You've got a friend

Last week I spent a large amount of time arguing with myself. I knew that my thoughts and feelings needed to be given memorial, but I knew very acutely that the writing of it would cause extreme and intense pain....I was correct. It took 5 hours of typing and several breaks during which I had to be in a different room than my computer and cry or just regain the ability to breath at a regular pace. It was as intense as I anticipated.

During my internal vacillation, I tried my darnedest to find ANYTHING else about which to share besides that, so I appealed to friends on social media for suggestions. One of those was from a wonderful girl with whom I shared many hours and thoughts during our time in our youth group. She is facing an uphill battle lately, so her suggestion grabbed my attention immediately because I understand her heart. She shared the idea of acknowledging the friends that come into your life when things are hard and how God would often pair people together for times of trial or certain journeys to be traveled. Since I have now exited my state of denial and avoidance of the issues that I needed to address, I can embrace the things she spoke to me.

As I have mentioned several times before, this period of my life has been extremely difficult. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would go from being a stay-at-home mom to being told that I was being given visitation with my children every other weekend. Then to understand that I would have to surrender that for a while has been, many times, more than I could bear. More. Way more.

My greatest fear though this time would be that my children would have any thought at any time that I CHOSE to leave them - that it was something that I thought I even remotely wanted to do. Their hearts have been my primary concern in life from the very first beat of each of them. I have heard several people tell me that my little ones will understand in time, if they don't already, the truth of my love for them. There have also been critics. There have been a handful of souls that have relished at the opportunity to kick me while I was down and suffering. Those incidents depleted even further something that was already emaciated.....but I am not starved.

"You ok? I feel unease from your energy. Maybe you are just busy today" - This text clicked into my phone as I was furiously packing the day I left my home in Florida to come to Oklahoma. My soul was being rushed by ambulance straight into surgery. I hadn't yet told a soul what was going on, but my loving friend felt it and darted to my emotional bedside.
"No. Tell me more" I begged of her.
"I don't know. I just feel like you are feeling defeated when you shouldn't be. You are strong and independent and you have come so far." That was the first one and one of the most poignant to me.

There were many in the days that followed. Another one included a private message to me on social media which included the loving admonitions of Abilene Clark so I would remember that, despite my hurdles, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important".

As I began to answer questions of people that inquired, I began to feel more love. So many decided not to criticize me. They comforted me. They warmed me with their support.

Still I felt very battered and tired at answering a lot of questions, so I broke the news to my friends and family corporately by writing the blog post "On being judged for shopping". I knew if I left any holes there, the loving ones would come to me and ask gentle questions or they would just accept the holes and offer me their love in spite of them. I was so comforted when I realized I was correct.

It is very difficult for me to list every way people have shown me love because there have just been so many ways.

One day I got a private message from one of my oldest friends asking me for my address. She told me "I have something to send you. It's nothing big. It's just a few of my favorite things." Days later, I received an appropriately wrapped "brown paper package, tied up with string" bearing a cardstock tag that read "a few of my favorite things". I saved that silly little tag with it's twine binding. The box had a bunch of fantastic fun things and even some baked goods made by my friend. The thing that was MY favorite though, is untouchable, unseeable if you just quickly glance at the box. It is love. It is thought. It is time. It is support. THAT'S what my friend was sending me by filling a box with small gifts. I got it. I got it all, and I'll never forget it.

Because our travel for Christmas was unplanned, our income (supplied solely by Dan's work since I do not yet have any) was going to be stretched even slightly beyond what was actually there. I knew the kids needed presents for Christmas, but I just kept pushing the thought out of my mind because of the hopelessness of the cause. It wasn't hopeless though. We got handed envelopes of cash inscribed with the words "for Christmas for the kids" from people who have never even met them. We received cards in the mail with checks in them. Christmas was supplied. My kids' needs were supplied. I didn't even have enough faith originally to think to ask God for a way to do that. He just did it instead. On the occasion of receiving one of these gifts, I just sat on the front steps and sobbed. I felt so important to God in that moment, and I realized how important my kids are to Him as well. My hope for their lives was restored. The realization that, despite the terribleness of what has happened to them, they have NOT been forgotten by the One who writes their story.

I will also never forget the countless people that have spontaneously (or so they thought) sent me messages telling me that they had just been thinking about me a lot and wanted to know if I was alright. Some of these had been totally ignorant of the events of my life immediately preceding their asking about it. They just wanted to be love to me.

You were, friends. You still are.

Most of us have seen videos or digital slide shows of ones who snapped a selfie every day for a year to see how they've grown or changed. The day I left my home, the thought crossed my mind to do the same. I took a picture of myself every day for about a week, and then I forgot about the project partially because I got a different phone with a local number. The other day, though, I recalled my abandoned project, so I charged up the phone and scrolled through the gallery. What I found there was heartbreaking. I looked dead. My eyes were dead. The area of my face around my mouth almost looked melted. There was no hint of smile there. No hint of hope. This was on a day when I was posting some makeup selfies to Instagram - pictures that I looked at after slight edits and decided genuinely that even the raw versions were.....pretty.

I had survived.....again. I had jumped a hurdle.....again. I had come out on the other side with my fist thrust victoriously into the air.....again.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me "You are SO strong, Sarah!", I would be able to take myself on a very adequate shopping adventure and be able to afford to have someone lug my parcels around for me - or just have them delivered. You are right. I am strong. I am tenacious, and my will is built of iron. I do not give up. If you put a wall in my face that is too high for me to scale or jump, I'm gonna chip through it Shawshank style.

Why? What has given me hope in times where I was totally shattered?

Friends......you.....love.....hope.

It does not matter to me what religious philosophy to which you do or don't ascribe. I can just tell you about what I know - what I've experienced.

I have spent days in this world utterly and totally alone. All my loved ones were away from my reach sometimes not even able to take calls from me over the phone. My friendships were so limited in number that they were a scant resource for the amount of my need, but Hope remained. In the moments when the silence of friendship made my heart sob, Hope was there. "I'm not done, Sarah. Just trust me. I have never left you, and I have not forsaken you. I didn't lose you. You are mine. Just wait." That waiting was terrible. There were days that my belly ached not just from being empty but from the sickening worry that I was stuck - that there was no way out. Just the moment that I would throw up my hands, a little encouragement would come. Somewhere, somehow, a little light would peek through the storm of my life.

That's where you came in. Even if I don't know you personally, you are reading this. You are waiting for the end of the story maybe even silently cheering me on. You're supporting me. I've had a lot of that. I've had so many people do things for me from handing me envelopes filled with hundreds of dollars in cash to being given a vehicle to finding a cupcake or a sandwich with my name on it in sharpie. I've been given more hugs than I can count - genuine, real hugs that last for a fantastically long time so the giver could adequately communicate to me that I was worth something to them....that they loved me.

