I remember the movie "Frozen" coming out. I had friends go to see it in the theater and raving about what a great "sister movie" it was. It was Disney. It was hype. We all love Disney movies! Disney knows how to make a movie, but gosh, I've done Disney. It was just another Disney movie, right?
Well then I watched it with my kids.....and the song "Let it go" played. I felt waaaaaay embarrassed for choking up while it played. I identified with it so much. I felt so silly for being so deeply moved by the words, but I cannot help myself.
I am listening to it right now and tearing up.....like a lot. In fact, I've listened to it like 8 times today, and our neighbors are probably TIRED of my vocal rendition.
So I could go into a cheesy diatribe of the parallels that exist between Elsa and myself.....okay, forget it. That's exactly what I'm going to do.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent my young years caring for my younger siblings. I felt an incredible weight to be the example that they needed and to meet absolutely every expectation that my parents held for me. My failures were crushing to me absolutely every time I experienced one. I was sure that the scope of my shortcomings was very far reaching - that my little brother and sister were going to fall short in life because of my poor example or worse.....that I would break my parents' hearts and make them feel like they had wasted the work of their hearts and souls in raising me.
I carried this weight on into adulthood. I felt like walking a very tightly drawn line was exactly what it took to please everyone and show them my appreciation for who they were. I did this in every area of my life. I tried so hard to be.......that perfect girl....the one that everyone could look up to.
The sad part is that I was largely successful. I kept a smile on my face while I watched my brother and sister while everyone else was out pursuing "selfish" degrees that only promoted their personal dreams (such a warped perspective, huh). I helped around the house. I even helped pay a few things when it got tight for my parents. I never gave them reason to worry about anything that I was doing. I adopted every perspective they had for my life - even when that wasn't a requirement of theirs. I made it to my wedding day only mildly touched by sexual indiscretion. I married the son of our pastor - the American hero - pro baseball player turned Marine. We made a very quintessential looking church going American couple who then gave birth to a very perfect little baby. I did crafts. I cooked things. I headed up ministries at our church, and, if there was a vacant spot in the song service, the powers that be knew that I could belt out whatever they asked. Things were.....perfect.....until they weren't.
I had created a pedestal for myself built from the stuff of arrogance. I was so afraid of making a mistake that would hurt someone and so completely sure that my life of good behavior was going to exempt me from damage that I stuffed myself into the box of what other people expected. Then life happened. I have a lot of anger for mistreatment that I received from MULTIPLE people, but I have learned (or I'm learning) to be thankful for that. When you are mistreated, it bothers you because you reach the realization that you are now living in a box.....but not a box of YOUR design. It is one fashioned by someone else. Someone who does not dwell in the depths of your soul. Someone on the outside. When the realization struck me that I was trapped, I still had left enough righteous indignation that I broke out.
Let me tell you. The breaking out is not easy. Think about a literal breaking out of a box. You will get scraped up. You will get bruised. You may even......break....but you're gonna get out of that box because you know that you should not be there. The intent of the one or ones who put you in that box is not to watch you grow - it's to keep you from growing. The really humbling thing is when you learn that you were the one who handed these powers the hammer and nails and planks of wood....and that you even drove a few nails all on your own.
Since I first broke out of my "box", I have felt more weights at certain points - limits. I discovered that, though I had broken open the confines that had existed, I was still carrying around the pieces completely by my own choice. I would have moments where I would feel really strong and set these pieces down so I could flex the bulging muscles of my spirit to anyone that would look, but as soon as I was done, I would pick some of those pieces right back up again and lug them with me through the journey of my human life.
It is only very, very recently that I have decided that my arms are too tired for that. They are strong now, and to carry these pieces around with my any longer - to choose to bear the weight of other people's expectations - is.....a....waste.
I guess right now I don't yet feel like I'm walking in my journey. I sort of feel like I'm sitting down on a comfortable bench. I have set most of these figurative planks down at my side, and I'm kind of just holding a few nails these days. What am I going to do with those nails now? I'm going to build something new, but this time it's not going to be a box, and it's also not going to be a pedestal. Neither one of those worked for me. I'm going to build something else.....something that comes from the inside of me.
That may sound even more arrogant than my initial thoughts of building my past fixtures, but no. It's not. I was created to be THIS girl.....with no limits. I have been given life and breath to live a life of abundance and opportunities, and I have been given examples of love so I would have the right fuel. I have been given dreams of my very own in this brain and this soul.
It can be very cold in the world of pursuing what the true design of your life actually has for you. You end up pushing very far away the erectors of the box you used to occupy or of the pedestal atop which you sat. People judge you for making your own choices....every day, but let me tell you this if you ever thought of me as a "strong" person. I have learned how to travel my own path and ask for direction from those that truly care for my soul. I have learned how much I can take. I have learned how to battle through insurmountable things. I have learned how to stay alive in the "cold" of this world, and I have learned......
.....the cold never bothered me anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
The norm
I am making an effort to write with much more regularity than I have in the past. This means that some days I write for the sake of writing rather than waiting to be inspired with a theme. So today, I will just recount the journey of today.
