Sometimes their music calls me out of the ship. Hypnotized, I
want to jump in the water and swim or change course and move toward that most compelling
music of the Sirens. The ethereal songs of love of the past that would draw me back
towards certain shipwreck, again onto the
Island of Narcissism. The old friends enchant by believing the false music
that I sang for so long. Somehow, they think that I cannot hear the beauty in
the delusions. They think I don’t know this seductive music. They think I must be killing
the music.
These people—attached to the carcass of who I became in
order to survive. These people—attached to the carcass of the projected false image. These people—attached to the unreal me—the ghost shell of a girl I
used to know well. These people do harm.
I must pass this island that wields my own self as weapon back at me. It is as
if I am fighting me—the mi who knows all my habits, my deep seated needs, my
fears—the self I became in order to survive does not want to fold on this hand
to the core me. My true neglected self must somehow regain strength. I remind
myself that embers can smolder a long time away from the fire. My true self, like a smoldering ember must hold onto its cold, almost snuffed self. Waiting. For itself, like a soul friend waits for another half to recognize its other half. Thus, I paradoxically journey and wait the
long way back to self, a pilgrim, a voyager, a friend paused on the way—moving and waiting for the me I am at my core—for the me
that almost was no more.
No, I cannot explain how one journeys and waits, at the same time, I just know it to be true, somehow. I know I am quite used to an external locus of control, so says one of my therapists. Perhaps that is where the waiting and journeying occur. I am journeying by waiting to round the corner on the island of the Sirens and be out of earshot where I am no longer at risk of being dashed against the rocks.
I must complete this odyssey. Therefore, on this passage, I have strapped myself to the mast and hope
everybody on deck has waxed their ears to ignore the wailing of the Sirens.
I worry when the therapeutic mast gets a little shaky and sways in the
wind. Is the mast sturdy enough? I worry when the mast doesn’t seem to take the
strapping to—seriously enough. I worry when the mast gets a little pissy because I have emailed too much in a week.
But the point is to escape the narcissist and his Sirens--to break from it all. I think that means I have to sail past alone, as they beckon me back to the traumatic familiar. I know I might die if I go back to the island. And I might die on this voyage, as well. But, nonetheless, somehow, I must find the courage to fight the haunting voices of the old me the Sirens sing of and journey on without that music. I must go it alone without accompaniment in order to find the new me. I must find the rhythm of my own haunting song and let it call me back to myself, for it will not dash me on the rocks.
