When my soul speaks it might be the culprit for sleepless nights. So used to living in my head that when direction comes from my core, and that weathervane is the ultimate good blossoming upward, it is also terrifying.
Ding dong, tick tock, what’s the sound that wakes me in the night keeping me up? My soul speaking, and being honored by the actions taken in the daytime. You risk breaking taboos of ‘family.’ How dare you?
Change, growth? Terrifying. How dare you become anything but a people-pleasing doormat? The origin family unit needed that from me to keep its secrets. And who is going to kick at the family unit?
If you are thrown out of the cave you will die.
So, the personality formed is not my true nature. The finding of it continues, little by little, growth occurring out of persistence, determination, and courage.
Only by going to the fear, accepting it’s there, can it be met with kindness, patience and understanding. Awareness of how scared I’ve been came to mind when discussing Samuel’s upcoming hip replacement on the phone with my son. Fright filled tears swelled trailing down my cheeks like hot ice.
And Samuel, usually my rock, is nervous too, feeding my own fears exponentially. Seems an oxymoron to stay connected with one’s interior no matter what’s there, but then also keep my hands busy so that fears don’t overwhelm and consume.
Samuel, not a man to discuss his feelings, admitted a feeling last night which surprised me. But only after he got up from the couch barely able to stand up or move to the kitchen.
“I don’t know how you work with Mike all day when you can barely walk,” I said.
“It’s the same as you doing all that baking to keep your hands busy, it occupies my mind- measuring, cutting- then I’m not thinking about it,” he said.
It is not easy to admit fear. Aren’t we supposed to be brave? Bury feelings of fragility, fear, and vulnerability, which often are looked on as weaknesses. It is strong to say, ‘I’m afraid,’ but do it anyway.
Though unwilling to venture out ever again for an overnight anywhere, my spirit is strong, my soul heard. Sleep does not come any place but home in my own bed. Selling the camper is being done happily, good-bye.
The pleasures and indulgences right here are abundant. Rather than feeling as if courage has left me, I am an explorer with great strength and bravery.
To be still, sit still, to go into the depths of me takes a will unfounded because chaos has driven me, not peace. Peace finds me among the frogs croaking creek-side, the fronds around it waving breezily, the birds swooping down for insects, and mother soothing my ragged interior.
A robin hopped ahead of me as if to say good-bye. Then another. They have not been seen since. My belief is that they know how much I love them, and miss them when they go. But stopped to say, “We’ll be back.”
As winter approaches and my spirit tends to drift downward, it is the beauty of nature which restores and transforms.
Perceiving how others see me, doesn’t mean that’s who resides within. It is my own understanding of myself that matters- that is true and authentic. If others can’t bother to take the time to really know me, it is their loss. And not many do.
But the ones that do? Are close for life no matter how far away in the physical realm, they remain close in soul. Time on the land and with myself has offered a view into how others see me.
The problem that arises from that is taking that perception as the truth. Looking deeper within, the slights they perceive don’t exist. The being internally is far better than that. But the habit for decades is to see the truth how others see it who are not out for my best interests, though say they are.
So easy to believe the worst of myself. Much harder to see the beauty, grace, and honesty. There are true friends who have tried to tell me that, choosing instead not to see it, longing for acceptance in places where it never comes. But the only place that matters is within.
Don’t you see? Look, and you shall see the truth, the beauty, grace, and honesty. A lifetime of living like a dinghy on rough waters, rocking to and fro, seeing myself as others do, others that are looking out for their own needs, not mine.
It is a new adventure to look at the truth like a flower in my hand and inspect the uniqueness in all its flawed splendor.
Tears roll down my cheeks, then continue while watching yesterday’s hearings. Shaye Moss, an election poll worker in Georgia describes her pain after Trump and his snake followers hounded her, her mother, even her grandmother.
Shaye Moss, her mother behind her.
Full testimony…
Excerpt pertaining to her grandmother…
The pain was felt deeply; her 60-pound weight gain, leaving a job she loved, not going out anymore due to it feeling unsafe, and on goes the deep pain and loss over Snake Donald’s fat lies.
And there are so many affected by this pig. And it can get worse. There are many of his snakes taking these poll worker positions because so many quit due to the harassment and deadly threats from the snake cult. And they WILL do the evil they falsely accuse her and so many others of.
What happened to just wanting peace? Seems to be converted into just wanting not to feel depressed. These months have been dark, the lack of sleep making them darker. A very hard winter, but there’s light, true light. Longer into evenings, earlier in mornings, and the robins? They are back as depicted on last night’s news, I just NEED to see one.
Peace.
That is the one thing being searched for and found after working so hard towards it, and felt miraculously in many moments. Yet this dark thing holding a grip on my emotions, thoughts, and spirit has been deadening.
Talking to Samuel about the ‘whys’ of living, especially now that all purpose seems over. No more rush or stress over kids, jobs, or paying bill. Our life of frugality has made us comfortable without having to worry about money. After a life of that constant nagging concern, shouldn’t I be happy?
He said, “The alternative is going home to Jesus.”
That quieted me, what do you say to that? Although, you go to Jesus, I go to Mother Earth in ash form.
Walking down past my friendly pines on a day the snow began to melt in the meadow, a song from long ago played through my mind, ‘Jesus Loves Me.” The memory of my early divide from male dominated religion took hold as a child at the same time siblings were attacking me. We children sang it at summer camp, but I couldn’t and instead said, “Not me. Jesus doesn’t love me.”
Horrified, adults ushered me into a little room all by myself for a talk. Sitting there alone, waiting, feeling so scared. Do-gooders doing bad, harming me even more which would be almost impossible considering what was already happening. But shame on shame buried me further. At the picnic with all the children running, laughing, and having fun on a sunny day, the path to the rest of my life began… dark, so very dark, and shamed.
