Miracle

It's a miracle we're alive.   I survived.   Despite living through, witnessing, being part of things that are beyond anything any human mind should have to hold, any heart should have to bear... somehow.. we survived.

It's truly remarkable that I'm here, just in this space, typing these words.   I was not meant to become an adult, I wasn't born to be.. a human.. I was reminded constantly I was born to be nothing more than useable, a sex toy, distraction, tool... but never... a person.    Yet, here I sit, typing, writing down the unspeakable, the things meant to be secret forever... living a life... learning who I am beyond all I was taught... beyond everything that was "planned" for me...

I am.    I did whatever I had to do.. in each moment to survive, and I did survive, and it amazes me very single day, that I'm still here, still breathing, still striving, still loving... despite, well - everything.    I'm not dead, I'm not locked up somewhere, I'm not an abusive person, I chose differently, I broke an abusive cycle that went back generations.. It stopped with me, it's done.. the reality changed..  a new pattern, shiny and bright in it's place.

Each moment I'm here, I win.  

Each breath I take, I win.

Each time I choose love, not hate or harm, I win.

Every time I step more fully into the light, I win.

I win, and the abusers, they are dead and gone and they lose more every damn moment.

I hold this close, tenderly cradle the knowledge that I'm still here, that I won, in my darkest moments.   Just here, just now, when I'm fighting such a brutal, gut wrenching battle, when I'm working so, so hard to not resist the memories, even though my worst fear is so close I feel like I'm going to scream, I remember that I won, I tug that little treasure out of my pocket and smile softly, tucking  it away before picking up my weapons, and going back into battle.   It's the balm that soothes my wounds, the water that slakes my thirst, the light when I'm not able to see for the darkness.. and it makes everything okay, it makes it all worth it, those two little words...

I won.

A letter to my child self....

Little one:

I wish I were there to hold your hand, for you to look into my eyes and know everything will be okay....you are so very brave, even when you feel there is no hope... you go on, you survive.   I want you to know you did nothing wrong,  not ever... you did just what you had to do to go on, to survive.

I want you to know good things are coming.   That the world waits for you, that beyond this horror show of childhood you've had to endure is a beautiful life, just waiting for you to reach it.

Please hear me: you did nothing wrong.   You came into this world a being of light and love, and no amount of darkness and torture could possibly touch that.    They tried, over and over to break you, to break us.... and you never gave up and you never gave in, you will grow up to be a woman still filled with light and love.  They will not win, they didn't win.

When things got dark and seemed impossible you became a tiny warrior, you did everything and anything you could to not lose your love, to not hurt anyone, to keep going.. despite the insanity and cruelty around you.

I need you to know that it's not your fault, that nothing they did was your fault, that you did only what you had to survive.   I know you hold enormous guilt for the things you were forced to do, but you are only a child, too little to fight them... and if you had fought them, you wouldn't have survived... we wouldn't be grown now, we wouldn't be having a life, we wouldn't be having the sweet moments of joy we get glimpses of now.

Sweet girl, I know you think you should have died, that you don't deserve to live, that the others - the ones that didn't survive should be here and not you....but the Universe makes no mistakes, you do deserve to live.. you deserve all good things, and when you grow up you will do your best to help others in every moment, you will love all beings, you will be proof that love and light cannot be killed, that no matter where you come from you can be a light in the world.

I am so grateful to you, for every moment you lived, for every memory you held onto until we were strong enough to work through them....for the years you were strong and steadfast and a warrior and no matter what they did to you, with you..... you did not let them snuff you out, snuff us out, because here we are, and they are dead and gone.   Thank you, for showing me what being a warrior is, what being a survivor is, for giving us the chance to have this beautiful life... I promise we will cherish every sweet moment, that we will finish this sorting of memories, and then we will play.. we will dance and sing, we will run on the beach with the wind in our hair, we will laugh too loud and dance in the rain.... we will play and do all the things we longed for when we were little.

Come, take my hand sweet girl, know your job is done,  you can  rest now, and just be happy to be alive, I will do the hard work now, I will finish the warrior work, and soon we will be free of it all, we will be joyful and savor every moment of this sweet life.

Come little one, take my hand, let me hold you, let me rock you and make you feel safe, the work is mine now, rest, and know I love you.

Where I'm From...