We keep strange hours. Dan is a night owl as am I. We usually go to bed around 3 a.m. This means that we also rise after our bodies have fulfilled their need of rest. This is probably one of the healthiest things I have done for my physical body in a long, long while. I cannot even begin to address in this post the amount of distress I experienced at my years long battle with an inability to sleep. So sleep feels good. It's still strange to me to wake and think right off "Oh I'm still so sleepy" only to realize that I am not - that I am ready to face the day.
So on this day, I woke up at about 11:30 after going to sleep around 4. I got out of bed and went to the living room to scoop up my phone and see what was happening in the world of social networking. It was then that I saw comments from people requesting to have the address for this blog. Because I address things here and express things here so transparently, I prefer inviting people to look at it rather than just vomiting the address on everyone's newsfeed. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of response. I wasn't inundated with scores of requests. I got a few, but some of them were from people who surprised me at their curiosity in regards to what my journey is right now.
Writing is cathartic for me. There is something scientifically founded about what it does for the mind to remove from that thoughtful cage the feelings that want so desperately to be freed. I have wondered, though, why do I blog it? What gratification does it offer me to post this semi-publicly?
When you go through something that scares you or hurts or leaves a scar of any kind, the pervading fear through all of that is that you are......alone. There are moments when humans enjoy solitude - some much more frequently than others, but not a single one of us enjoys feeling ostracized or exiled as the result of something that was not our fault. We experience things that leave damage, and our first thought is, at least a lot of times, that we will no longer be accepted because of our scars. We feel almost sure that they are ugly to others - unbearable to view - offensive.
There is something that I have learned in being in the beauty industry for almost a decade. There is no such thing as ugly. Skin can be evened out. Zits or marks can be covered. Eyes that one feels are too little can be made to look larger or cheekbones cushioned by more flesh than you'd like can be given a light dust of color to make them shine in all the glory you wished they'd have. You don't put a paper bag over your face. You don't hide. You find a way to present things about yourself that you very well may HATE, and you normalize them. You reveal slight parts of yourself to every observer to a level at which you feel comfortable. As you do this, you feel confident in your new appearance, but at the same time, you see the lack of necessity to do this. You realize that people aren't looking at the blush on your cheeks. They're looking at your dimples. They aren't looking at the shadows or contours on your eyelids. They're looking at the sparkle. They stop complimenting your lipstick, and they tell you instead how much they love your smile. You create a slight veil so you feel accepted.....and then you find yourself willing to make that veil lighter and lighter. Your mind reaches a point with those that you have learned to trust that your "blemishes" are okay. They reveal to you that they have the same ones. The things which you once hated because you were sure they would separate you from everyone become........normal.
That is what I am doing here. I have felt for so long that my scars were all that showed. I put on a THICK veil of personality and endless work, but the scars poked through. I would let certain feelings or sentiments slip through my teeth and then immediately regret it. I was found out. I had gone that moment with no cosmetic for the blemishes of my soul. I stopped being as normal as everyone who didn't openly bear their scars.
The jury is still out in my mind as to what people's opinions will be of me after I share such raw details. At this point, I have stopped caring because I HAVE to share these things for a couple reasons.
1. These things really happened to me. They shaped me. They made me who I am. They equipped me with wonderful tools or robbed from me the very same thing. If you cannot accept me in my angriest, most bitter state, then we are not friends, and you've got a lot to learn. Life will one day hit you in the face. Your turn will come. I hope that you don't erect too high of a pedestal for yourself because that's a long way to fall, but, when you do, come find me. We'll slop through your trenches together.
2. I am not the only one to whom these tragedies have happened. I want to normalize them. I want to use words with stigma like "rape" and "abuse" and "blood" and "anger". I want to use words that make people wince. They have to stop making people wince because there are our brothers and sisters in this world of humanity that need to know they have a safe place, but they won't seek it out because they are afraid to see someone wince at the ugliness of their scars.
3. I want to help. I want nothing more than for my thoughts here and the progress that I may or may not experience to offer you strength or at least a cautionary tale of what not to do. I don't want to waste a split second of what I have lived because it is just that - it is my life. I get ONE. This one. This is it, so let's use it up.
Thank you for every person that has chosen to read these usually very disjointed posts. You are making me feel accepted. You are letting me express things that had burrowed their biting mouths into my soul for a very, very long time. You are offering acceptance to the whole world of us that are hurting. You are doing something bigger.
Thank you.
We keep strange hours. Dan is a night owl as am I. We usually go to bed around 3 a.m. This means that we also rise after our bodies have fulfilled their need of rest. This is probably one of the healthiest things I have done for my physical body in a long, long while. I cannot even begin to address in this post the amount of distress I experienced at my years long battle with an inability to sleep. So sleep feels good. It's still strange to me to wake and think right off "Oh I'm still so sleepy" only to realize that I am not - that I am ready to face the day.
So on this day, I woke up at about 11:30 after going to sleep around 4. I got out of bed and went to the living room to scoop up my phone and see what was happening in the world of social networking. It was then that I saw comments from people requesting to have the address for this blog. Because I address things here and express things here so transparently, I prefer inviting people to look at it rather than just vomiting the address on everyone's newsfeed. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of response. I wasn't inundated with scores of requests. I got a few, but some of them were from people who surprised me at their curiosity in regards to what my journey is right now.
