I woke with a huge smile, stomach fluttery and my heart full. I woke up from the most beautiful dream. I was walking toward a beautiful woman, with long flowing hair, with her back to me. She turns to me and a gentle smile spreads across her face. Her eyes pierce into mine. I felt a squeeze of my hand and I look down at a tiny girl, an almost exact duplicate of the woman minus two small dimples on her cheeks, those were like mine. She said to me, "we waited for you..." and the three of us walked into a clearing in a cedar and pine forest. I was happy.
Without getting too philosophical, what is happiness? When my world shattered around me and the only thing keeping me from spiraling was to lay on the ground staring at the ceiling, I asked myself this question over and over again. It's a seemingly impossible task to define this concept especially when you feel like you aren't going to be the same person you were with the love of your life. As the whirlwind of memories and echoes spun faster than the ceiling fan above me, I realized that I have no idea who I am. And that realization broke me even more.
The reality in that moment was registering that I was happy with her. Then the spirals begin and you swirl around and around on what went wrong. It's a cycle, a rut that that gets more challenging to break away from as you dig yourself deeper and deeper. I spent most of my adult life in love with someone that I felt completed me. I didn't value me like I should have. And a memory intrudes with her telling you that she wasn't happy with how you stopped trying to break out of the rut that our relationship turned into. The barriers were time and money but the reality was that there was depression to deal with too. The feeling that those challenges were just too much to fight and the only logical way to preserve oneself was to remain still and silent. Pretty much like I am in this moment here, staring at my ceiling, motionless with the world spinning me.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes were dark and almost empty. I studied the rest of my face and it dawned on me that this may have been the first time in a long time that I actually looked at myself. One of the last times, I thought, was for art class when we had to make several self portraits and studying our face was mandatory. While I contemplated why I stopped looking at myself in the mirror on a regular basis, I could close my eyes and see her face as if she were right there in front of me...
And then one day, the world comes to a halt. Everyone is at home alone or with the few people they reside with but the reality of spending so much time isolated with your loved ones begin to create fractures in so many peoples love for others. I remember seeing that divorce rates skyrocketed in those first few months of the pandemic. Day in and day out, I was stuck in my own head. Outside of the few hours a day that were dedicated to working two feet away from my bed, I was alone with my thoughts. Yes, I had my roommates but even then, that was only for an hour or two a day at most. I had people to connect with on social media or through text but it truly did suck. As someone who would describe himself as an introvert, I wasn't aware of how much I relied on the folks around me for basic livability. So what does a lonely person do in the middle of trying to survive a pandemic? Create a TikTok account of course!
Month after month of a routine that involved moving only a few dozen yards a day was draining. With some folks reaching out here and there, me doing the same and the hope that this was going to end soon so that we can be free. The hope that we can be with others again just never fully came without a fear that you might be the reason that someone doesn't survive a deadly virus. Searching for positivity that was contagious, but not not deadly, was a must with my TikTok needs. And I found that. There were so many Natives on an app that actually had exposure to a large audience, sharing peaceful videos of peoples reservations, culture, languages, stories, histories, showing people healing from trauma or working on goals with strangers while just wanting to see others achieve what they set their minds to.
Then there were the videos about love. People watching their neighbors from the apartment balconies as they recorded dance videos or skits, waiting to work up the courage to say something to that other person. For me, who was coming out of yet another heartbreak that was debilitating, watched with yearning. I was told that what was meant to be will be. I was told that they were there for me. I was told that they wanted to be with me. I was told that they loved me. As tears rolled down my cheeks, I watched other people fall in love. I cried happy tears for them finding something beautiful and sad tears for me, still trying to figure things out. Then one day, I scrolled through and I found an amazing woman with such a cheerful and pure spirit. She was navigating being lonely and was sharing her stories for anyone who would listen. A video that she made as she was trying to go on dates and meet new people was a real awakening. She said, "I want to be someones hell yes, not someones, maybe." I broke down.
I knew that for at least a decade, I have been waiting for someone who would choose me and at the same time, I wasn't choosing me. I would change and pretty much compromise parts of myself to meet my partners needs. I would sacrifice bits and pieces of myself to make them happy. And in return, that would make me happy as well, but it was only temporary. So when my eyes cleared up, I opened up a note on my phone and typed the list below:
What makes Chris happy?
I want to be someones "hell yes!"
I want to be heard
I want to be understood
I want to be safe
I want to be challenged
I want balance
I want to be inspired
I want to be reckless, maybe within reason
I want to live to the fullest
I need communication
I need affection
I need quality time
I need laughter, silliness and fun
I need a complementary person to my personality
I need trust
I need silence once in a while
Confidence is attractive to me
I don't need to control anything, we should share responsibilities
Appreciation of my interests and hobbies
Just enjoy Taco Bell with me! (I know its not Mexican food, appreciate it for what it is. It's crap, but it's crap we can share once in awhile)
Someone who can appreciate my mind and learn from me but wants to teach me things too
Patience. I don't always move in expected ways
Respect my past, I have loved before...