Where I'm from is dark and death stained.   The memory's scent is copper pennies and sulphur, burned out candles and sweat.   I was born to be nothing, to stay nothing and go back to nothing.    And yet, here I am, still living and learning to thrive rather than simply survive.    I used to wonder if what was born from darkness into darkness could ever be anything but that same black void but now I know the answer.  I know the answer because I am standing in my own light and I shed light on those around me and out into the world.

I know the answer because I am that light, that light that I dove into.... deep inside myself when things were not safe.   The deep well of love that I found at my center, the hours I spent there in hiding from the dark world into which I was born, those hours saved me.  I learned to not be the dark thing I was being groomed to be, I learned that just there, in that safe inner space where love and light lived no one and nothing could touch me, not really.

Where I'm from is rage filled and pain drenched, it was beyond comprehension, though I've spent many hours trying to understand... I know now it is beyond understanding.  I know now that what matters is where I am now and where I'm going.  I understand now that the people who rained such darkness over me are dead and gone and I'm still breathing,  still here and able to see light now, able to see and feel and express love.   I know now it doesn't really matter where I'm from, what matters is where I'm going and what I do with my life in the Now.

Today I know that I have not only survived, but that I have moved through that blackness and transcended it, I am beyond the reach of those that brought me into this world and those that wished to take me from the world.    I take each new breath with a sense of ease, with the knowledge that I can make it through anything, that I'm stronger than any mountain and braver than any warrior.   

It's a new day and a new life and I am grateful to be alive, grateful to be healing, even grateful to the memories as they arise and I accept them, hold them with tenderness and honor them.  I am grateful, to be in the light now and to know that the light is where I'm from now.

It's All A Balancing Act...

This healing process is like a rollercoaster, sweeping up, higher and higher and higher until I feel like I can fly and then plunging down, so fast it feels like I'm going to be sick and wondering all the while why I got on the ride in the first place. Except I don't. Well, maybe, sometimes I do.

I've been doing a lot of self care, battling my own inner critics and the old tapes from the abusers saying: "you don't take care of you, you take care of others" or "you can shower all you want and you still won't be clean" or "no matter what you do, you don't deserve to love, no one will ever love you, you are simply a toy to be used." But, there's a difference now, a small voice that speaks up, whispering that none of those words matter, that those words don't belong to me, they belong to long dead abusers and I won't honor them anymore. A voice that whispers that it doesn't matter if I don't deserve love, because I'm learning to love myself. A whisper that my only real job right now IS to take care of me.

I'm so full of gratitude for those tiny voices from deep inside that are speaking up and helping to combat the ancient tapes of the past, of the abusers. I'm grateful for the circle of support I have in family, friends, my therapist, my support group. I've reclaimed my meditation practice, changed the way I eat (mostly), reclaimed my bathroom and kitchen and I'm slowly making my living space someplace to feel at peace.

But there are still days like today, where night terrors plague me all night long, and there is a depression that threatens to drown me, and exhaustion seems so thick that I cannot breathe. I'm learning to stay present even to this space that holds sadness and depression. I'm learning to not question why or how, but simply to be aware of it, hold it almost as tenderly as I do the moments full of joy. This week I ate things I shouldn't have, and I'm feeling guilty and knowing I will feel worse because of it. But even with that, I am trying to simply be aware of it, not judge it, not beat myself up over it, but simply to recognize it and let it go.

I am still learning the balancing act between black and white. Between doing nothing and over doing so much that I am beyond exhausted. Learning and teaching myself that it's not only okay for me to set time aside for art and writing, but it's imperative, it's what I'm on this planet to do and that it's just as important, more important than doing the laundry or washing the floor. Writing still feels selfish, like I'm doing something frivolous, that any moment I will be caught, that I'm doing something wrong. Old tapes, again, rising up to poison the present moment.... so, taking baby steps to remind myself to be aware of those old ideas, those old brain washed thoughts, and to soften into allowing myself the room to express myself in paint and collage and words.

I am 44 going on 19, learning what works for me and what doesn't, what I truly want and need versus what I was taught. Learning how to be a friend, or a sister, or simply me. I'm enough, and I deserve to do what makes my heart happy, I deserve to take good care of myself, I deserve to follow my heart's desire and write. I deserve to play and laugh and feel joy with no guilt.