Writing is cathartic for me. There is something scientifically founded about what it does for the mind to remove from that thoughtful cage the feelings that want so desperately to be freed. I have wondered, though, why do I blog it? What gratification does it offer me to post this semi-publicly?
When you go through something that scares you or hurts or leaves a scar of any kind, the pervading fear through all of that is that you are......alone. There are moments when humans enjoy solitude - some much more frequently than others, but not a single one of us enjoys feeling ostracized or exiled as the result of something that was not our fault. We experience things that leave damage, and our first thought is, at least a lot of times, that we will no longer be accepted because of our scars. We feel almost sure that they are ugly to others - unbearable to view - offensive.
There is something that I have learned in being in the beauty industry for almost a decade. There is no such thing as ugly. Skin can be evened out. Zits or marks can be covered. Eyes that one feels are too little can be made to look larger or cheekbones cushioned by more flesh than you'd like can be given a light dust of color to make them shine in all the glory you wished they'd have. You don't put a paper bag over your face. You don't hide. You find a way to present things about yourself that you very well may HATE, and you normalize them. You reveal slight parts of yourself to every observer to a level at which you feel comfortable. As you do this, you feel confident in your new appearance, but at the same time, you see the lack of necessity to do this. You realize that people aren't looking at the blush on your cheeks. They're looking at your dimples. They aren't looking at the shadows or contours on your eyelids. They're looking at the sparkle. They stop complimenting your lipstick, and they tell you instead how much they love your smile. You create a slight veil so you feel accepted.....and then you find yourself willing to make that veil lighter and lighter. Your mind reaches a point with those that you have learned to trust that your "blemishes" are okay. They reveal to you that they have the same ones. The things which you once hated because you were sure they would separate you from everyone become........normal.
That is what I am doing here. I have felt for so long that my scars were all that showed. I put on a THICK veil of personality and endless work, but the scars poked through. I would let certain feelings or sentiments slip through my teeth and then immediately regret it. I was found out. I had gone that moment with no cosmetic for the blemishes of my soul. I stopped being as normal as everyone who didn't openly bear their scars.
The jury is still out in my mind as to what people's opinions will be of me after I share such raw details. At this point, I have stopped caring because I HAVE to share these things for a couple reasons.
1. These things really happened to me. They shaped me. They made me who I am. They equipped me with wonderful tools or robbed from me the very same thing. If you cannot accept me in my angriest, most bitter state, then we are not friends, and you've got a lot to learn. Life will one day hit you in the face. Your turn will come. I hope that you don't erect too high of a pedestal for yourself because that's a long way to fall, but, when you do, come find me. We'll slop through your trenches together.
2. I am not the only one to whom these tragedies have happened. I want to normalize them. I want to use words with stigma like "rape" and "abuse" and "blood" and "anger". I want to use words that make people wince. They have to stop making people wince because there are our brothers and sisters in this world of humanity that need to know they have a safe place, but they won't seek it out because they are afraid to see someone wince at the ugliness of their scars.
3. I want to help. I want nothing more than for my thoughts here and the progress that I may or may not experience to offer you strength or at least a cautionary tale of what not to do. I don't want to waste a split second of what I have lived because it is just that - it is my life. I get ONE. This one. This is it, so let's use it up.
Thank you for every person that has chosen to read these usually very disjointed posts. You are making me feel accepted. You are letting me express things that had burrowed their biting mouths into my soul for a very, very long time. You are offering acceptance to the whole world of us that are hurting. You are doing something bigger.
Thank you.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
What would my dad do
I think I was a daddy's girl from the moment I entered the world. He was the strongest man I knew. His smile was the most handsome. He was always the funniest person in the room. He could do anything.....and I was his princess.
When I was a little girl, he would take my fingers and bend my wrist and kiss my hand. He did this so many times that I began to just go up to him with my hand extended for him to kiss it. He would smile his big dimpled smile and giggle but he would kiss it every single time.
My dad was DEFINITELY not a perfect parent. At the beginning of my life, my dad could hold a job about as well as you can hold air in your hand, so......not well. He was involved with terrible people as his friends. He made impulsive decisions regarding my parents' finances. He was a logistical train wreck, but that's not what I remember. I just remember love. I remember the kisses on the hand and on my cheek. I remember the laughter. I remember the strength.
My Nannie tells the story that her second born was "such a good baby". You could just sit him in the floor, and he wouldn't fuss or get into trouble. He would just stay right where you put him. When he was 18 months old, they discovered that his docile nature was actually because he couldn't see beyond his own nose to even explore anything. I also heard the story that, after my grandparents got his glasses, that my Grandpa John was holding him, and that baby boy just stared at his daddy - exploring every inch of his face. He reached up and touched all over that face. He was literally seeing it for the first time, and matching a face with the voice he'd heard all that time left him in a state nothing short of wonder.