The love part is so great. I feel embarrassed a lot of time for the outpouring of love that I have received. Some have given it opportunistically so they could puff out their chest and tell others about their magnanimous delivery of wonderful sentiment or so they could hold it over my head to serve a purpose that I did not originally see. They yanked their love back, but I still benefited from those times. God has used every bit, and given me times of true, unadulterated, selfless love that I could never deny that it really exists in its truest form.....for me.

Do you know what that love has done for me? It has made me really, really strong. Do you understand why? Did you ever see one of those cliche scenes in a movie where there's a scrawny kid or a damsel in distress that is toe to toe with some nefarious personality and then cackle out in laughter because you, the omniscient viewer, know that, just outside the line of sight of the attacker, there's a huge gang of bigger kids or a ninja waiting to defend? Sometimes the almost victim even looks smugly straight into the eye of the villain....because they know who's got their back. That's me. I'm the smug one.

I am not endlessly strong. I am not a phenomena of strength or resource. It's because I have you. Sometimes you're waiting one at a time, and sometimes you appear in droves, but, whatever life throws my way, you are there. That is why I appear so strong.

Do you know that I'm not the only one? Look around you. I bet you've also got your own army of hope. If you don't see them, you've at least got me.....and I've got them (gestures with thumb over my shoulder). We're here.

I also want you to think about being a part of that army for someone else. Feeling good and strong at the moment? Do some looking around. Slow down. Listen a little more than you talk. The ones in distress are all around you. They're not looking to con anyone. They're not looking for handouts. They're just actually in need. They might need a few dollars for a meal. Look around you. These ones might not fit the stereotype of a person on the street dresses in an unseasonable number of layers. You know that one at work that waits in the break room after everyone else's lunch is over so they can dig half eaten sandwiches out of the trash or sneak the bread you left on the table after your meal at Panera? You probably didn't notice that before. You know that girl at school or church or wherever that dresses strangely and insists that the one she wears several times a week is her favorite? Probably it isn't. It's just the only one she's got. That gregarious personality that fills up a room when they walk in and seems like command corporate audience any time they enter? Well guess what. They do that because it's never given to them one on one.

Be that friend. People don't need to be projects. That is actually a very ugly thing to do. Just start with acts of kindness.

Buy an entire MEAL from Panera for the sneaker and then leave it in the fridge and nonchalantly say "Hey, your lunch looks amazing! What is it?" When they question what you're talking about, play dumb and say "The box from Panera in the fridge with your name on it". Watch how fast they go running! They'll know it's from you, and they'll love it! Don't play dumb when they thank you for it. Just say "Well you're welcome. I know you at least like their bread, so I thought I'd give you something to sit down for a minute and enjoy.

The girl with the eye for her favorite shirt? You know you see her go into the same store all the time and then leave with no bag of purchases (or anything stolen - she just likes that stuff....btw, this can also be a "he"). Save up a little cash and buy a gift card and slip it to them. Be Santa!!!!

And then the untouchable socialite. Pay them a genuine compliment and strike up a conversation, and the next time you are headed somewhere fun with a SMALL group, invite them. Get to know them. Give them the attention for which they're so starved.

And finally, the actual homeless. I used to be in an environment where the perspective on these ones was nothing but critical. "They're too lazy to get a stinkin job, and they're probably just gonna go get drunk off my money anyway." Um.....so I was homeless. I lived in a shelter. That is not a home, and I became acquainted with hearts that had actually lived on the streets. They were not lazy. Life had just dealt them so hard a hand that the paperwork necessary to procure a job was outside their reach or they had been forced to make a decision that earned them a charge against their record that now disqualifies them from most employers with whom they could hope to build a future. They NEVER would have chosen to have that as part of their story had they been given any.....choice. And let's talk about the alcohol. You know what, sometimes the only respite they get from the stress of spending all day and all night hiding from law enforcement for their vagrancy is to get drunk. It takes the edge off. A great number of them have had that alone to allow them to cope for so long that, if they did not get something to feed the physical side of their dependancy, it would send them into DT's in the yard of a business with no one around to call 911 as they lay their convulsing while they writhe in their own vomit. Also, when it's cold, they don't have an inside to go inside, they just want something to make them feel a little less of the sting of the low temperature. There is always also the very distinct possibility and reality that they're going to take your $5 and go buy something to fill the belly of theirs that has had nothing in it but the watery fake mashed potatoes and grissly meat from the food bank that offers help within its already stretched resources.....just be their friend. I was one phone call from being one of them. One phone call.

This is my thing, just be a friend. Before you even try to think about changing a person's whole life or how you can help "fix" things, be a friend, because somewhere out there, there's another me. There's another fighter who has not given up. They are hanging with a grip so tight their palms are raw to a strand of hope. They just need a little more. You have no idea how much the smallest acts mean.

Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".

The Bible says "Love your neighbor as yourself".

I say (though I do not have nearly the credentials of either of the above sources - just my own knowings) "Show love. Show friendship. Give hope."

It was rape

Okay guys, this is where my blogging becomes mostly cathartic for me. Hopefully it will offer you something as well, but my next few posts are going to be painfully specific. If things that appear in the subject line are triggers for you that will bring you pain, I just ask that you skip that particular post. If it's painful, but you're ready to dive in, then do. Just know, the subject matter is not going to be for the faint of heart. It may include things that offend your sensibilities, and that is alright. Just skip this read. There will be more lighthearted or just less heavy posts later.

I'm going to touch on things that I already have before, so you will quickly realize that there are stories that I am now retelling by sharing more detail. Please forgive me for my redundancy.

So here goes.....

Sexual abuse and sexual assault are things that, sadly, are still taboo to bring up in conversation, but the number of lives that are touched by this type of attack is absolutely and disgustingly staggering. It is more than 50% of our population. It might be you......and it was definitely me.

I was 21. I had dated guy when I lived in Texas. As I stated in another post, I didn't have serious feelings for him. I just seriously enjoyed the attention I was getting, but that relationship ended nevertheless. Then I dated Dan our first go around. When that ended, I was heartbroken. I also believed that I was ugly (not just not cute - ugly). I believed that my personality was unattractive because of the amount of poise in social situations that I believed I lacked. I watched everyone around me get asked out on dates by multiple people while I never got asked out on any. All the confidence that my parents worked so hard to instill in my had become very flimsy. There were things I believed that I WAS good at - just nothing that would interest someone enough that they would want to date me. The fact that there were no invitations coming my way totally reinforced that in my mind. I was a reject. I was unwanted. I would have to learn to be grateful for what I could get.

So one day when one of my coworkers suggested that I present myself to a friend of hers that was my age, I jumped at the chance. He had been in school but was "taking the semester off" because he needed to pay down his bill. He was just working right now to save up some money. That was disappointing to me even though I wasn't in school at all myself, but my initial rejection of her idea ended with me deciding that it was worth a try because there wasn't anyone beating down my door. I should be grateful for what I could get. I tore off a corner of a sheet of copy paper and scribbled my number. "Tell him to give me a call", I said. Part of me felt bold for demanding attention from someone, but I also immediately felt desperate. I was demanding attention from someone - it wasn't being given to me organically at all.