All the time laying out on the stiff carpet waiting for I don't know what, rushed in when I heard those first words. I finally knew what I thought would make me happy. I want someone to look at me how I looked at the ones I loved with all my heart. No hesitation. Even with this newfound clarity, I was still saddened by my reality. It's such a struggle to break away from all these things that just keep reappearing like spectres. My basic wants came to the surface: being heard, being understood, and being safe with someone else. In my relationships, I felt like I had to fight to be heard in some of the simplest moments and therefore never felt fully understood. And then to be safe. From an early age I had to deal with abandonment, fear, loneliness, and like I was always fighting to survive. So safety with someone who heard and understood me like so few have been able to show, was/is an essential.
What is it to be challenged? I learned that I enjoy being able to grow and that my partners always helped me do that, so I wanted to keep that in my "happy list." There were times when I convinced myself that I couldn't do something but the love of my life encouraged me that I could, with kindness and gentles words and sometimes with a proverbial kick in the ass. And on my own (and maybe too much later than they could handle), I achieved those some of those things. Balance has so many layers to it. It can be a "little bit of this" and a "little bit of that" but it is an understanding between the two of you that there is some "give" and then some "take." Inspiration is such a beautiful thing when you look into the depths of someones eyes and they believe in you. Inspiration is when you can list out what you want to do and your own mind says, "hell yes, do that shit."
Love is reckless, wild and in a lot of ways, the reason why we all are here. Love is like getting thrown out of a plane even though you are terrified of heights. But with your person holding your hand, you could do. Love is jumping in a car and driving hundreds of miles because you want them in your arms. Love is waking up at 2 am to listen to their deepest thoughts because they can't sleep and all you need to do is hold them. Love is only having a single dollar in your account but still wanting to give the world to them. Love is reckless and it is worth all the other struggles we experience in this short life.
I also understood the things that I desired deep down: communication, affection and quality time. In too many instances, I was faced with the absence of affection, all based off the different levels of abandonment that I encountered at various points in my life. My mom would hold me as ran to her crying in the night and we both reminisced on how much we missed our mothers. Decades later as I held the love of my life, I never wanted to let go. I wanted to hold you forever if I could. And then when time was the enemy, I fought for as much time as we could get together. It became about making the most out of the little time we could have together. It was you and I against time and the time machine was our embrace.
But beyond that, we could laugh together at silly things. We could find just the goofiest things to bring us both joy and I wanted that back. Life is too short to not have fun, to be silly with that person you feel the safest with. We don't have to be the same but we do have to complement each other in a special way. I know my strengths and you know yours and when we unite, we move together; right wheel and left wheel moving as a team. Trusting each other to move in unison to get where we want to go. And then there is silence. In contrast to openness, there is stillness and silence. A look, a gaze, that locking of eyes that I mention over and over again, should be able to communicate just as much as a full novel. To sit in the silence together is something so special. There is gravity holding us together but gravity doesn't have to make a noise.
I have been learning the power of confidence. So many women look for confidence in their partner. I have learned that because of societal norms, it is not something that women are encouraged to embody until very recently. Women are often taught to be docile and to cater to a man's needs. I wasn't raised the same way. I know that I have strength as an Indigenous man but I also know that my partner has strength of her own. I am attracted to women that will take what she wants, even if she is afraid to do that because as a man, I don't need to wear the pants in the relationship.
Quality time is important and comes in many forms to me. Maybe that is sitting down and watching Lord of the Rings or Star Wars for the millionth time. Maybe it is doing an art project together. Maybe it is cracking open a Lego set and building something super cool and intricate together. I will watch whatever show or movie you are obsessed with but I am a person with my own interests too. Maybe, just maybe it is trying something new together like sky diving or something less risky like getting crunchwraps from Taco Bell together. You don't have to run with me but we should go explore some trails together. I have been shut down too many times and I often hold back on how much I know but I can share everything that I have learned, from books, school and people because at the same time, I want to learn from you. Tell me anything, I will listen, even at 2 and 3am. I will hear you and I will do my absolute best to understand you to your core. Just because I run a lot or multitask too often, doesn't mean that I always move with speed. Sometimes I reflect too much and too deeply. Sometimes I get so deep within myself that I cannot recognize time is passing and you need an answer. Be gracious with me because I will give you all the grace you never even knew you needed.
So many people are so quick sometimes to cut people out of their life. My mother left me as a child and then later passed away when I was a teenager, does that mean I forget her? I had friends who moved away and I never heard from them again. Does that mean that they weren’t my friend? Do I just forget the memories that we shared? Your answer is mostly likely, “of course not. They were a part of your life.” Now think about an ex of yours. Does the same rule apply? Most of the time, we are expected to forget them when you are no longer with them. You are supposed to forget everything about them even the details of their face. I need you to understand that I have loved with all my heart before. I have learned and grown but those people who are not a part of my anymore will always live within me. I will still remember them; their smile, their eyes, their voice, and their face. Even though those faces are not as clear as is used to be, I can still see them when I close my eyes and bring them forward.
In my dream, Happy Chris was asked to dance, he was accepted, he was loved passionately and fully, and he was complete. Through all the fear, through all the heartbreak, Chris is finding himself finally. Happy Chris is manifesting
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