My grandfather was not a warm parent to my dad and his older brother when they were little. Kind of absentee, but he would still take the boys on fishing trips or on errands and whatnot. Sometimes my dad would go on fishing trips just the two of them, and my Grandpa John would sing "Oh Danny Boy" to HIS Danny boy. Then came 2nd grade for my dad. The public school system in Arkansas started giving IQ tests to lower elementary school students. His family's financial limitations did not leave my dad with very updated glasses prescriptions. They had to drive from Forrest City, Arkansas to Memphis to get him glasses, and the glasses and the trips were a lot for their wallets to bear. My dad could not see well the questions on the IQ test, so the answers that he wrote earned him a qualification that he brought home to show his parents. "idiot". He was declared by the public school system of Arkansas in 1965 to be "an idiot". The fishing trips abruptly ended. The fun errands into town ended. Any shreds of affection that existed ended.....and my Grandpa John gave my dad a new name. No longer was he "Danny". From that day forward on into his adult life, when my Grandpa John would call my dad by his new name....."Dummy". "Git over here, Dummy!" "Go put that away, Dummy." "Go feed the dogs, Dummy". That was his new name.
The abuse my dad endured after that test in 2nd grade is beyond what I can imagine doing to a child. My dad was routinely beaten (not spanked - beaten). When he was 11, he committed a fairly minor infraction. The punishment for this was being locked in his room - for a year. My dad was allowed to leave his room to use the bathroom and to go to school and to do his chores on their property. When these tasks were complete, he was sent to his room....alone....away from his siblings....with the door locked.....for an entire year. He was given his meals to eat on his bed while everyone else ate their meals together at the table on the other side of the same wall. He would just lay in bed alone for hours and hours. To pass the time, he got ahold of a record. It was a recording of the opera Madame Butterfly. This musical enjoyment would not have been allowed to him, and he knew that, so his 11 year old self gathered materials and figured out how to build a headset - earphones - to connect to the record player he had. No one had taught him how to make something like that. He just looked around at what he had and fashioned something to meet the need he had. He needed to listen to Madame Butterfly. That was his escape. He would lay in bed, night after night, with tears streaming down his face and listen to the silken voices belt out the music.
Things got so much worse. The older my dad got, the more severe the abuse got. I even had a conversation a couple years ago with one of my uncles just to fact check, and I realized my dad had been very conservative in describing the things that happened. Beatings on the back or the back of the legs became punches to the face. There was blood. There were bruises. There were things that couldn't be hidden. There was an incident where my grandfather grabbed my dad by the neck and shoved him up against a wall. He was choking him. Just as his vision began to narrow and go black, my Nannie screamed out "JOHN STOP!!!! You're gonna KILL HIM!!!!". He released his grip, and my dad could breathe again. I asked my dad once why he didn't ever punch back when these things would occur. His answer "Because I was bigger than he was, and I knew I could kill him. I didn't want to hurt him." I just thought "What?! Why would you CARE to not hurt someone that repeatedly damaged you?!" I never asked the question because I knew the answer - he loved him.
My whole childhood I knew that my Grandpa John had been horrible to my dad. I never remember my dad saying anything disparaging about his own father, but, though I did not know all the ugly truths until I was older, things must have come up in my parents' conversations that left me with that conclusion. One day, when visiting my grandfather, I actually asked him, very matter of factly "So how come you used to always beat my dad?" I wasn't being combative or bratty. I was just confused. I guess I figured I'd just get it straight from the horse's mouth.
I will never forget the day that my grandfather died. My dad sat in the chair in his office and sobbed like a little kid. It was so weird to me. I had the thought again "Why are you sad?! Aren't you relieved? That jerk can't ever hurt you or anyone else again.", but it didn't matter. My dad had lost his daddy. He loved him. He had forgiven him, and he was going to miss him. He WAS sad.
I don't know the exact moment that forgiveness happened, but I do know this. After I was adult, my dad told me a story.
When I was in first grade, my mother had begun to have debilitating panic attacks while my brother and I were at school. My dad immediately found a therapy program for her. At one of her appointments, my dad sat in and started asking questions in regard to his own life. The therapist finished the conversation with my mom and then gave my dad some instructions. She told him to go home and write a letter to "Little Danny" and to tell him that he was safe - that "Big Danny" was a big strong man now, and he knew that "Little Danny" was being hurt but that he wasn't going to let it happen ever again. He was going to protect "Little Danny" from John no matter what. He was safe forever.
Sitting in my dad's office (which we shared together for the business we had), he told me that when he finished writing the letter, he looked down at the paper and noticed something startling.....his handwriting was not the handwriting he used as an adult. He had literally channeled his 11 year old self to the point that his hand wrote each letter in the note as he would have penned it as an 11 year old child. His healing began at that point. He had halted the damage of the abuse from that moment until the end of his life. The abuse itself didn't end until the day my grandfather died, but the damage ceased. My dad spent the rest of his life successfully protecting "Little Danny".
In the therapy of unearthing all of this trauma I have experienced in my life, I am having many conversations - talking out absolutely everything. Last night I broke down crying on Dan's shoulder over something that I'm dealing with, and I felt these words spill out of my lips, "I just miss my dad. He would know what to tell me to do. He would know what to say, and I don't get to ask him because he isn't here."
We spent the next 3 hours talking about what my dad did with his pain. He didn't deny it. He acknowledged within himself and to a select few the severity of the pain he had endured. His pain was greater than mine. I was never abused by a parent that should innately love me. He lived that pain every single day of his life, but he stopped letting it cripple him. He forgave. He loved.