This boy gave me a call. He sounded pleasant on the phone, and it felt very gratifying to be given the attention that I had envied my friends getting. We agreed in that phone conversation that we would go out for dinner sometime that week.

He showed up at the store where I was working with my coworker's husband. I immediately felt a twinge of regret. He looked disheveled. Not in the way that a guy looks after he's worked a long day outside. He looked like he'd refused to bathe for a few days, and I actually didn't find him remotely attractive. "Okay Sarah. Don't be so shallow. People don't have to look perfect all the time, and you might grow to find him attractive!". This self talk now seems so ludicrous, but again, I reminded myself that I should be grateful for what I could get. I should be content with someone that was on the same level as I was. I should stop wishing for someone better than me. That's just not the way things work.

On our first date this boy told me all about himself. As he talked, I kept thinking "Wow! This guy is so much like my dad! I can't believe the similarities! He's a sure thing. I underestimated him. ANYbody that is THIS much like my dad is going to be so GOOD for me!". I didn't pay attention to the red flag that was furiously waving itself in my brain. Part of me knew he was lying about half the things he said, but again.....I was just grateful for some company.

We attended some functions together and went on a few more dates. I had plans to live for the summer in West Virginia working at a camp that was run by some heroes of mine that worked in our youth group. The wife had invited me for a couple of years to come up there, and I finally felt like doing it. As this guy and I walked through the mall one day, he reminded me that I was going to be gone so we should get this little machine that was like a text only machine. I only vaguely remember them, but, for a small monthly fee, you and other people with the same type of machine could just text back and forth - like a cross between a pager and walkie talkies. When he brought this up, my first thought was "I'm going AWAY. We are not that serious. I just want to be gone from here for a bit. PLUS, I'm going to have in my cabin 13 little girls under the age of 10. I will not have TIME or attention for that". I tried to be nice to him, though so I said "Um ******, I don't have the money to pay a bill like that, and I don't think you do either. Plus, I'm going to be really, really busy". This was sort of my way of letting him down easy - a signal for him to slow down what was happening in his brain where he and I.....where the "us"....was concerned.

What happened next was something that is burned in my brain. We were standing at the top of the escalator, but instead of stepping onto the moving stairs, he stepped back and then squeezed my hand - really tightly. He was actually hurting my hand, he squeezed so hard. His face looked crazy. He stared straight ahead - not at anything - just stared, and clenched his jaw. I tried to be apologetic. "I'm sorry. I just don't think there's any getting around that. I'm not trying to upset you".

That moment marked the first point that I began to teach myself how to appease an abuser.

His reply was strange to me. "THIS is not something I want to talk about in front of everyone in a public place like this!". What was so private about this? It felt like a fight that a married couple would have. I had just met this dude, but something in myself told me to just be okay with it. It was one thing - one time. I was probably reading too far into it or I just needed to allow someone else to have their own personality. Maybe this is how he handles things. .....it just felt funny. Years later I realized, after much study, that this was his first attempt (which was successful) at escalating the seriousness of our relationship in order to cause me to feel in bondage to it.

The next week or so passed, and I headed up to West Virginia. I had strict instructions to call him every opportunity that I got. I felt amenable to that since it is a natural thing to want to have contact with the person that you are dating. I had a phone card, so on my first weekend, I gave him a call. It seemed fine. The next weekend, however, things were not fine. He heard a male voice (one of the male counselors) and questioned who it was and who I was with and what I was doing with them. Instead of paying attention to how offended I felt, I chose to embrace the feeling of gratitude that my boyfriend thought I was such a catch that he was worried another (better looking) guy would try to snatch me up. This routine went on for about a month, but each time, his accusations became more severe.

My parents had decided to take a weekend and come up and see me. They brought my little brother and sister and my mom's best friend. They also brought the boyfriend. He had hitched a ride with them. He didn't pay for any of his own meals or offer my parents any money for gas even though he allegedly worked a full time job. He also insisted on bringing a blanket with him - so weird. He told my family that it was one from his childhood. He later told me that it was given to him by his ex girlfriend....so many strange things.

He was very clingy during that visit, but nothing that seemed too abnormal to me. I just figured he was glad to see me. I chose to be glad to see him, and I only had two more weeks of camp before I came home.

The summer came to an end. My boyfriend and I had made plans to take a road trip to visit his family once I got back to Tennessee. Despite the fact that his accusations of cheating on him and his criticisms toward me increased, I chose again to be grateful. He was committed to me. He wanted me when no one else had. I had gotten what I could get, so I should be grateful.

After I returned home, we resumed our dating schedule. One of those dates included a walk downtown. As we walked the streets through the historic parts of town, we happened upon a park. There was a fountain and pretty greenery and statues. We found a place on a bench, and I perched myself onto his lap, and we began to kiss. What happened next was something that I did not expect. He reached up and touched my breast.

I immediately became furious, not because we were in a public place dwelt at that very moment by onlookers, not because anyone could have seen what he had done and what I had possibly allowed him to do. I was furious because I had not invited it. I had given him no permissions at any time to take such liberties. I pulled away from him and snarled as I asked him "WHO do YOU think you are?!....WHY would you DO that?!" I jumped up from my perch and started walking away as fast as I could. I wanted to get away from him.

I walked for about half a mile the whole while thinking "My dad is going to kill him....This is going to end our relationship.......We have talked about getting married (after being "together" for 3 months 6 weeks of which I spent in a different state).......my parents will never let me see him again...........I might never get anybody else.......this will be all I ever get......no one else is going to want me after this...". As I walked and told myself mountains worth of lies, I heard him. He was running after me.....crying.....loudly....in the middle of busy downtown.

I wheeled around and demanded "WHAT?!". He stood there with hunched shoulders sobbing and told me "I'm SAWry! I didn't mean to do that! I wasn't trying to make you mad!"

"Then WHAT would make you believe you had the right to DO that?!", I asked him.

"I KNOW! I know it was wrong!.....It's just that......it's just that sometimes (these words are burned in my memory) sometimes the way you act....you aren't submissive to me at all as the man in this relationship, and I feel like I HAVE to do certain things to get that BACK!"

He had successfully used a buzz word I'd heard my whole growing up life. I had been told that wives were supposed to be submissive to their husbands (though my husband he was not). I knew I was a personality type that caused some people to feel walked all over......that was it. His actions were wrong, but they were performed because of MY actions. I had been doing such a poor job of making this person feel valued that I didn't even notice.

Though I still felt annoyed and offended, I decided that it was an isolated incident. He had never done that before, and he might never do it again, so I could be okay with it. I could forgive this error in judgement. I apologized for my lack of submission - for emasculating my partner. We rejoined our hands and a feeling of relief washed over me. I wasn't going to have to tell anyone about this. I wouldn't tell anyone about this. It was just one mistake.

The next few weeks are something that I am positive my brain has tried to block out, but I can't escape all of it.