So many times people knew and could have stepped in to help, but didn’t.
I let the song run through my mind on this bright blue day letting the words sink in and feel love, because my belief is, whether you call it Jesus, Muhammed, Allah, or Moses, we are all one in same, and loved by the same source, an internal one. Though mine has abandoned me of late feeling hollow as a empty shell.
All that work these past few years with success, yet while coming up the other side of the meadow my shadow was scorned. My life of self-hate still there- still needing work by continuing to turn over the dark parts and love those too.
It has taken an entire week to come back to a place where peace had cupped me in her arms. A week to come back down from severe PTSD affecting all systems dramatically causing real illness.
Without understanding why, the sad truth is that origin family members are like drinking poison. Go ahead drink it, but the sickness comes after…. every time. It was OK for a while when meeting with one at a time, but becoming so immersed with all three, as Seth’s wife was indisposed, became overwhelming.
They talk about another not there. If you have something to say to someone, say it to them. It does no good to discuss it with others. More importantly it’s disrespectful along with cowardly.
There is still a part of me wanting to do what others seem to do so easily. Attend a brunch, go on a spur of the moment camping trip, whatever. But again, no, my body will not comply splintering in a million pieces.
Coming home it took days to unwind. Finally peace seeps in fully. The sweet scent of blossoms are noticed, my breath is felt, and the songbirds fill me. By the creek the gift of a graceful heron fans her enormous wings as she glides past over the water looking for another fishing spot.
Heaven is again discovered as the sun shines down warming like an embrace, right here in my back-yard.
Tears couldn’t be stopped. All over a ten dollar purchase on Amazon. That’s all it takes sometimes, a manipulation, a break in trust, doing something different than what’s promised, and it all falls down. Suddenly before you is an 8 year old child.
Head in hands weeping, “It feels like when Chet threw the gum down the hall,” I said to Samuel, adding, “I don’t trust anyone, no one. Everything was taken.”
And the wound bleeds every time someone picks at the scab by lying even if it was an honest mistake. If you don’t do what you say, if you take my money for one thing then do something else with it leaving me without what was promised… whether it’s ten dollars or ten thousand, the feeling is the same.
Betrayed. Betrayal shattering me into a million pieces as a child and throughout life as each incidence of dishonesty forces the original trauma to the forefront.
Samuel says, “Of course. I can see how it reminds you of the past. No one likes being scammed.”
And he may finally understand. When my rage at him ended, which really was almost always rage at the abusers, a new beginning began. A relationship more peaceful, tolerant, and knowledgeable of each other’s pain. It has taken a life-time to get here.
Instead of the journey being somber as it always has been in order to survive, it can be joyful and more peaceful. The tsunami of betrayal hits without warning disturbing sleep causing the need for a sleep aid. The day after feels wasted and unproductive because recovery requires stillness. A wasted day? Illness needs care, quiet, and rest.
Chronic PTSD remains because at the time of the original traumas no help was provided for processing it. Accepting that these days happen and allowing for recovery by supplying the love and care I would devote to another isn’t a waste of time, it is courage. Roaring waves roll in uninvited engulfing me by surprise every time. Wanting control but having none. Waves threatening to drown, yet there lies hope.
In the hurting lay the bastion once protective but now interfering with healing, the inability to trust. The most important person to trust is myself, from there it will flow. A new day, a new start, a jockeying of parts settling back to where they belong.
Imagine moving into a new home that has truly become a fortress with added fencing. Moving from safety to insecurity with troops all around your house to keep you safe. Living in DC right now is dangerous, or any capitol across the US.
Extraordinary courage is needed to proceed under these condition, yet that is type of courage the Biden’s are made of. Still, it must be unnerving even for them, and other leaders who have stood up to the orange deranged evil clown.
The sponge Bob square headed dictator who would kill all in opposition in any way he could has now chosen death to anyone whose nose is not up his ass. Egging on those groups once ostracized enough to stay in woodwork, grooming their evil to the point of pride in overthrowing their own government and to murder. It has come to this, not surprising, yet still shocking.
He gives not a care about the police officer now dead because of him, adding to that 400,000 lives lost to the virus that he didn’t tell us about. Blood on him, yet he cares not.
The Sponge Bob army is not comical, but deadly, and he knows it, using it to take revenge. All that matter to him is vindictiveness. Can’t you see it people who still stand behind him? Come out of your dysfunctional fog, wake up to the evil being played out right before your blind eyes.
Prayers for the safety of our courageous leaders during this time that shouldn’t be happening.
Razor wire is installed atop a security fence in preparation for next week’s Presidential inauguration a week after a pro-Trump mob broke into and took over the Capitol, January 14, 2021, in Washington, DC. – The center of Washington was on lockdown Thursday as more than 20,000 armed National Guard troops were being mobilized due to security concerns ahead of the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Oddly, this past summer was perhaps the best summer of my life, even while the pandemic raged on. Maybe its coincidence, or maybe it’s knowing that most folks feel as restricted as much of my life was. That comforted in that now there was a link between me and other people.
Though unsure what the reason, it just might be that over the decades I’ve worked my ass off trying to heal and recover what’s mine. It’s not possible to gain back all that was lost. The little girl I was is no longer, and that happened early on.
But it is possible to feel happy, be at peace, and welcome joy. But it has taken a lifetime and the courage of a lion, or a pride of them. To go against family? Because that is the tension and kickback that occurs when speaking truths.
When breaking the silence in any way? Because society doesn’t want to know either. But for me it took repeated telling of a story no one wanted to hear. Over and over again the details rang out that as a child were held in. Once the dam burst no one could quiet me, no one ever should have.
Patricia J Grace 