I am making my best effort at bullying past all my pain - all my injustices. Whatever I'm doing is not working. I am at a loss. I have a few answers, but I'm still at the stage of unearthing a lot of things that I have repressed. I find myself in moments that should be nothing but happy getting lost in "old ghosts" as I call them to Dan. I have some reminder or revelation of traumas or depths of traumas that I hadn't ever realized before. They are rearing their ugly heads and stealing from me still. I don't know what to do with them.
Normally in my posts, I reach some sort of epiphany about the greater meaning of my writings, and I share that in my best poetic voice. Today I am not able to do that. I have no idea what my journey of healing is going to look like. I am at the beginning. I am at a place where I don't even know what to call certain things. They don't have names, some of them. I just know they were off. I am actively seeking help to sort through all of this, but I feel myself becoming very private. By nature I am an over-sharer, but at this time of my life, I feel like holding my soul very close to my chest. I arch my shoulders over it to protect it in its battered state. That's all I have right now is the instinct to protect and defend.
I look at myself in the mirror, and I wonder what I will look like in a year or two years or five. I wonder how many more lines will trace around my eyes or how much of the light of happiness will ever return to them. Right now they look a bit vacant to me.
More later.
When I was a little girl, he would take my fingers and bend my wrist and kiss my hand. He did this so many times that I began to just go up to him with my hand extended for him to kiss it. He would smile his big dimpled smile and giggle but he would kiss it every single time.
My dad was DEFINITELY not a perfect parent. At the beginning of my life, my dad could hold a job about as well as you can hold air in your hand, so......not well. He was involved with terrible people as his friends. He made impulsive decisions regarding my parents' finances. He was a logistical train wreck, but that's not what I remember. I just remember love. I remember the kisses on the hand and on my cheek. I remember the laughter. I remember the strength.
My Nannie tells the story that her second born was "such a good baby". You could just sit him in the floor, and he wouldn't fuss or get into trouble. He would just stay right where you put him. When he was 18 months old, they discovered that his docile nature was actually because he couldn't see beyond his own nose to even explore anything. I also heard the story that, after my grandparents got his glasses, that my Grandpa John was holding him, and that baby boy just stared at his daddy - exploring every inch of his face. He reached up and touched all over that face. He was literally seeing it for the first time, and matching a face with the voice he'd heard all that time left him in a state nothing short of wonder.
My grandfather was not a warm parent to my dad and his older brother when they were little. Kind of absentee, but he would still take the boys on fishing trips or on errands and whatnot. Sometimes my dad would go on fishing trips just the two of them, and my Grandpa John would sing "Oh Danny Boy" to HIS Danny boy. Then came 2nd grade for my dad. The public school system in Arkansas started giving IQ tests to lower elementary school students. His family's financial limitations did not leave my dad with very updated glasses prescriptions. They had to drive from Forrest City, Arkansas to Memphis to get him glasses, and the glasses and the trips were a lot for their wallets to bear. My dad could not see well the questions on the IQ test, so the answers that he wrote earned him a qualification that he brought home to show his parents. "idiot". He was declared by the public school system of Arkansas in 1965 to be "an idiot". The fishing trips abruptly ended. The fun errands into town ended. Any shreds of affection that existed ended.....and my Grandpa John gave my dad a new name. No longer was he "Danny". From that day forward on into his adult life, when my Grandpa John would call my dad by his new name....."Dummy". "Git over here, Dummy!" "Go put that away, Dummy." "Go feed the dogs, Dummy". That was his new name.
The abuse my dad endured after that test in 2nd grade is beyond what I can imagine doing to a child. My dad was routinely beaten (not spanked - beaten). When he was 11, he committed a fairly minor infraction. The punishment for this was being locked in his room - for a year. My dad was allowed to leave his room to use the bathroom and to go to school and to do his chores on their property. When these tasks were complete, he was sent to his room....alone....away from his siblings....with the door locked.....for an entire year. He was given his meals to eat on his bed while everyone else ate their meals together at the table on the other side of the same wall. He would just lay in bed alone for hours and hours. To pass the time, he got ahold of a record. It was a recording of the opera Madame Butterfly. This musical enjoyment would not have been allowed to him, and he knew that, so his 11 year old self gathered materials and figured out how to build a headset - earphones - to connect to the record player he had. No one had taught him how to make something like that. He just looked around at what he had and fashioned something to meet the need he had. He needed to listen to Madame Butterfly. That was his escape. He would lay in bed, night after night, with tears streaming down his face and listen to the silken voices belt out the music.
Things got so much worse. The older my dad got, the more severe the abuse got. I even had a conversation a couple years ago with one of my uncles just to fact check, and I realized my dad had been very conservative in describing the things that happened. Beatings on the back or the back of the legs became punches to the face. There was blood. There were bruises. There were things that couldn't be hidden. There was an incident where my grandfather grabbed my dad by the neck and shoved him up against a wall. He was choking him. Just as his vision began to narrow and go black, my Nannie screamed out "JOHN STOP!!!! You're gonna KILL HIM!!!!". He released his grip, and my dad could breathe again. I asked my dad once why he didn't ever punch back when these things would occur. His answer "Because I was bigger than he was, and I knew I could kill him. I didn't want to hurt him." I just thought "What?! Why would you CARE to not hurt someone that repeatedly damaged you?!" I never asked the question because I knew the answer - he loved him.