He started yelling at me regularly. He also started asking me for gas money and asking me to pay for our food if we went out. I just didn't have very much, so we didn't get fancy things by any stretch. One of those times, we were in the parking lot of a fast food place, and he was screaming at me.....again. He was very animated as he yelled, and when he raised his hand at a certain point, apparently I recoiled. I flinched.

"WHY did you do that?!" he screamed. "I'VE never hit a woman! I'VE never hit you! DON'T do that!".....more screaming. I dared not cry. I just cowered as I sheepishly stumbled over excuses and apologies.

He also began to take more liberties like the one on the bench. I made more decisions for myself. It's funny how many of them I chose to make in the direction of appeasing someone rather than preserving myself or growing, but that's what abusers do. They chip away at you bit by bit until they have brainwashed you enough into believing that 1. they are the best you'll ever have (I would hear that one later in my life on nearly a daily basis) and 2. that their anger is solely caused by your neglect or error (that one would pop up again too). Once they've drilled those into your head, you'll be game for anything because the last thing you would want to do is push away the person to whom you.....owe.....everything.

I suffered embarrassment on multiple occasions at being convinced to do in public places things that shouldn't have even happened in private ones, but....I deserved it. Remember? He made SURE that I did. I decided that I should enjoy these things - even though I never did. They always felt......off.

Our plan to go see his family remained, so I packed a suitcase and so did he. He assured my parents that we were driving straight through, so there would be no need for them to worry that any improprieties would occur. I loaded my bag into his truck and slid across the bench seat, ready to go.

I will never forget the voice in my heart at that moment at the bottom of my driveway. It was so clear that I almost wanted to look around to find the place the voice was coming from.

"GET OUT!!!! Get OUT of the truck, Sarah! Grab your suitcase and just get OUT of the TRUCK! Do NOT go on this trip! Do NOT leave with him!". I chocked it up to being nervous to go away from home - something that had always caused me anxiety. I pushed the voice down. I ignored it......and we drove away.

The trip began pleasantly enough, but after a few hours, he started to get a little edgy. He was starting to demand things, and I didn't want to deliver. It didn't matter. He wanted what he wanted. He stopped at a truck stop at a location that I still do not know. We were just in the middle of nowhere. I felt so trapped. We were only stopping for one reason, and I didn't want to stop. My mind began to race. "No one knows where we are. I don't even know where we are! Where are we? None of these people will help me. THEY might be more dangerous than my boyfriend is anyway. It would not be worth it to ask for help". These thoughts all came through my mind, and he hadn't even begun requiring me to deliver what he wanted. I was just scared......for my life.

He turned to me and began to kiss me. "This is okay. This is just kissing. Kissing is fine, right? It's just kissing"....until it wasn't anymore. He began to take his now familiar but unwanted liberties with my body and then he laid me down in the seat and laid on top of me. I was literally pinned down. I was completely trapped. No passers by could even see that I was in the truck let alone what my face looked like. I did not like what was happening, but I had NO options at that point. And then it happened.

He grabbed my hand - I thought to hold it, but I was wrong. He took my hand by the wrist and held on my firmly than what was comfortable for me and put my hand down his pants.

I want you to know that my blood is running cold through my veins at this very moment. Though this is more than a decade ago in my past, the horror and violation I felt in that moment is still very real.....and there was worse to come. I remember very vividly thinking "I do NOT want this....but no one can help me.....no one will help me.....just give him what he wants and then it will be over. Maybe he won't ask for as much the next time".

He got off of me finally and restarted the truck, and we resumed our journey. We reached our destination of the house that he grew up in where his parents still lived. I felt so filthy when I faced them. It didn't feel like an introduction. It felt like I was having to face up to the wrongs that I'd committed and wait for the punishment of their judgement.

We all exchanged very uncomfortable introductions and then my boyfriend told his parents that he wanted to show me around the neighborhood and take me to the lake because it was so pretty. This announcement felt very rushed as we'd only been in the house for a time that felt like less than an hour, but they conceded and said they'd see us when we got back.

We got in the truck and began riding around the neighborhood. It just felt so strange because he was just pointing at houses with no real reason as to why. We were just driving around the streets of this little suburban neighborhood. Then came again the demands. He told me he wanted me to touch his genitalia. I didn't want to so I paused and just looked at his face. The expression was so otherworldly to me. It was so vacant. His eyes looked completely soulless. He looked insane and the volume and urgency of his demand increased.  Again I had very terrified thoughts racing through my brain "Oh my gosh! He's going to hurt me! He could take me to that lake or ANYwhere around here and kill me and dump my body and just say that I ran off. No one here knows me. I have no allies......okay.....just DO it! Just get it over with! Then he won't be mad anymore. Then he might not hurt me!".....so I did like he asked. Does that sound a little over the top - my thoughts - my fearful thoughts?.......If you had seen the crazed expression on his face.....the lack of humanness in his eyes.....the tone of his demanding words.....you would have agreed with me.  I was terrified, and I knew we were on the way to the lake.

It is hard for me even still to completely separate within my own mind the times during which I consented, the times that I only partially consented and the times where I feigned consent out of self preservation. It is so hard. This is the battle faced by every victim of every kind of abuse - when someone usurps their own desires over your own rights.

We arrived at "the lake". I placed quotation marks because it was a pond at best surrounded by what he had initially described as "woods" -  a tree line that only slightly obscured the water from the highway on the other side. It was there that he "suggested" that we have sex. He drew me over to an area where the trees were only slightly denser than the rest. This was where it was going to happen. This is where I was going to lose my virginity. I looked around for a place to lay. There wasn't one. He said we should just do it standing up.....um.....what?! But at that point, I just unzipped my pants and disrobed halfway. I was going to do it. At that point, I figured that I was dirty enough as it was - that I'd gone too far already, so what would it matter.

He lifted me up, and I was rammed down onto him partially by gravity and partially by the strength of his arms which was not very great, so gravity did most of the work.

It was absolutely excruciatingly painful. I instantly felt filthy again. It was terrible. There are people who tell the story of the first time they have sex and describe it as being "terrible" because neither person involved knew what they were doing and mechanics won out before the passion did.....no. That is not the story I have to tell, I'm afraid. This experience, though it did not last long, left a mark of me feeling like filthy, puss and blood soaked dressings for an infected wound - not something ANYone in their right mind would ever want to touch and something in which no one would EVER find beauty.

I was used up. I was done. The deed had been done. My innocence.....the little shred that I had left.....was gone and with no tenderness or passion or connection.....just the crazy look on his face.

After he got what he wanted, we went back to his truck. I laid down, this time by my choice, and invited him to caress me. I remember thinking "Okay, well if I'm going to do this, I'm going to at least get something out of it". Those exact words played through my brain.

He looked over at me like I was an old receipt in the floorboard and said "No, I don't feel like doing that."

Then I was mad......but not mad enough to make it stop.

We finished out our visit with his family which included his dad speaking incredibly insulting to his mom on numerous occasions and his siblings bringing up an old joke about him wearing a dress as a child that incited anger in him beyond what was appropriate. Looking back now, I wonder if he had actually suffered sexual abuse or shame as a child, but as we sat in his sister's family room, that thought did not occur to me.