So, today I am being kind to myself, simply being aware of the sadness and the fact that I ate wrong, and trying very hard not to judge myself. Learning to give myself the same compassion I would give to everyone else. Compassion, that's my lesson for today.

Be kind to yourself, show yourself the same compassion you show anyone else, thank you for your work, your healing, your words and your presence to my own words... May this day be a blessed and beautiful one for you. <3

The Taste Of Fredom

“Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.” 

― May Sarton, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

Doors.   Lots and lots of doors, one after another, running, tripping unsure if I'm running toward the next door or away from it.  A crazy mixed up maze of door after door, all of them the same, that particular color of rust...the door knob looks menacing and I expect the thing to come to life and grab my hand, dragging me in, snapping it's teeth, drool dripping from its gaping jaw.  

But it's just a door.  A door from my past, not here and now, but from the way back time when I was little and lost and unable to protect myself.   I'm not that tiny girl anymore, I have her by the hand, Me.... the grown up version, the kick ass version, me NOW.. who would never let ANY child be hurt, not even herself.   And so, I grab the door knob and look once more into little, tiny me's eyes, and reach out, grabbing that damn door handle, which after all, IS just a door knob and yank open the door, smiling because even me, the NOW me, thought perhaps behind that door was death, but.....it's just an open door, a surrender, an acceptance of what was, and not what IS.

Opening  that door and walking through, knowing that nothing and no one can touch us now....is freedom.  It's the way through, and my path and my goal all at once.   Every single time I open that damn door and walk through I win, we win.... and they, the abusers lose, again.

I am not afraid anymore.  Right here, right now, I am free of fear and able to look through that door, step through it and let what comes, come.   The other side of that doorway is simply what has been  and not, what IS.   What IS:  I am 44, a writer, a Survivor and learning to be a woman who thrives, not just exists, not just goes on, not just fights for this moment and the next, but who revels in it, in this life.

Truth is, every moment is a gift, every moment that I am still here and doing the healing work is a victory and I am learning to feel the joy that is present in every moment, unhindered or bound by fear.   The Truth is, I've already Survived, I've already lived the horrors and they can't touch me now.   I need only witness them, those fragments of the abuse that need to be seen and heard and felt and recognized, given  honor and gently held.  

This is a new space, uncharted territory.  This space where I hold and respect and honor the memories, where I give them the time and love and space to be, and to be done.  This space of light and joy and this sense of wonder at it all, this process, the Survival, the awareness that each new moment is a gift if I only recognize it... feels like freedom.. like running down a deserted beach, feet splashing through the waves, sun on my face and wind in my hair.   It feels like riding a bike down a hill, when it almost feels like flying.  Feels like peace, like possibility and laughter and love.

I understand and accept that tomorrow may feel different.   That this process is ever-changing, and tomorrow or the next day or the day after that may bring back fear, terror, but I also KNOW that this space, just here, will forever be part of the core of me now.  This certainty that I can do this, that I am on the right path, that I need only take the next step and trust in this process, it will not fail me, I will not fail me.. we have already won, and we win every single moment that we are alive.

Thank you for the work you are doing, for the steps you take on your healing path, thank you for being a Survivor and lighting the path ahead for me, take a few minutes today, try to honor and cherish yourself, you Survived, you won, be good to you..... 

Cultivating the Garden of Compassion

I've been fighting the urge to shut down, resist, run away from what comes next in my healing process for a very long time.   The door to what comes next looms in front of me and I feel clearly my body and mind and heart as terror washes over me and every muscle, every fiber of my being shouts: NO!    I've been working hard trying to figure out how to stop fighting, stop resisting, to let what comes, come.   And yet, still I found myself running the opposite direction.

All along I've known, the only way out is through, but knowing that and being able to go through are two separate things.   The internal terror from years of brain washing are fierce - flashing red lights, an ear-wrenching alarm sounding and screams of STOP, GO BACK, RUN, DEATH AHEAD are overwhelming.

Memories are knocking at the door, kinesthetic body memories sneaking through the cracks, sliding under it, making my body spasm and cramp and hurt.  And still, I've been resisting.

Perhaps I've been looking at the whole thing in the wrong way.   Could it be it's as simple as being more compassionate, more tender....having a little mercy for myself and whatever comes next?    Maybe I don't have to face it all with a fierce "Come and get me!" attitude, but rather a softening, a gentleness and understanding for it all.