My whole childhood I knew that my Grandpa John had been horrible to my dad. I never remember my dad saying anything disparaging about his own father, but, though I did not know all the ugly truths until I was older, things must have come up in my parents' conversations that left me with that conclusion. One day, when visiting my grandfather, I actually asked him, very matter of factly "So how come you used to always beat my dad?" I wasn't being combative or bratty. I was just confused. I guess I figured I'd just get it straight from the horse's mouth.
I will never forget the day that my grandfather died. My dad sat in the chair in his office and sobbed like a little kid. It was so weird to me. I had the thought again "Why are you sad?! Aren't you relieved? That jerk can't ever hurt you or anyone else again.", but it didn't matter. My dad had lost his daddy. He loved him. He had forgiven him, and he was going to miss him. He WAS sad.
I don't know the exact moment that forgiveness happened, but I do know this. After I was adult, my dad told me a story.
When I was in first grade, my mother had begun to have debilitating panic attacks while my brother and I were at school. My dad immediately found a therapy program for her. At one of her appointments, my dad sat in and started asking questions in regard to his own life. The therapist finished the conversation with my mom and then gave my dad some instructions. She told him to go home and write a letter to "Little Danny" and to tell him that he was safe - that "Big Danny" was a big strong man now, and he knew that "Little Danny" was being hurt but that he wasn't going to let it happen ever again. He was going to protect "Little Danny" from John no matter what. He was safe forever.
Sitting in my dad's office (which we shared together for the business we had), he told me that when he finished writing the letter, he looked down at the paper and noticed something startling.....his handwriting was not the handwriting he used as an adult. He had literally channeled his 11 year old self to the point that his hand wrote each letter in the note as he would have penned it as an 11 year old child. His healing began at that point. He had halted the damage of the abuse from that moment until the end of his life. The abuse itself didn't end until the day my grandfather died, but the damage ceased. My dad spent the rest of his life successfully protecting "Little Danny".
In the therapy of unearthing all of this trauma I have experienced in my life, I am having many conversations - talking out absolutely everything. Last night I broke down crying on Dan's shoulder over something that I'm dealing with, and I felt these words spill out of my lips, "I just miss my dad. He would know what to tell me to do. He would know what to say, and I don't get to ask him because he isn't here."
We spent the next 3 hours talking about what my dad did with his pain. He didn't deny it. He acknowledged within himself and to a select few the severity of the pain he had endured. His pain was greater than mine. I was never abused by a parent that should innately love me. He lived that pain every single day of his life, but he stopped letting it cripple him. He forgave. He loved.
I am making my best effort at bullying past all my pain - all my injustices. Whatever I'm doing is not working. I am at a loss. I have a few answers, but I'm still at the stage of unearthing a lot of things that I have repressed. I find myself in moments that should be nothing but happy getting lost in "old ghosts" as I call them to Dan. I have some reminder or revelation of traumas or depths of traumas that I hadn't ever realized before. They are rearing their ugly heads and stealing from me still. I don't know what to do with them.
Normally in my posts, I reach some sort of epiphany about the greater meaning of my writings, and I share that in my best poetic voice. Today I am not able to do that. I have no idea what my journey of healing is going to look like. I am at the beginning. I am at a place where I don't even know what to call certain things. They don't have names, some of them. I just know they were off. I am actively seeking help to sort through all of this, but I feel myself becoming very private. By nature I am an over-sharer, but at this time of my life, I feel like holding my soul very close to my chest. I arch my shoulders over it to protect it in its battered state. That's all I have right now is the instinct to protect and defend.
I look at myself in the mirror, and I wonder what I will look like in a year or two years or five. I wonder how many more lines will trace around my eyes or how much of the light of happiness will ever return to them. Right now they look a bit vacant to me.
More later.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
To the one who made me a mother,
Dear Natalie,
I wish I could sit you down and tell you absolutely everything about you that I admire. The other day I told Pirate "You know, people tell me that I'm the strongest person they've ever met, but I'm not the strongest person I have ever met. The strongest person I have ever met is Natalie."
Just 8 days ago I had to look you in the eye and rip away from you something that is divinely, unequivocally your right to have - a mother. I sat on your friend's front steps and looked up into your stunning little face and told you that I was going to have to go away and live with Pirate until the end of the school year. I watched your eyes well up with tears and then I watched a resolve lock into your eyes that is unrivaled by any human that I have ever seen in this earth. I tried to read into it to see if you were just burying your hurt - like I do, but that wasn't it - at least in that moment. At that moment, it was purpose. You decided in your little 8 year old heart that you were going to get through this - that you were going to survive.......and that you were going to beat this. I was blown away because you are 8. You are a kid, and I count myself really, really lucky.....because you are my kid.
Almost exactly 9 years ago I saw your heartbeat on a screen for the first time. I knew that I was pregnant because I'd taken tests that said "+", and I'd even started to get sick, but the moment that I saw that life pumping organ on the screen and knew it was yours, I was immediately filled with wonder. Every mother feels this. It's one of those moments that you realize is bigger than you, and you're just so grateful that you get to be a part of that moment. That was just the beginning.
