My Dear John Letter (no.4)

Post #4

John is one of the most upstanding humans I know. 
A crazy talented artist, musician, photographer, being. Caring, smart, earnest, diligent and funny as hell.  
Big Catholic family, private school education, good wholesome values.
He’s “that guy”, you know the one who is still friends with everyone he ever went to grammar school with.
John’s a friend for life.

And John, is a real pain in the ass.

And it’s the pain in my ass part that makes me better. I can’t tell this story without getting political because, well that’s what John and I do. 
In more black and white terms, he’s swings right, when I swing left.
He’s conservative. I’m liberal.
He’s level headed & extremely well informed, while I tend to be more emotional, fighting for social justice, whether it’s economically feasible or not.
John and I go the rounds.  He’s one of the only people I can do with this with, partly because he is so level headed, but mostly because he truly knows what he’s talking about.

John makes me better because he helps me get out of my own way, opening my mind to ways of thinking about an issue that are out of my purview. Something my liberal friends, tossing around the same ol’ rhetoric, aren’t able to do.

With John, I feel safe. I can let it all out, whatever comes up, in the yuck and muck of it all, finding my way through. We crest beyond labels of the binary, you’re wrong and I’m right, moving into the complexity of intersectionality, love, loss, and what matters most, sometimes, often times magic unfolds.

Other times I fall down. 
A lot. Actually.
And I make repairs.

In those exasperating times, my defenses kick in, past traumas activated, I write him off and say something I later regret—my shadow side running the show. I’m offline, checked out.

It’s that part of me I don’t even want to admit exists, so I keep her tucked away, hidden, only for her to escape when I least expect it.   

You know that part, when we see it in others, and are quick to condemn, outwardly declaring, “that could never be me”.
So begins the shame spiral.  Next the beatings.
Just when compassion and kindness is needed the most.
 
We live in this disposable culture, so often when people don’t subscribe to the same way of thinking, beliefs or say just the right thing, we too often literally or figuratively discount, dismiss or just simply unfriend.

What happens when we get curious, ask questions, listen more than we speak? 
Or when we lean into those challenging conversations, when everything in us might say  “RUN!”
What is truly possible when we allow ourselves to be seen, be heard, get proverbially naked, allowing the light to shine on every flaw?
What if we got really comfortable with being uncomfortable? Embracing the yuck of being human with another human. 
We can choose to run, but conflict isn’t going anywhere. 
So, how might we engage with conflict in a way that is respectable, safe, even generative and peels back one another’s humanity?

I aspire to be more of a “John” for others, a calm container where all feelings are welcome.
And in my writing, I want to show up the way I show up with John—impassioned, utterly exposed, so incredibly flawed, unfiltered, less safe, unencumbered by the stepping on of toes, fierce and unapologetic.

John and I will likely never agree on healthcare, unconscious bias or climate change. We can agree, that tearing one another down will never get us collectively to where we want to go.