I'm going to cultivate compassion, for myself, for this healing journey, for the memories to come, for the child I was and for the woman I will be.   It's strange that I have limitless compassion for all beings on this planet, except....myself.   I'm going to tend my inner garden, sowing seeds of compassion, tenderness, love....selfishly this time, all for me, who I am, who I was and who I will be.

In the end it seems, it's not about fighting or resisting or even silent acceptance.... it's about becoming as tender hearted toward myself as I am toward others.   It's about softness and opening up, trusting that as my petals open the sun will be there to help me grow, that the world won't end because I see my history or tell my story.   Those fears are old, like old VHS tapes, and it's time to record over them with a different story.  A story of survival, yes, but also a story of learning to thrive, grow, reach, be free and find joy.

Yes, there is still fear here, but also, tentatively....hope.   The truth is those that hurt me are dead, and those that aren't, well, they can't touch me now.   These memories, that damn door to what comes next, these body memories are asking me to simply be present to what WAS, not what is, or what will be.  I will honor them, and the strength of who I was to have survived it all.

Today I will begin gardening, kneel in the rich soil of my heart and begin turning the soil, making it ready for these seeds of compassion, tenderness, understanding, acceptance and love for myself.

Sometimes the answer we search for with such determination, is closer than our breath, if we only stop, listen, feel and be present, no matter how hard it seems.

There is a softness today,  in my body, mind, heart...and this is new and magical.  So, today I will whisper softly: "Come, come out, it's okay, I'm here and able and willing to listen and hear and see, we are safe now, but I will be your witness and we will be fine, more than fine, we will be whole." 

Thank you for your work, your compassion...for yourself and others... and for the light you shine on this healing path for me... I am grateful

From The Beginning....

From the very beginning she knew she was....broken.  Fractured down deep where no one could see.  Perfect. Slut. Dirty. How could she be all the things she was labeled at once?  She couldn't, wasn't and knew it, so what did that leave her, this small child/woman/baby/crone?  A liar.... she knew that much, for she wasn't perfect, could never be that unobtainable word, so she always knew she had to hide herself, the REAL her, hide herself buried so deep in the mountain of her body and soul that no one would see. 

Hide, under the covers, behind the door, in the closet, down deep inside at her very core, she always knew if she could hide well enough, no one could touch her......not really.  She became the absence of herself, the void, the empty shell, watching from far away as the abusers did their worst, and worse still, trading, selling, using, torturing....and she was the great emptiness.  She learned how to smile, or not to smile, how to look the right way in every moment.  Though often she guessed it wrong. Tossing on the wrong costume at the wrong moment and knew the moment she had by the glint in the abusers eye or the color of their face.

Becoming, with each misstep, a better chameleon.   A better charlatan,  salesman of lies.  She had to you see, to survive.. and to survive was all that mattered.   Well, not all that mattered, for in her search, her diving deep into the center of herself to hide, she found a mystery.   Down deep in her very heart, soul, self, there lie a beautiful waterfall, pouring into a breath taking body of water... she spent most of her time there, bathing in the pool, lying on it's banks.   She found the treasure that the abusers could never touch, never rip from her, never destroy.   She found she could be whole, when she dove into the waters of love, floating in that sweet, sacred pool, she found joy and unconditional love and knew she was THAT, and nothing and no one could take that from her.

This Body....

Question
BY MAY SWENSON
Body my house
my horse my hound  
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep  
How will I ride  
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount  
all eager and quick  
How will I know  
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure  
when Body my good  
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door  
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift  
how will I hide?

My body. This body, just here, just now, that I mistreat in so many ways.  Not that I mean to mistreat it, at least not consciously.. but I do nonetheless.   I'm not sure the "whys" of it.   Though there are many that are fairly clear.   Fear of the bathroom, shower, bathtub.. Fear of the Kitchen, the Bedroom.. fear of fear of fear.    So I will make mad dashes into the kitchen to grab something, anything to eat.. anything that won't take time and effort, anything that won't keep me in the kitchen for more than five minutes before I dash back out to safety.