After we got back to Tennessee, our relationship could be described as rocky. I never broke up with him, but we argued a lot. I was suffering from feeling slighted, but I wasn't able to recognize that while we were still in the relationship.

We had four more occasions of "sex" over the next month and a half or so, each one leaving me feeling cheaper and cheaper.....filthier and filthier. Since he knew I was going to sour his mood after that particular act, he chose instead to take the path of least resistance and coerce me to do things that seemed less....severe. Nearly every time we went out, our date would end with him stopping on the street at a bend in the road before we got to where we could see my house.....or be seen by anyone in it. Then he would unzip his pants and communicate what he wanted me to do.  It makes me physically sick to my stomach now to remember the times that he rammed my head into his lap. It was never something that I wanted to do, but it was easier than being screamed at or worrying about something worse, so I obliged.......I obliged. I did what I felt obligated to do.

There was also the screaming. If I ever refused him what he wanted or acted unhappy with anything that he did or said or didn't make myself available to him whenever he saw fit, there was screaming.

There was an evening that I was spending at home with my family, and he called. I do not at all recall what set him off, but, as I was standing in the kitchen with my mom putting away dishes, he began to yell at me informing me of every way that I had offended him. My mom heard me quietly apologize to him like you would to someone who had just told you that they'd had a bad day or that someone had been ugly to them. Then she heard his raised voice on the other end of the line. He had done this so many times before, but I had subconsciously chosen to be out of earshot of anyone that would be alarmed. I'd blown my cover though. My mom looked at me with furrowed brow and, while he was still screaming asked me "Is he YELLING at you?" but asked it quietly enough that he couldn't hear - just with emphasis on the word yelling like it did not make sense to her since she heard everything I had said to HIM during this conversation. I rolled my eyes and brushed my hand through the air as if to signal to her that it wasn't a big deal....it was though. She went straight into the bedroom and said to my dad "******* is YELLING at Sarah on the phone!" I could hear the voice on the phone and my parents' conversation in the other room. "Yelling at her? Why?" , my dad asked. My mom answered with alarm in her still hushed volume "I don't know!".

My dad told me to come into his room where he was. He asked me if my boyfriend was yelling at me. Another eye roll, but I nodded. "HANG UP ON HIM!" he told me with what my little brother dubbed "the scary eyes". He was mad.....very, very, very mad. I pushed the button (or so I thought) and hung up on my boyfriend and sat on the edge of the bed with my dad.

"Sarah was he yelling at you?!"

"Yes"

"Sarah you don't have to take that!.......Does he do that a lot?"

".....*sigh......yeah...."

"Sarah DUMP him! Honey you've only been dating for a couple months! In the grand scheme of your life, that's NOTHING. You'll move on from him and you'll totally forget about him. Dump his butt and move on to something better!"

It was a great pep talk. It did make me feel better....until I saw the timer on the screen of my phone. The clock was still running which meant the phone call had never ended. Boyfriend had heard every word. I looked at my phone and then looked at my dad and mouthed "He's still on the phone!" with a smile on my face. It was a tiny bit of vindication for me for months now worth of crap he'd thrown my way.

My dad got a wry smile on his face and said quietly "Well pick up. Talk to him." So I lifted the phone to my ear, "Hello?" I said.

"THANKS a LOT, SARAH!......" he continued to say even uglier things to me than before I had sat down with my dad. What he did NOT know......was that I was still sitting NEXT to my dad who then held out his hand. I placed my phone on his palm, and then he motioned for me to leave the room and shut the door.

Our relationship was on probation after that conversation. My boyfriend was allowed to see me much more occasionally than what he was before, and he was given instructions to not speak to me or treat me in any way not befitting the princess that I was.....essentially. I don't actually know what my dad said to him, but I do know that I was not going to have to allow him to scream at me anymore.

He did not follow these instructions.

One afternoon, my mom had invited me to run to the pharmacy with her. Several minutes before we were due to leave, my boyfriend called. He was angry again. Well this time he was more annoyed about something, but when I told him that the conversation would have to be brief because I was leaving with my mom to go to the pharmacy, then he got angry. He began to hurl insults about my mother. That was it for me. I hung up on him. I remember thinking "Heh, I do NOT love you more than I love my mother, and I am not going to put up with you saying bad things about her." My mom came down to my room with her keys in hand, and we headed to the pharmacy.

On the particular road of the pharmacy where we went, there are like 6 pharmacies in a stretch of about as many miles. While my mom and I stood at different points of the first aisle of the store, I saw someone come barreling through the sliding glass door. I noticed first the expression on my mom's face - alarm.....extreme alarm. Then I noticed who it was that had come through the door. It was my boyfriend. He didn't even notice my mom as he nearly stomped towards me wearing that same vacant, crazed expression to which I had grown sadly accustomed. My mother, on the other hand, had not.

"We need to talk" he said just inches from my face.

"Okay", I said in the same tone I always used when I tried to calm him down. I had taught myself how to placate to an abuser - how to keep them from becoming more angry or to communicate that I felt their behavior was normal and just fine with me.

My mother watched this exchange and then watched me walk towards the door with him. She tried to stop me, but I gave her the same brush of my hand and feigned look of "this is fine. This is not a big deal at all".

I don't remember what he said to me during our conversation, but I do remember that my mom appeared very soon after we got outside. Thinking quick on her feet, she decided to play the game like I was and speak to "both of us" in a very calm, nonchalant way. Eventually, he felt satisfied and drove away. We finished shopping, and then we also went home.

Looking back (because that is now all I am allowed to do) I can't help but wonder......how did he find us? Did he drive around until he saw our vehicle? He lived a good 10 minutes from our house and got to the store nearly right after we did......had he been closer to me than what he had told me?.....Had he been waiting outside my house or just up the street? All I know is that, unless he was going about 60 on a road with a 45 speed limit (and on that stretch of road, that is unlikely given the policing that happened there regularly), there really is not a way that he could have reached us that quickly AND found the correct store if he had been sitting at home like he said he was during our phone conversation before I left the house.

Very soon after that, I grew too weary of the strain he was trying to put on my relationship with my parents, so I broke up with him. I became aware again that I did not love him more than I loved my parents, so I was going to choose them over him. I packed up all his gifts into a box and set them on my front stoop and let him know that he could come pick them up whenever he so chose, but I was not going to be speaking with him.  I thought I was done....no.

He continued to try to call me, and one of the times I caved and picked up just so he would stop calling.

"I'm out front. I was in the neighborhood, and I want to talk to you. I know you're at home! Just come down and talk to me!" We lived on a hill.

"I'm actually at the bookstore at work with my mom....I'm actually kind of busy......yes! I'll be right there!.....They need me to finish working on a project. I have to go".......I was indeed at home. I pretended to speak to people beckoning me away from my phone call because....well....it hit me like a ton of bricks that this guy was now stalking me.

