Hester says:
“...it is very difficult for you to feel loved and you are working very hard in order to battle the feeling of being bad.” Yes. It is difficult. I can see that I am but it does not really touch me. “But the feeling bad is your own feeling, from I to me, so it might not really help if others convince you that you are loved.” Yes that is also true. That is why the feeling loved from above does not really touch me. “Although I also wrote to you the other day that it might be your biggest challenge to get used to the idea that you are very much loved, whatever or however or whoever you appear to be. In a way this is a kind of surrender that is hard for you to make. But then, with surrender...: HOW [to do it]?” Now this is the main job for the rest of my life:
how to accept that it essentially does not matter whether others feel I am good or bad, silly or magnificent, lovely or stupid ...without becoming a complete cunt. It is always a mystery to me how to:
a) allow DESIRES and thoughts and fears and things said and done to arise and pass and fall away inconsequentially without getting too attached to them and developing shame and drama without failing to... b) take responsibility for and examine and learn from my carelessness and thoughtlessness and, at times, abusiveness [though I do not mean I am a monster; I simply mean the abuse of power in a relationship that many of us have been guilty of. Because if do a without b, then I become another old white man cruising through life careless of the damage he causes. And if I do b without a, I become caught in my own melodrama to nobody's benefit. The first time he stood at the door, it was as if the door itself grew in every direction, becoming a castle gateway furnitured with huge iron hinges. In the face of it, he himself shrank back into his schoolboy self, hair neatly parted on the left, grey socks held up just below the knee with garters carrying his identity on name tapes, innocent of any association they might have with the holding in place of a woman's stockings. Everything about him became at once functional and deferential and, opening the door, she almost overlooked him as he gazed up despairingly. But she smiled when she saw his face and recognised something there. Still, her recognition and her smile has something matronly about them and he flushed with a fury that he could not own at the awful iniquity, disparity - at the height she had acquired-the height he had conceded to her-when he had wanted to meet her face to face in glorious equanimity.
Again and again this happened. His incompetence seem constant over space and time and his incapacity seemed to install itself further with each encounter. Feeding into this pattern, came the unexpected sense of something possible. She seemed to like him. Once she kissed him, making him first swell then fall away again in terror. Once she invited him to go dancing and he fled to his room - hot tears running down his crimson cheeks. The possibility fed his yearning, but the yearning shrank always with him, tightening into the familiar nut of impossibility. And with each meeting an uncomfortable spiral developed: the belittling encounter feeding his own shame and sense of impossibility, while another voice cried out that it could not be all his fault for he had done nothing wrong. It must be she who was making him this way. Especially when he saw others walk comfortably through her door, or saw her laughing with her friends, his anger against her hardened. Much later he stood at another door. By now he had amassed money, made a name for himself, was able to fill his handsome leather boots. Standing at the door, he reminded himself of everything he had and everything he done. This time it was he who swelled unexpectedly, so that he had to duck as he entered. Suddenly things seemed easy as he rested his large hand on her hip to greet her and chatted comfortably of the things that he collected and owned. She seemed quite little and unalarming, except for the eyes, sometimes dull and sometimes flashing with a humour that he could not recognise. As old fears of incompetence arose, it seemed simplest to push through and demonstrate his capacity - first reaching unexpectedly around her from behind and cupping her breasts unbidden; later using his weight to hold her still while he explored her mysteries quite roughly. Like in the films. Taking what could be his. And tumbling out, for who should censor them now, came his wishes for how he would display and promenade her, offer her to others, have her as his pet, or fighting cat or ornament. Towards the end he stood at a third door, awash with new tears, naked; this time making himself his own display. Seeing clearly she could understand and forgive the other encounters, drop the sense of outrage and righteousness that arose, and meet him like one seeking redemption. And they could grow in stature to meet each other. But always he would carry the memory of his own incompetence and she the memory of her disappointment and her violation at his hands. And always that catch at the back of the mind: must I endure all this?
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