There was a time before PTSD that I showered twice a day, every day, without fail.  I was beyond compulsive about it.  Now though, when I step into the bathroom, or really before I do actually step inside, I pause just at the doorway my toes just at the edge of the carpet as though I were about to jump off some unimaginably high cliff into shark infested waters.   I hesitate, do I really need to shower today?   Do I really need to brush my teeth? Comb my hair? Use the toilet?   When I stare into my apartments plain little bathroom, that has seen no horror show, no abuse, nothing that should instill this utter terror... superimposed are scenes from my history, different bathrooms, different showers, different colored tiles and linoleum.. shimmering as though it were an oily imprint hovering over the present.  I hear shouted words, gasping breaths and muffled tears, I feel the bodies memories of broken ribs, cuts and skin scrubbed raw, is it any wonder I feel the urge to run away from that space?  Isn't it more amazing that I ever actually do step inside?

I am 43 years old.  I was never meant to be here, alive and at this age.  That was never "Their" intention.   Some days I feel like an imposter or like I've somehow conned my way to this age and at any moment it will be taken away from me, this life... before I ever get to truly live.  Some days, I feel as though I have no right to be here, well, most days right now.   But there are moments, moments where I know I'm meant to be here, that I have something important to give.. to offer.  That there must be some reason I lived through all I have, have fought as hard as I have and that I'm still here, breathing, being.

This body of mine has been through SO much, so much, I wish I could be more kind to it.  I wish I could love it, accept it, be grateful and take better care of it.   I do try, and I have gotten better at it.   Some days it's a vocal thing, stepping off that carpet in the doorway and onto the bathroom linoleum, all the while, saying aloud "this is MY bathroom.  This is my Sink, This is my Shower, This is my bathtub, and YOU, you are dead and gone and you don't get to have this space."  The days that the ghosts of dead abusers lurk around every corner, it helps, sometimes I repeat it over and over, sometimes shouting it, and I wonder what my neighbors must think.   But, it works, so let the neighbors think I'm crazy.

I want peace... I yearn for a time when this healing process is not so in my face every moment of every damn day.   So the question becomes.. how to care for this  body and keep it well enough to enjoy when I do get there, when I am able to truly be free from this constant battle.   How to learn to care about this body, care for this body, give it some love and attention.. rather than hating it and mistreating it.   How to feel the body memories and not take them out on the body.  How to feel the aches and pains, spasms and cramps.. and not blame this poor body as it tells it's story.   It's a puzzle, that I'm still sorting into little piles, trying to put it together in both my heart and mind, and yes.. body.

May this day be a blessed one for you....

......this Moment

I've been sick for the last week, or two?   It's all sort of blurred together with apartment inspections and trying to just do the daily mandatory stuff that we all have to do.   It's sort of typical for me to get really ill after a period of lack of sleep due to night terrors or anxiety or flashbacks or all of the above as it's been for the last month or so.   I think at a certain point the body takes over, getting it's rest in whatever way it has to.

I'm tired of being sick. I'm tired of flashbacks, body memories, anxiety, panic, sorrow, loss, pain, fear.... I would like a bit of "normalcy" for a time.  Is that asking too much?   I'm not asking to be done.  Though I've been demanding that ever since I first got diagnosed with PTSD.  But, please could I have a little more peace, joy, breathing room?   There is this urge to scream at the Universe, the Divine Spirit, God, Goddess - cut me a tiny bit of slack?

Even as I'm typing these words, I'm hearing this internal debate.  How I can ask that, when I know so long as I resist, these things will persist and with a vengeance.   And still here I sit, feeling like a tightly closed fist... feeling, knowing, believing... to open my fingers even the tiniest bit, means Death.  This enormous wave of terror washes over me even at the mere thought, my breath catches in my throat, my chest seizes up, hands beginning to shake, sweat beginning to bead my brow - all at merely considering trying to relax into whatever must come next.

What memory awaits behind that blasted door.  The door that has haunted and plagued me for as long as I  can remember in this healing process.  Knowing something terrifying or heartbreaking or both lays just on the other side of that god forsaken door.  I'm not sure if it's better knowing it's not an imaginary door, but rather a door that did exist and that did hold terror behind it.  I think it's better, it at the very least makes me feel a little less crazy.