He continued to insist that I was at home just feet from where he was and that I should just talk to him, but I was scared to death, so I maintained my ruse that I was not there and that I had to go. I resisted the urge to go to the window to see if his truck was there because I did not want him to come see me. At this point I feared that he would become psychotic, and I was totally alone.....again.....at his mercy. He finally drove away.

I ended up getting a job a few weeks later at a store in the mall. One day as I was getting my coffee, my mom asked me the question that she had asked me several times before to which I had given her a negative answer "Sarah......did you and ****** do anything?" She meant sex. For whatever reason, that time when she asked, I chose to tell her the truth..."Yes", I said. She hugged me at first, and then she got mad. She hurriedly walked into the bedroom where my dad was working and told him what I had just told her. "SARAH!" he called my name somehow putting emphasis on both syllables as only a parent can do when their child is in trouble.....big trouble.

"Sit down"

I sat.

He asked me if it was true, and I said yes. Some of it is a blur because it was painful.....so so painful.

I could stop right here for.....a while and address what it is like for you to hear absolutely heartbreaking confessions from your child about how they threw away something that had such great value to someone who recognized not even a little bit of the value of that treasure. I could also talk about being the child making that confession and how heartwrenching that feels too, but that is a post for later.

The question my dad asked me very early in our conversation was indescribable:
"DID HE RAPE YOU?!" He even repeated himself after I didn't answer right away.  The reason I did not answer is because my mind was screaming again "YES!!!!!! YES!!!!!! I WANT TO SAY YES!!!.......but no one is going to believe that...not with the way I dress....not with my personality......" so I lied "No" I said through an already great supply of tears.

My parents proceeded to invite me to take the next 30 days to find another place to live after which I would be leaving their home. I had never EVER breached my parents' trust. I had never lied to them before, and this felt so hard because I didn't feel entirely understanding of what lie I had actually told.....I just knew that I had lied....and it devastated them.

I went to work that day and the next feeling totally numb. On a day soon after that, guess who walked in the door of the store where I worked. That's right. *****. Him. He strode right up to me with the strange urgency that always made him oblivious of his surroundings. He had found me again.

"I heard that you were working here. I really, really want to talk to you".

"Okay. Okay. Listen, I have a lunch break at (whatever time. I don't remember). I'll meet you in the food court, and we'll talk, okay? But I'm at work, and I'm going to get in trouble if I stand here talking for too long". My answer was sufficient so he left and waited in the food court......for hours. I sat down and made it obvious to him that I was giving him my attention. He began to tell me that he'd been doing some thinking and that he still really loved me. He then suggested that we run away together and get married. He seemed so desperate and pathetic that I was able to see him as just that. I told him that I did not love him enough to break my parents' hearts by running away with him - that I really didn't even love him enough to marry him. After enough convincing him, he left......and I never saw his face with my eyes again.

Great story, Sarah! Wow! You got all that out! I bet you're glad it's over with, aren't you?

It didn't end then. No. It didn't. I has stayed with me all these years. I no longer worry that he's stalking me. I no longer suffer with worry that he's going to harm me or force me to do things to which I do not consent, but it has stayed. The lies stayed.....in fact they grew. They latched themselves onto my heart and slimed their way around it so well that it has affected my current relationship......the one with the love of my life.....the boy I'd always loved. These lies have haunted me at least in part, every day of my existence from the day they occurred until this one, but this is where it ends. Right here. Right now.

Here's why. Remember that indignant revelation that I spoke about in other posts? I'm talking about that shred of dignity that manages to survive no matter what happens. That part of you that continues to believe that, despite terrible things happening to you, that you matter. That you have value. Well it turns out that I've been giving that girl a voice lately. I've also been helping her get much, much stronger, and she's got a lot to say.

I was robbed. I was robbed of my innocence. I did not lose my virginity to that monster. I did not offer him a gift. He stole from me. He systematically dismantled everything that I had built within myself and that others had built. He caused me public and private shame. The public shame is bad, but the private shame is worse. That's the one that causes you to suddenly beg your partner to stop touching you during wonderfully, beautiful tender moments and then curl up into the fetal position and cry. The one that causes you to feel the need to shower even though you know that no soap and water can ever cleanse the filth that you feel. The one that causes you to stand in front of a mirror and see nothing but disgusting ugliness no matter what anyone else claims to see. THAT is what he did to me. HE did it. I did not. I did not ask for it. I did not invite it. He caused me shame, and he knew full well every minute that he spent attacking me that the result would be shame - that I would feel thrust into the view of others and into my own and feel disrobed by the acts that he performed. That gratified him. It may still.

Fine, but let me paint a different picture for you.

Through writing this post, my longest yet, I feel more exposed than I ever have in my entire life. There are things written here that my fiance' has read that he never knew before. There are things here that I have never told another living soul. I have made bare facts about my physical body that some people will not be able to help remembering the next time they see my form in front of them. There is information here that will shock some to the point that they cannot ignore their recollection of it the next time they speak to me, and I am proud. I am very, very proud.

The nudity of my soul is no longer an offensive thing to me to share with the world. Nudity does some strange things, doesn't it? Because it is so abnormal in our culture, even if you look away after seeing it, you continue to be aware that it is there. You can avert your eyes but not your attention. The nude form is striking. It is beautiful. It has been created for pleasure and amazement even.

I want you to look - not at images of nude bodies. I want you to look at the nakedness of my exposed being. I want you to understand that every curve of my growth as a person and every scar of my circumstances has made something of which I am very proud. It has given me a platform. It is making you look. If you've read this far, I was successful. You gazed at all the rips and tears of my figurative muscles, and you get to watch as I feed them and rebuild. You saw all the cuts and wounds, and you probably noticed some parts that were undeniably beautiful. They are. Those parts are beautiful, so, just with every beautiful, valuable thing, I will protect this form. I will place well equipped guards around it, and I will let the craftsman continue to finish His work until He stands back satisfied and sets down His tools. I will lend strength and courage to others with the same wounds and scars and beautiful parts, and we will go together and reclaim our souls piece by piece and we will keep growing.

So to my abuser: you won, sir. I congratulate you on your victory, but I must tell you this. I am stronger than you thought and smarter than you planned, and I will continue to grow myself in ways of beauty that far surpass any plan of yours to damage me. Your victory was only temporary. In fact, it is over, and now comes mine......for the rest of my life.

To the rest of you: Come with me. Grab hold of my hand. Don't be afraid. Don't feel alone because I am here and so are the others of us. We are a nation. We are a force to be reckoned with. We are strong. We are going to fight the lies until the truth is louder. We are going to change the rules so that they protect the right people. We are going to grow!

We are going to win.

