Dear Anita

These excerpts from your last post stood out to me and I will reflect on more and respond in the morning, when I can enter a more intensional space. I was curious to read your reply, but can only partially respond this evening (due to my Shakespeare Play obligations).

a real-life child throwing a temper tantrum in the supermarket, insisting that her mother buys her ice-cream right there and then, is driving the ship only if her mother rushes to buy her the ice cream so to quiet her down.

“It feels like hatchling is uncaged because she makes herself very known“- as does a child throwing a temper tantrum… only she doesn’t make herself known in the right context (home) where she remains unknown.

Hatchling did all she could to please her father because her father was her first priority. Hatchling needs to be your first priority, a higher priority to you now than your father is r ever was.

S, N.. is F’s choice for you…???

– I don’t know this for sure, but I think if I ended up with N, then F would be very accepting, he offers to pay for N’s ticket to come on family trips and he even lets us have our own room and space. It seems like he encourages the relationship, or maybe he IS just supporting it because he sees his daughter treated well… What I am saying is I fear making decisions out of what my dad wants, because it got me nowhere for so long and prevented me from actually discovering what I wanted and who I was. So when my dad supports the decision I think It makes me wonder why I want it, is it because I am still being controlled. by him? Or do I trust my own pull towards N.

– I didn’t consider until THIS very post that N may prefer the girl in the box, that maybe he has been discouraging (???) the girl in the box from coming out and that your choice of N is.. your father’s choice.

It is my fear that he won’t approve of the girl more outside of the box, because when we met, two years ago, I wasn’t as self aware as I am now. We spent saturday together this week and I actually spoke with him about this caged girl, I told him what the cages requirements were and how it held me from being truly feminine and curvy, and sensitive. He responded with something that counteracted my fear that he won’t also love the girl out of the cage. He recognized his own behavior of recommending modesty, particularly on stage at my play. I play a barmaid, and in the 1500s they are very boisterous and my top is low, he commented after the shower that I had a lot of “titty” showing, lol. It wasn’t a judgemental tone, it was more a concerned one and it made me pull up my shirt for performances after, I just immediately let him impact my behavior (just like I let F impact my behavior, so it gave me a familiar feeling and fear that N wanted me in the cage too). But then on Saturday when we spoke about the caged girl, he literally on his own brought up the top from the show, and after I told him my dad prevented me from showing curves in that cage, he said “Oh no I did that to you about your costume,” I really appreciated that he recognized that, then he followed it by saying “Do what you need to do baby, I trust your feelings” It caught be by surprise, but at the same time fell into his character well so that did help fight my fear of him wanting the caged girl.

The way I feel about N changes more than I want it to. Some days I don’t see how it will work, then other days, like today, I feel more optimistic. After finally getting a whole day alone yesterday I feel more supported by him. I realize that all this inner child work with hatchling was initiated because she has had a lot to say through this relationship, and he is actually the one who told me about the playhouse that I am at right now and encouraged me to sign up. So I think he does encourage me to leave that cage, but I think I am very afraid of coming out of the cage and not being accepted by him… Just as the uncaged girl was not accepted by F and put into the cage by him. It is like hatchling is coming out, and afraid another man will throw her back in. If I get the slightest sense of N doing this, a whole alarm system goes on in my nervous system.

I will respond more fully to both of your most recent replies in the morning, for now this is what immediately came to mind when I read part of your reply, but I only had about 30 minutes to type.

Sleep well!

Seaturtles