So, how to stop fighting the process?   How do I relax or release into whatever must come next when everything inside me is screaming at me to run?  Sadly I don't have the answer just yet.   I will take this question into therapy this week.....   I will sit to meditate today, for in reclaiming that space.. and my right to have that space, I will find peace, quiet, joy.   I will walk my pup today and find joy in the rain, trees, grass and the joy that Bella has when we are out together.   I will write today,  another chapter in the true stories, the deep down, black and white and red, agony and tears truth of my history - because it's what needs to be done, no matter how terror-filled I am as I do it.   I will remember to breathe, leave room for laughter, music... all things that I know will help push the darkness back a bit.

 I will try to remember that so long as I'm trying to fight the river, trying to swim against the current, I will make no progress... and to be my most whole self.... I have to keep working, keep pushing through the memories, allowing them in and through.  It's an odd combination.. keep working.. and at the same time.. relax, lie back and go with the river's current. 

I will find my way through to my most whole self.. I deserve it, I really do.

Thank you for reading, thank you for your own hard work.... I hope this day is a blessed and beautiful one for you~ 

On Tears and Fear

I've been crying for days.   Crying at sappy commercials, TV shows with emotional story lines, the written word by writers I admire and in the cracks between all that, for love lost, years of my life lost and this strange space I'm in right now.    I'm tired, not body tired, but heart and soul tired.   This battle for healing, for becoming the most whole version of me I can be feels never-ending just here, just now.   I don't want to hear how the journey is a spiral and it only "feels" like I'm back at the beginning.  I want to know it, know it from deep down in my soul that this path is nearing completion.  I want to feel the sun, the light deep down, so deep inside that it illuminates all the darkness, burns it away leaving nothing but joy and love and light.

This space, just here is exhausting and feels unending.   A  moment that lasts for an eternity.   I'm tired of the darkness the abusers left behind, tired of questioning my own right to be here, alive, breathing.   I yearn to know peace...  To know that I deserve to be here, that I have a right to be here, that I don't have to apologize for the space I take up in this world.

In truth I feel as though I am false, that I somehow create a negative space, a black hole, that I shouldn't be here.   It's a battle between heart and mind.  My heart feels, knows that I have something to give to this world, that I want and can make a difference, even if it's in some infinitesimal way.  My mind argues, knowing that lives have been lost in my story.    That the abusers did damage far beyond what they did to me.. that there are empty places in this world where others should be doing their own healing.   Why did I survive?   Why me, here on this path, and not those that were lost along the way?

Perfect.   The label I was branded with so deeply, far more deeply than any physical brand could do, a branding of my heart and mind, of that unobtainable thing, perfection.   I have always felt I was a lie,  I knew I wasn't perfect, that fucking word that they tattooed on  me from birth.  

Somehow I have to stop resisting.   I am closed down like a fist, fingers wrapped tightly around thumb.   I want to scream to the universe that I cannot take another moment, another memory, any more knowledge of what I've survived, can it be enough that I did... survive?    But my body and mind are beating their drums, waiting to tell their story, and I know... I know, that so long as I resist, their war drums will grown louder, kinesthetic memories will continue and I will continue to feel like I'm drowning.

But to not resist?   To open to what comes next, feels like death.  I hear the sound of those damn hospital monitors, the sound of flat line, no breath, no beating heart, no brain waves, hear the wail of sirens, and terror rises up like water, choking me.  Death.   Because to break the rules, any  of them, always meant death.  There was no other thing.  If you remember you die.  If you tell you die. And yet here I am, putting word to paper, I am here and they are dead and gone.  Mostly.   Except when their not, in dream and night terror.. flashback and body memory.

There are stories I need to know, my body is reminding me that it needs me to listen with every panic, sweat filled night terror, every kinesthetic pain and spasm.

So, where does that leave me?   Still trying to sort out how to open that clenched fist, how to open my body and heart and mind to the truth, still trying to stop resisting no matter how loud those drum  rhythms of impending doom may sound.   In the face of terror how do I open, soften and simply be with what comes next? That is the piece I need to figure out just now.  And so here I am, putting word to page and fighting the screaming fear that is raging through me.... Today I will try to soften, just the littlest bit, instead of fighting the fear I will fight to unclench my hands, my  mind and just be, present.

I hear you body, I hear and I will do my best to listen, to feel, to see.  Today that will be enough.

And The Rain Pours Down

This afternoon the rain is pouring down outside, and inside too, I feel tears needing to be born....though I'm not at all sure why.  I feel this inner urge to yell, scream, bellow at the top of my lungs.   I want to hit things, not something soft but rather a wall or the ground, pounding it with my fist.