"It's not your fault"

I have joked in the past that I have enough secrets to ruin 14 people. People tell me things. I will never forget the first time that someone bared their soul to me, and I realized the weight of their secret. I was working at a discount retail store in Austin, Texas. I was 18, and my exposure to weighty matters was negligible. I went into the bathroom of this store and found standing at the sink one of my coworkers. She was a drop dead gorgeous latina with legs a mile long and a face that could strike a man dead, it was so beautiful. She would come into work with a captivatingly flirty smile and a personality to match, but when I walked into the bathroom, that charisma was gone. She had been throwing up. She looked up at me from where she stood and let out a half hearted chuckle. "I'm pregnant", she told me. "I had to come in here to get sick" she told me with her heavily accented words. Then she looked up into the mirror and adjusted her hair to cover the bruise near her eye. "I have a bad boyfriend", she explained. I was horrified. How could a man strike someone so stunningly beautiful - especially when she was carrying a baby?! My reply was so weak. I don't think I was any help at all....except for this. She had gotten to share her secret.....with someone...and that someone was me. I kept that secret. I eventually told a person here or there throughout my life but never with her name attached. Now I don't even remember it. I'm not sure I would even recognize her face if I ever saw it again....but her secret and the weight of it, I will always, always remember.

I can no longer count the number of people who have shared secrets with me. The number is far above 14, but I have learned to keep secrets very, very well. Know this. If you have told me a secret, no one knows. Even if I have shared vague details of your secret with someone who shares a similar or identical burden in order to offer some aid, your name is never attached nor are any specifics that would indicate to someone the person to whom said secret belongs. Secrets are sacred. They are more than just private. They are something to be protected and revered - yes revered because even the stuff of our deepest pain requires that we acknowledge a level of reverence. Sadly, in our human experience, it is commonly only the things that cause us the most damage that are able to find their way into the innermost parts of our souls. The truest parts of ourselves. That part of us deserves reverence, and I give it - fully. Your secrets have my reverence.

Here's the thing with secrets, though. The reason we keep them is because we, at least in part, feel that these painful, ugly things hold for us at least a portion of culpability. We have these stories to share because we have fault in the things that caused us damage. Do you see that for the lie that it is?

Let me tell you this. There are things that happen in our lives because of our own neglect or carelessness or selfishness. Those are pretty easy to recognize. Then there are those experiences that hold for us this strange feeling of unrest. We know what happened was "off" or "wrong", but the thought that someone would do something to us out of pure selfishness or lack of regard for our souls is so far from what we understand to be healthy that we give them a pass, and we share the blame.

No.

Don't share that.

I'm going to share these words with you. They are magic. I have seen them unlock captive ones that felt before that they had no hope. So here goes.....

It is not.....your.....fault.  It never was. Your foolishness to trust or your need for acceptance or your lack of judgement were not grounds for you to be mistreated. No. Pureness of heart or desire to get what you're willing to give NEVER means that you deserve the infliction of pain from another person or persons. No.

Your secrets are something that you are forever allowed to keep. That is fine. Know that there is liberty in sharing them, but the sharing can absolutely be limited, but that thing - that weird unquantifiable thing for which you cannot find the right compartment because it is so strange and off - is not your fault. It never was, and it never could have been.

Also know this. You are never alone. There are not only people with whom you can share your secrets that will not pass judgement, but there are legions of souls with whom you actually share common ground. For however many times you feel like you were the only stupid one to find yourself in a compromised or painful position, know that there is another one who has felt the same way for the exact same reason.

You are not alone. You are not a freak, and you are not defective. You are a human with a heart and a soul and a purpose. You were designed from the foundation of the world by the One Who cares more for you than any human ever could. This is not trite. This is not rote. This is something that I have experienced. I have been through the mire of hate from another. I have inhaled the stench of injustice and deterioration of my spirit.....and I have found Him waiting there for me right in the midst....with no judgement. No condemnation. Nothing but heartbreak for my pain and arms to cradle my battered self.

You have worth because the Creator says that you do. You have hope because the Creator says that you do. Do you not believe in that particular Creator? Fine. There is still nothing in this life that says that you must be limited from the point of having those things. Feel that? Feel that weird flutter in your belly? That indignation towards the injustices or the times of pain? That's truth. Embrace THAT. Seek that. Go to THAT with your questions. Mine is God. My "that" is God. It doesn't have to be yours, though I wish it was.  I have spent many skeptical periods in my life wondering about my "that", and I have felt the loving presence of God come and offer me peace and hope and restoration in those dark, dark days.

Either way, though, you've got those things. You are still breathing air and have a heart that carries a beat, so your hope is not gone. Your purpose is not gone. You legacy is not complete.....and you are still not limited by the tragedies. They are not your fault. They never were, and they never will be. They cannot any longer rob you of the ways that you can affect positive change in this world. You are still beautiful.

I use a lot of the same words in many of my posts. I realize this. I use the words pain and soul and spirit and beauty maybe more than the others. I hope this does not lend itself to me being redundant, but I do not mind if it results in me just being repetitive. We learn through reason but also through repetition. We have to hear things (or read them) are certain number of times before we actually understand them to be true. I am okay with that.

Truth. There's another one I frequently use. That is maybe my most important word. You truly have nothing in this life if you have not truth....but if you have that, you are definitely rich. There is power in knowing the truth. There is freedom in it as well....so much freedom. You can carry any number of burdens even if they are being carried at once if you have even just a shred of truth.

So let me give to you again the ultimate truth about that "thing" that gnaws at you every time it enters your mind. You have beauty. You have purpose. You have hope and .........that "thing"........cast it away into the depths from whence it came because, my love......it is not....your...fault.

More chapters than I realized

I took a break from the bloggy. I just spent the last 3 weeks traveling all over the southeast portion of our nation. Our original plan was to just go to Florida to see my kids, but then my best friend's wedding was something new to the calendar that I just could not miss. Then I got an invitation from just one of my favorite cousins to come to the family Christmas on my mother's side. I had to go. It was wonderful. I saw people with whom I share a bloodline that I had  not seen since my grandmother died in 1994. It was so crazy and so wonderful. We stayed for a week with my incredibly gracious grandmother on my dad's side - my Nannie. I love that woman. She is the epitome of what a survivor looks like. The day may come when I ghost write a post here from her, but, until then, just know - she's tenacious as I could ever dream of being. She's where I learned it.

Ironically enough, she lives in the house that my dad grew up in. I've already told you of the pain and horror he endured there. Trust. She endured her own, and she came out standing. She's tough, and I love her for it, and I was able to sit at her kitchen table and tell her that. She's a hero of mine for sure.

Being in that house was an interesting experience for me. I have only been in it a handful of times. The last time I was there, I was pregnant with my oldest child. My dad was actually with me. We were visiting my mom's sister who was dying of cancer. My parents, my little brother and little sister and me and my big pregnant belly drove from Tennessee to Arkansas to see her, so naturally, we were going to see my dad's family. They all still live in the same town.

I watched my dad stand in the same kitchen from his childhood and throw arm punches and make fart jokes with his little brother while my mom and his mom just rolled their eyes, and we all giggled. I didn't really have time during that short visit to meditate on where I was and what had happened there. To be fair, I was also not aware of many things at that point. There was a lot my dad told me after that visit. It's strange. We all feel like, during the last year or so leading up to the day that my dad took his last breath, that he had "important" conversations with us. We all say that it's like something in him knew......so we had these talks. Some of these talks for me included hearing more about his childhood.

