Here Are the Keys, You Own it Now!

Lifetimes of recovery and repair have built my life more quickly than I realized. Mountains of emotion that terrorize and challenge me each day. It has been a year since we began our journey into the depths of who we are, and I know there is still more to discover yet. Last year was about wandering around, fairly aimlessly, to find the answers which had always eluded me. I have my answers, so this year is about finding my voice and my footing.

After 5 years of feeling loss and lost, with a hyper-concentration on 2015, I can admit now I am sometimes sad. Not mad or scared. Sometimes I am just sunken in sadness. I have been afraid to show my sadness. But fear I can face, I just didn't know I was afraid of showing or being sad. To face a fear, you must first accept what is at the core of that fear. In this case it is sorrow.

I am sad I don't have a mother.

I am sad I don't have a father.

I am sad that 2 fathers had the opportunity to guide me and chose against me.

I am sad that I never, EVER gave my Nana the love she deserved. I am sad that I cannot change that.

I am sad that I was raped 4 times, by 4 different men, of 4 different ethnicities, in 4 areas of the country.

I am sad that I have been a person that has perpetuated conflict and manipulated for my own benefit.

I am sad I also manipulated myself.

I am sad that I did now know better.

I am sad that I thought everyone was like that or much better than me and so I must be hard, to protect myself.

I am sad this was my idea of love; being scared, sad, angry, forgiving when there was no apology.

I am not sorry for myself, or for the lessons that have come with sadness. I am not sorry for even my own mistakes, I know now the depth of which I hid my sorrow.

So, I am sad. I’m not depressed, or wallowing in sadness. I am discovering the purpose of sadness. I am affiliating myself with the box of sadness that my mother would never delve into, making her delve instead into madness and compulsive work habits to avoid facing the sorrow. She had a lot to be sad about, and instead of facing it she secretly wallowed in self-pity and put on her happy face for the world, her rigid and manipulative hat for family. I don’t know that she will ever know happy because she poisoned that which would bring her most joy. After years of giving love and pep talks and convincing her to live through another day, I get it because of my own trauma: there are days you melt into the floor, can rationalize every fault and pain into what you deserve and the only peaceful moment is when you consider unburdening your loved ones and freeing your broken heart. I have been there, sometimes I get there still, I don’t feel pity for her or for myself, but I do want to learn from her mistakes as she always wanted me to do. Maybe she will read this and be bitter at first, maybe she will beam with sorrowful pride for what she’s missing, but historically speaking she is most likely to retaliate and manipulate my words to make herself a victim, even further down the wrong rabbit hole. That’s ok, because I know my intentions in releasing my story to the world. I need to be free, I need to do something different than what she did. I need to try.

I’m wrong, if I include sadness in what I feel, I do feel sorry for her. I feel sorry that she is missing us, I feel sorry that she made irrevocable choices that will never allow trust to be reestablished. I am sorry she never saw me, ME. As I am. I’m sorry for every tortured touch that haunts her. I am sorry for her fumbling confusion in parenting. I am sorry for every pain, and I forgave all she could do long ago because I had to separate myself from her reactions knowing she was reacting to pain and not to me. She was always forgiven because I could feel her pain I understood it, but she is never to be trusted. And I am sad for the lack of trust that has molded my life into the fearful little box I put myself in to survive. I am sorry for her. I was a good daughter, and she will never get to reexperience time with me like that again. Her memory can only live on the way I allow it. So I tell my daughter when I am wrong and that I am sorry, I expose myself as a real and faulty person. I tell her how I don’t know yet know better, but I know there IS a better to learn and apply. I tell her why I don’t know better, because my Mama wasn’t the nicest, but she has good intentions in the beginning and was very hurt. I tell her “Hurt people, hurt people.” and she understands.

I also tell my daughter of the delightful moments between me and my mother that refuse to fade within my slipping memory. Times of chasing and tickles and giggles and what seemed like our secret world. I tell her of the bond I had and save the tale of maternal betrayal for another (much later) time. I tell her she is safe, important, worth loving, smart, creative, and deeply loved. I tell her that her beauty begins in her heart and is SO brilliant it beams out of her like rays of the sun. I tell her this through happy-sad tears that can only come in that moment of generational change, through gasps as I catch my breath from verbally running up this mountain of hope. I tell her that just because we experience pain doesn’t excuse us to be terrible people. I tell her how she teaches me to love myself, because how can I claim to love her so wholly without knowing that love from myself or maternally? My steps are varied, daily I must tell myself to turn to love, every opportunity. When I hate on myself, become love: when I break down, rise in love: when I cannot breathe, gasp in love: when I overreact, observe with love: when I can feel the anger or bitterness seeping in, bathe in love. Especially in anger, turning to love gives the anger a purpose and relatable message.

Do not misunderstand, this is no attack on the woman who birthed me. In another post I will explain the depths of our relationship, and elaborate on the way she used to light up when I came in the room and how all that changed without explanation. I will explain how terror filled me when i found out she was pregnant when I was 12 years old, and how the grief of our familial loss 7 months later forever changed our dynamic for the worse. Ultimately, she needed to pull herself up and keep herself in line but we tried to help her understand. I feel no remorse in bearing my experience to the world, and I feel no ill will for her current wellbeing. May she find something that acts as a balm to her fractured soul.

For now, for me, I carry the cure in my own heart. I am the balm, the salve, the seeks out cracks in my foundation to cleanse and fill me with love. Once again I will know my name, hear my voice, take my steps, lead with heart, free myself every day. I know I must undo myself to get myself together.

Writing is my salve, and I own my trespasses and the trespasses against me. I will tell the story even I am afraid to hear.

Until Later, Lovies. . .

M