Your daddy left for a deployment when I was about 9 weeks pregnant with you, so there were many moments that were just yours and mine. I will never forget the first time I felt you move. I will never forget feeling so incredibly beautiful my entire pregnancy because I was carrying a miracle - I was carrying and growing you. I will never forget getting my first stretch marks and then realizing that it didn't bother me to have them because it meant that this body of mine did its job. It nourished you and grew you and then came the day for me to get to hold you in my arms.
Only 5 percent of babies are actually born on their due dates. You, my dear, are in that 5 percent. At about 3:00 in the morning I woke up thinking I just had to pee really, really, really bad, but as soon as I got to the bathroom, I realized that the cramping I felt was not just a full bladder. It meant you wanted out. You were ready to take this world on.
I had raised (or helped raise) a number of babies since I was 9 years old. I felt so ready to embrace the task of having my own child. I knew how to teach a little person how to do absolutely everything, so I felt really confident that motherhood was actually just going to spoil me because I would enjoy getting to do all of these things and never have to hand you back to anyone else. You would be mine, and I would be yours. I felt so ready.....until they handed you to me. At that moment it was like I became a baby raising amnesiac. You were so perfect. You had these amazing spidery little hands and long feet and your skin was perfect. Right out the gate every single person that looked at you looked right back at me and said "Yeah she looks exactly like you." Then they would look at your daddy and say "Sorry dude. I don't see you in here at all." and then everyone would laugh a little.
You immediately proved to be an extremely smart little person. You soaked up every bit of learning that you could. You spent HOURS looking at books. Most of the time when parents miss the fact that their toddler has wandered out of the room and has found a silent spot to dwell for a while, that means something crazy is happening and there will be a mess to clean up. Not for you. That just meant that you'd found your books again. If I took 18 month old you to the toy aisle, you would disinterestedly look through the plastic windows of doll boxes, but when we got to the books, you would go crazy. "I want booksh. I want dat one, Mawmy." I caved all the time. I would buy books for you at the store. I would sign you up for free books through the mail. I would borrow them.....however I could get them, I would get them, and you would love them.
You were also very in tune with me. You seemed to understand my heart even before you were adequately able to articulate your understanding. After I got pregnant with your little brother, life for me got very heavy. It got very sad. There was someone who was being very mean to my heart. I tried to stay strong in front of you or not yell back until I knew you were asleep, but one day, I broke. I sat down on the couch with my big pregnant belly and buried my face in my hands while that mean person couldn't see me be broken. I didn't realize that you were smart enough to know that, though my face was covered, my slumped, trembling shoulders meant that I was sad. Your pixyish little self delicately stepped over to me and you placed one of your dimpled hands on my knee and said "Don't cy, Mawmy." My head rose from my hands. You had witnessed and absorbed the meaning of abuse, and instead of acting afraid or retreating to your books, you balled up and offered me your strength since you knew mine was gone in that moment. I got mad and went back to that person and screamed at "Don't you EVER make me cry AGAIN! NATALIE saw that! Don't you ever make me cry in front of my child AGAIN!". I shook my finger and had a snarl on my face. I felt a rush of strength that overcame my temporary grief. The strength had come from you. You weren't even 2 years old.
There were so, so, so many moments after that when I saw this same strength exhibited, and sometimes it made me mad again. The amount of strength that you showed was so beyond what was appropriate for your age - including a week ago. That day makes me mad too. You are losing your childhood piece by piece and some of that robbery is my fault. Some of it is not, but, as your mother, that does not matter to me. One of the last things I said before I left you was for you to go be a kid. I begged your best friend's parents to take care of you - asked her mother to be what I couldn't be right now, to hug you and to love you. They will try their very hardest. There will be other people that notice the void, and they will try to help too, but a lot of people won't see because you are just that strong. You won't let them see. You will place this trial in a little cabinet in your heart and let in sit there until you have time to open it back up and sort through it. You will absolutely lose part of your childhood, and that will cause you trouble later. You will spend years being confused about exactly who you are and what the right thing is to do with your life and your time.
That will be where I come in again. I promise to be in your life far before that day comes, but when it does, I will be there. Except I won't tell you not to cry. I will not tell you to be strong and not be a victim. I will let you be a jerk to me and everyone else, and I will tell you to celebrate absolutely anything that makes your heart smile. I will love who you love and do things with you that make no sense to me whatsoever. ......and I will help you. I will be YOUR strength when you need it. I will. I will........be your mother.
Love,
Mommy
*Though this post is written to my daughter who is now 8 years old, it is not actually something that I have any intention of her reading at this point in time or any near point in the future. Please remember that this blog is for my own catharsis, and I reserve the right to express what is actually in my heart.
I wish I could sit you down and tell you absolutely everything about you that I admire. The other day I told Pirate "You know, people tell me that I'm the strongest person they've ever met, but I'm not the strongest person I have ever met. The strongest person I have ever met is Natalie."
Just 8 days ago I had to look you in the eye and rip away from you something that is divinely, unequivocally your right to have - a mother. I sat on your friend's front steps and looked up into your stunning little face and told you that I was going to have to go away and live with Pirate until the end of the school year. I watched your eyes well up with tears and then I watched a resolve lock into your eyes that is unrivaled by any human that I have ever seen in this earth. I tried to read into it to see if you were just burying your hurt - like I do, but that wasn't it - at least in that moment. At that moment, it was purpose. You decided in your little 8 year old heart that you were going to get through this - that you were going to survive.......and that you were going to beat this. I was blown away because you are 8. You are a kid, and I count myself really, really lucky.....because you are my kid.