For this visit, I knew these things. I walked through the back door of my Nannie's house and found her in the living room. She looked just the same to me. I swear that woman hasn't aged a day since the last time I saw her. We hugged, and I got teary. I whispered in her ear that the last time I was in that house, I was with my dad. "STOP! Live in THIS moment, Sarah! Have happy memories! Don't make her relive that pain!", I mentally chided myself. But I ended up having so, so many questions. I will never know how my grandmother endured my days worth of questions about really painful times. I suppose that, because she is a survivor, she understands within herself that, like my dad, she doesn't have to let the pain of the past hurt her ever again. Gracious, though. She was so gracious to educate me on the details of some of the bad parts, but here's the great thing she did. She also told me sweet stories about my dad when he was tiny.

One of the most precious was when she took him to go get his first pair of glasses. She was a very young girl from very little places. They lived in Forrest City, Arkansas, and the adventure to get her baby his glasses took her to the "big city" of Memphis. "I was so terrified", she told me. "I'd never been to a big city like that." Still, this fiery little 22 year old girl hopped a bus with her 18 month old little guy and made that trip. When they arrived, she found them a place to eat and ordered them a hamburger to share. She set tiny Danny's portion in front of him for him to eat. He picked up the sandwich and held it close to his blindish little eyes and shook his head and uttered "Bucks". and set in back down on the table. From what I understand, he actually did this a couple times. Either way, he had decided that he was not about that hamburger because it was covered in "bucks".......the sesame seeds on the bun. They looked like bugs to him. This sweet little momma proceeded to pick every last one of those seeds OFF the bun so her little guy could eat a "clean" sandwich!!!! ....."bucks". Oh Dad. You were cute. You were always cute - until the day you died, you were cute.

I was glad for the respite of the pleasantness of these stories because the heaviness of the hard stories were, indeed, incredibly heavy. It was hard to hear the stories of my grandfather and how he caused so much pain. It was hard to hear about them because of what it did to my dad and his mom and the other kids, but it was also hard because I saw innumerable parallels. I had traveled the journey of abusive relationships. It has been a long road. Anyone who has traveled that path understands. Anyone that hasn't doesn't. That's just how it goes. If you don't understand, please don't judge our choices and please count yourself lucky every day that you live. It's a weird world. As my Nannie was telling these stories, there were so many that, as she was talking, I had memories - not projected memories. I wasn't envisioning what they all must have felt or said or seen. I was remembering.....she was talking and I saw my face staring back at someone else's. I saw familiar faces in the room - not my dad's and his siblings.

This was a weird experience for me. In my guided therapy, we have not even TOUCHED my adult life. We're still in my childhood. I always felt that my childhood was relatively happy. There were things that caused me pain and confusion, but I would never really say that entire era of my life was generally painful or confusing. My adult life, on the other hand..........that's a different story, and these bits of knowledge reminded me of that. They also cemented in my mind and heart that I did the right thing by leaving, by getting help, by speaking up for myself.

I sat across the table or across the room from my Nannie and story swapped, and, for a few moments, we weren't grandmother and granddaughter. We were women.......and we were survivors. I looked at her through teary, impassioned eyes and said "You did the work! You women in your generation did the work. You blazed the trail for us. Before, women were just expected to stay and endure these terrible things. There was no option of leaving until you girls, and you specifically, decided that you had to stand up for yourselves. You opened the door that we now get to walk through. I can't tell you how much that means to me. I can't ever tell you how thankful I am that you chose to do that. It rescued ALL of us.". I hope beyond hope that I did not cause her pain. I hope beyond hope that she realizes what a seed of healing she planted by being so transparent with me.

As I walked through that house, I have to tell you that I saw and heard ghosts (not literally, but let me tell you, the figurative ghosts are even more a force to be reckoned with than the paranormal kind). I saw pictures that I'd never seen before. I'd begun to understand it all in a way that I had not before. Some of them were very sad. Some of them were not, but one instance stood out in my memory. It had dwelt there, at the front of my mind, from the moment I'd first heard the story......of Madame Butterfly and the beauty and hope of the songs therein. I knew what I had to do. My dad had gone back to that time and rescued the little boy, but the only time the walls of that room had heard the muted notes through the makeshift earphones was during a time of sadness. I felt incredibly compelled to play it again - to give it a new history.....so that is what I did.

On my last night in that house, I pulled up the recording of Maria Callas singing the aria. I entered the dark room and, with my own set of headphones (actually Dan's), I sat down on the floor in the dark, and I let the music play. I closed my eyes and felt.....every....note. I spoke to that boy. I know. Weird, but I did it either way. I told him again that he was safe and that it was okay. I imagined holding that little boy in my lap and smoothing back his wavy blonde hair and hugging him so tight. I felt something in that room during the playing of that song. I can't describe it. I just felt it, and I knew that I'd closed a chapter. I'd played the very music that had played long ago, but this time was different and every day hereafter could be different. Now there could be comfort. Now there could be closure. Now there could be healing. Now there could be restoration and endless, beautiful hope.........now there could be beauty.........for him........but also for me.

I imagined myself comforting that little boy, but I would be so remiss if I did not tell you that I could nearly feel my dad's arms around me....comforting me. It was like our souls dwelt in the room together for the time it took to play the aria but not just two people. It was all of us....it was every version of the two of us - every phase of life was in that room together and we all comforted each other. We all wept together. I could only feel my own tears as they streamed down my cheeks, but I could feel them being swept off my skin by the spirit of everything my dad...that little boy......chose to do with the things that had brought him the most pain. He chose to heal....and so I could also choose to heal. I have to tell you that this experience was one of the most intense of my life, and I will never forget it. I returned to the walls of his pain....and to the walls of mine.

There was no breaking down of the walls in those moments. I knew that could come later.  There was just the being there together. Even if it was nowhere except in my own wishful thinking and emotions, we were there together. The music had been played again, but this time just for the sake of beauty. It wasn't drowning anything out. It wasn't covering up anything. It wasn't providing escape.....it was just beautiful.

I don't know what to do with that experience or the ones in that house preceding that. That is where I feel a bit stuck. I will ask for guidance about what to do next with the exposure of wounds that were so deep that their hideousness caused me to push them back and hide them well. For now, I feel them, and I look at them. I have to feel now that they are no longer hideous. Their nature was ugly, but they do not make me ugly. They cannot putrify the beauty of what I can be. I can be whole. I can be beautiful.....just like the music.

There were so many things that I have known for a long while that I must address. The thing with doing all this learning about my own past and the past of those who came before me is that I have now uncovered even more. It is painful. It does, indeed feel so ugly....for right now, but one day someone will need to come in and play the song of my pain, and they will need for it to have beauty. That is what I will try to provide. That is the thing towards which I will work. I will work long and hard, and I will ask for a lot of help, and then it will become a thing of beauty....this thing of the song of my pain.....my aria......my Madame butterfly.