The Secret Garden

First of all, for being sick I sure seem to be doing a lot of writing eh? But when you are laying in bed with thoughts racing through your head it's hard not to release them. It's so much easier for me write all my racing thoughts down than to pick up the phone and call a friend. I am a bit of a hermit that way. I don't know why really. Perhaps it's the 'wall' that we put up, and perhaps mine is thicker due to circumstances I can't seem to overcome, that are always in the rear view mirror. But I was thinking about this today as I was drifting off to sleep for the 3rd time today....after I posted several of my poems, and thinking of my DH and our strange but entirely functional relationship. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song that has tapped into the female soul like no other man could. He said

She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you've come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

Those few words seem to sum up nearly every relationship I have ever had with a man. Well, let me rephrase that, every romantic relationship I have ever had with a man. There have been and still are men in my life, who know the deepest darkest parts of me...but I think for that reason they could never be lovers. Why is that?

I love my husband dearly. And at the time he came into my life, I was so fucked up that he represented everything missing in my life. Stability, sanity, security, love, devotion.....and I knew I would be safe with him for the rest of my life. I knew I could love him for the rest of my life. And I knew he would be a wonderful father. And he is. He is everything I knew that he would be.

So what's the point to this blog? The point is...he doesn't know me. Not really. He knows a portion of me. He knows the parts of me I allow him to see. But he doesn't know the darker parts of me or my past. And to be quite frank, he doesn't want to. And he has very little interest in my talents. Not because he is not proud of me, but because he doesn't understand them. I have heard him tell people on occasion that I am a 'good writer' or something along that lines. But never has he ever read a poem, story, line or quote that has been penned by my hand. He puffs up with pride when someone else brags on my work....yet he has no true interest in my work himself. Nor have I ever expected him to. He is a motor head kind of guy. The only thing he reads are tool catalogs and The Trader...why would I ever expect him to read a poem. He will tell you himself that he doesn't understand them and doesn't care to try. He isn't interested in art, although he will praise my drawing occasionally....but the thought of visiting a museum would equal a prostate exam to him.

Ok still rambling. The point I guess, is, that person I chose to spend my life with is someone I cannot share my soul with. My words are the pathway to that 'Secret Garden' that The Boss so eloquently sings of....and my words are for the most part meaningless to the man who loves me. How strange that I chose him. I chose safety, calm, quiet, simplicity over a man who would be passionate about the things pouring out of my heart onto empty pages....I chose a man who prefers the empty pages.....

I often wonder if I so fiercely guard my true self that I could never commit myself to someone who could truly see inside me. Perhaps that place is so dark that I don't dare allow a lover to experience it, for fear of misinterpretation and abandonment. Perhaps we all do that. The Boss wrote another song about that exact thing Brilliant Disguise. Oh and then there is the other musical legend Billy Joel who wrote The Stranger yeah....this is not a new phenomenon. Perhaps I am not alone in having chosen a lover who doesn't truly know the real me.....but I love his little redneck heart!

Well these are thoughts to ponder for the day anyway.