Almost exactly 9 years ago I saw your heartbeat on a screen for the first time. I knew that I was pregnant because I'd taken tests that said "+", and I'd even started to get sick, but the moment that I saw that life pumping organ on the screen and knew it was yours, I was immediately filled with wonder. Every mother feels this. It's one of those moments that you realize is bigger than you, and you're just so grateful that you get to be a part of that moment. That was just the beginning.
Your daddy left for a deployment when I was about 9 weeks pregnant with you, so there were many moments that were just yours and mine. I will never forget the first time I felt you move. I will never forget feeling so incredibly beautiful my entire pregnancy because I was carrying a miracle - I was carrying and growing you. I will never forget getting my first stretch marks and then realizing that it didn't bother me to have them because it meant that this body of mine did its job. It nourished you and grew you and then came the day for me to get to hold you in my arms.
Only 5 percent of babies are actually born on their due dates. You, my dear, are in that 5 percent. At about 3:00 in the morning I woke up thinking I just had to pee really, really, really bad, but as soon as I got to the bathroom, I realized that the cramping I felt was not just a full bladder. It meant you wanted out. You were ready to take this world on.
I had raised (or helped raise) a number of babies since I was 9 years old. I felt so ready to embrace the task of having my own child. I knew how to teach a little person how to do absolutely everything, so I felt really confident that motherhood was actually just going to spoil me because I would enjoy getting to do all of these things and never have to hand you back to anyone else. You would be mine, and I would be yours. I felt so ready.....until they handed you to me. At that moment it was like I became a baby raising amnesiac. You were so perfect. You had these amazing spidery little hands and long feet and your skin was perfect. Right out the gate every single person that looked at you looked right back at me and said "Yeah she looks exactly like you." Then they would look at your daddy and say "Sorry dude. I don't see you in here at all." and then everyone would laugh a little.
You immediately proved to be an extremely smart little person. You soaked up every bit of learning that you could. You spent HOURS looking at books. Most of the time when parents miss the fact that their toddler has wandered out of the room and has found a silent spot to dwell for a while, that means something crazy is happening and there will be a mess to clean up. Not for you. That just meant that you'd found your books again. If I took 18 month old you to the toy aisle, you would disinterestedly look through the plastic windows of doll boxes, but when we got to the books, you would go crazy. "I want booksh. I want dat one, Mawmy." I caved all the time. I would buy books for you at the store. I would sign you up for free books through the mail. I would borrow them.....however I could get them, I would get them, and you would love them.
You were also very in tune with me. You seemed to understand my heart even before you were adequately able to articulate your understanding. After I got pregnant with your little brother, life for me got very heavy. It got very sad. There was someone who was being very mean to my heart. I tried to stay strong in front of you or not yell back until I knew you were asleep, but one day, I broke. I sat down on the couch with my big pregnant belly and buried my face in my hands while that mean person couldn't see me be broken. I didn't realize that you were smart enough to know that, though my face was covered, my slumped, trembling shoulders meant that I was sad. Your pixyish little self delicately stepped over to me and you placed one of your dimpled hands on my knee and said "Don't cy, Mawmy." My head rose from my hands. You had witnessed and absorbed the meaning of abuse, and instead of acting afraid or retreating to your books, you balled up and offered me your strength since you knew mine was gone in that moment. I got mad and went back to that person and screamed at "Don't you EVER make me cry AGAIN! NATALIE saw that! Don't you ever make me cry in front of my child AGAIN!". I shook my finger and had a snarl on my face. I felt a rush of strength that overcame my temporary grief. The strength had come from you. You weren't even 2 years old.
There were so, so, so many moments after that when I saw this same strength exhibited, and sometimes it made me mad again. The amount of strength that you showed was so beyond what was appropriate for your age - including a week ago. That day makes me mad too. You are losing your childhood piece by piece and some of that robbery is my fault. Some of it is not, but, as your mother, that does not matter to me. One of the last things I said before I left you was for you to go be a kid. I begged your best friend's parents to take care of you - asked her mother to be what I couldn't be right now, to hug you and to love you. They will try their very hardest. There will be other people that notice the void, and they will try to help too, but a lot of people won't see because you are just that strong. You won't let them see. You will place this trial in a little cabinet in your heart and let in sit there until you have time to open it back up and sort through it. You will absolutely lose part of your childhood, and that will cause you trouble later. You will spend years being confused about exactly who you are and what the right thing is to do with your life and your time.
That will be where I come in again. I promise to be in your life far before that day comes, but when it does, I will be there. Except I won't tell you not to cry. I will not tell you to be strong and not be a victim. I will let you be a jerk to me and everyone else, and I will tell you to celebrate absolutely anything that makes your heart smile. I will love who you love and do things with you that make no sense to me whatsoever. ......and I will help you. I will be YOUR strength when you need it. I will. I will........be your mother.
Love,
Mommy
*Though this post is written to my daughter who is now 8 years old, it is not actually something that I have any intention of her reading at this point in time or any near point in the future. Please remember that this blog is for my own catharsis, and I reserve the right to express what is actually in my heart.
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