Maybe we are lucky and find the support anyway. Possibly, we disregard the success and achievement models held in such high regard and instead opt-in to the nature of our soul’s purpose. Doing our soul’s work means moving through the hard things that bring us to the edge of who we are becoming. I believe that this is what the world needs now more than ever.

Trauma need not be bloody to be brutal. When our soul’s essence is threatened or we perceive a threat physically, emotionally, or psychically, our consciousness will do what it must to survive. These crises of the soul may mean leaving our body behind to hold onto the physicality of the terrifying event. When we do not yet have the capacity or support to process a crisis, trauma splits us in two as a self-preserving measure. 

Crisis is derived from the Latin version of the Greek word krisis, which means turning point, critical moment or decision. However, its Western connotation aligns with a weakness or failure to overcome external forces. In modern culture, crisis is not seen as an opportunity, but a personal failing. Viewing crisis as a sign of weakness within the system generates a barrier toward change and perpetuates resistance to transformation. It has become a cultural norm to resist crisis and cave into the system that rules as opposed to welcoming its transformative power.

What if the external systems are the problem, and our transformation creates systemic transformation for many? I continue to witness and experience this truth: It only takes one person’s transformation to change a system.  

Edmond and I had a lot of opportunities to transform with five children under our care. In many cases, our children have been our greatest teachers. Some of the critical events ripped holes in what E and I had formed from the old materials that were insufficient. When we put it back together again, it was from something stronger that included our own healing. We were an excellent team most of the time, particularly in the last twelve or so years. 

For me, the day he died, the trauma was not his death. I was not there for that. I imagine his death was traumatic for him, and I am so sorry he was alone. I am grateful our friend and tenant at the office found him shortly after he died and made the appropriate calls. For me, it was traumatic to have him suddenly gone from this world without a whisper or hint before it occurred. My sense of belonging to another being was whisked away when he died that day.

I wonder if the trauma my two youngest experienced from the car is wrapped up in seeing their mother, and only living parent, drop to the ground and collapse in devastation among the ambulances and emergency personnel. They learned what happened in a kind of silent film from behind the windshield that shielded them from nothing. Did I create a wound in them with the only reaction available in that moment? I called my oldest child during his studio time, and he answered, somehow knowing the call was important. Did I hurt Jade in the midst of recording with the shocking news of his step-father’s death and again by asking him to call his other two sisters? Did I hurt Summer and Brigid (Cait) because I was not the one to tell them this horrible truth? I don’t know, and maybe none of us really know all the nuanced parts of this tragedy that create deep pain in us. 

Trauma and grief are specific and unique, impacting each of us like a one of a kind thumbprint.

Sometimes, when there was nothing at risk and no crisis at hand, and we were coasting in the bliss of no troubles, he would ask me, “Do you trust me?” Knowing full well my answer was yes, it was really another way of telling me he loved me no matter what. He knew how hard it was for me to step fully into trust without a Plan B.

Plan B was my backup plan for how I would do it all by myself in case the current situation did not come through, pan out, or failed entirely. He knew all the reasons it was hard for me, and how long I resisted interdependence. 

He was funny in a loving, accepting way when I told him early into our partnership, our financial merger, that I was not closing my bank account that I had opened after my divorce. He never flinched, and totally supported me. Most of the time, there was less than $500 in that account. But, it was money I would pass along to my three oldest children to help with life things. It was also my escape hatch, just in case. He knew it, and it was never required.

We used to have regular fusses because I would do things myself instead of asking for help. Asking had not occurred to me most of the time. It was not because I needed the thing done immediately or in a certain way. Not asking for help and being overly independent was a buried symptom that reared its head when I was afraid of believing our partnership was true. It was, at times, impossible for me to trust he was staying, would continue to show up, and he would do what he said he would do. It was not his pattern to break a promise. I was not responding to the truth of the present, but to the memory of the past that lived in my body. It was safer to take care of it myself so I did not feel hurt later.

Having a Plan B was like having an entire operating system running in the background. It was a hyper-vigilant energy-suck, and it was my normal for way too long. It was an exhausting way to live, but it was about safety. Breaking that Plan B down was tricky and took time and effort, and caused fights and misunderstandings. I resisted because I needed to be safe.

In fact, I had to find a way to heal these deep wounds without him. He was supportive, and this work was my own. He could not fix it, and in some cases he could not fully feel or understand it. Some of the symptoms that surfaced were not pretty, and hurt him or made him angry with me. At times, it brought us both to our knees. 

It became clear that I needed to leave home on a few occasions to do some intensive work and take care of business that had been stagnating for far too long. Mind you, I had been digging around these trauma symptoms that first appeared around the time I left for college. Over the course of thirty years, at various intervals, I took deep dives into personal work, and then surfaced to live that work, integrating the pieces and parts that came together. In the last six to seven years, I edged up to the worst of it.

The last time I went to work on these mysterious symptoms was with my friend Aly. In part because it was ripe and I had so much support, I cracked the whole thing open. I went into a tiny crack in my foundation, one that I was subtly aware existed. It lead to the darkest, most cavernous place that had been waiting for me in the shadows. Aly supported me in this intense work, and on the other side there was no need for a Plan B. 

Relinquishing my Plan B opened up more space than I could have ever imagined. The love coming to me from Edmond was so much wider and taller and brighter than anything I have ever felt before. And that love had been there all along. 

Trust me, if you do anything in this lifetime, come fully into relationship with yourself enough to know that you can heal these spaces that keep you isolated from love at full volume. Trust me, the hard work is worth it. More than that, take a risk on yourself. Trust yourself. 

I do not have a Plan B now. Un-transforming is not a thing. It isn’t even a word. Transformation entails a permanent and radical change from one form to another. Trusting fully in a world without Edmond is another realm of crisis and opportunity. It is the most painful and terrifying thing I have faced to date. 

Symptoms of old wounds do not always entirely disappear. I feel them hanging about and erupting at the most inconvenient times. When I call out to a man, my man, who has no voice box or body to respond, I suppose that is both trust and trauma tangled up together. I call out, and while he does not answer, someone does. Someone calls, texts, or shows up. I trust I am not alone. I am not with him, and I am not alone. Others are here with me. For now, that is the only plan.