I want to run with the storm, race the lightning.... my hair whipped by the wind,  my bare feet splashing through rain puddles, my toes digging into the mud, the earth until I cannot move another inch and collapse into a heap on the rain soaked ground.   I want the thunder to roll over me, through me, I want to open my mouth wide and birth that window shaking sound, that crack of thunder that feels like it could tear apart mountains.

Sometimes, the words that say what I'm going through and where I am in my healing don't  feel big enough, or clear enough or loud enough.  Flashbacks.  Night Terrors. Kinesthetic Body Memories.  My weekend, was filled to overflowing with all three.   I felt as though I were drowning... as though I had somehow after ten years of fighting to heal, been dropped back in time to the first few months of PTSD.

I'm tired....exhausted and soul-deep weary.   I can't fathom processing another memory, dealing with another body memory or fighting for peaceful sleep.

And yet....

This place, just here.....I know too, and I know it will ease and I will feel strong again.  But, just now?  I am filled to overflowing with sorrow, and the tears are coming and finding their way down my face one at a time.

There is this enormous hill ahead of me, almost a mountain, and it holds the most treacherous and difficult part of my healing journey.  It holds the darkest memories and the hardest pieces of my history to acknowledge and accept and I want to run, run like the wind, though I know the only way out is through.  Up and over that mountain is the only way to the light I seek, the light I know is beckoning me to come, urging me up and over and into it's arms.

I wasn't going to post today.  My instinct to only put here what is inspiring and light filled, only what may help someone reading it to take the next step, or be able to be present and in the moment and know they aren't alone.     But, sometimes, it's good to just know you aren't alone....to know that there's another soul out there fighting depression, or yearning to scream or beyond exhausted and THAT can be the inspiration.

And so here I am.

My words tumbled out of my heart and soul and mind, not perfect, but messy and authentic and true and here on this page.   This is one of those hard moments on the healing path that is horrendously steep and rocky and I keep tripping and falling and yearning to just sit it out for awhile.  Instead I keep picking my battered and bruised and bloody self up and stumbling forward and into the next moment, hoping, praying that it will be easier, softer, more light filled around the bend in the road just ahead.

I remember once, speaking with someone I looked up to growing up, and a moment when he smiled at me, and pointing at the cloudy skies above us one evening, he said: "You know, just because the clouds prevent us from seeing them, doesn't mean that the moon and stars aren't there."

So, today I hold him to that.   I feel cloudy and my skies feel dark and ominous and I cannot see the stars or moon....but I do know they are there... and I do know the light is there too... I just can't see it right now.   Perhaps I will see it tomorrow, or in the next moment, or the moment after that.  For today, that knowledge will be enough.

I  thank each of you for surviving, for continuing to heal, for the light you shed in the world, for the light you shed on my path, on all our paths.  May you have a blessed and beautiful evening.

The Wonder of it All

Yesterday I got to "run away."  The sun was shining and it was 72 degrees as though Summer and Fall had decided to cohabitate for a bit.  My friends and I (and my pup Bella) loaded into the car around 1 pm and headed toward the beach.   It's about an hour and 15 minute drive from my home to the beach, through  the Oregon Coast Range mountains,  where the Fall colors are out in fierce golds, orange and fiery red leaves.

The drive alone, along the winding mountain road, the hilltops deep green with fir and pine trees the light coming through the branches painting with shadow and light on the pavement of the road was worth the trip.  Here and there Autumn shouted out it's presence in trees still bushy with brightly colored leaves, and just a few leaves dancing on the breeze and swirling down to hit the highway.

There was much laughter along the way, and Bella, my pup was like a small child, so excited to be going, to be in the car and on her way somewhere, anywhere.  I felt much the same, to be free of my agoraphobia is such an amazing gift!   Everything is new, like I'm seeing it for the first time and I am so filled with a sense of grace, an awareness that I am so lucky to be alive and to be seeing through new eyes.

It's as though I am 43 and 5 and 18 all at once, the sky is more blue, the light more golden and brilliant, the forest a wonder filled with possibilities and I am in awe of it all, and what the next moment or curve in the road may bring.

When we reached the beach at last, and settled our things near a huge piece of driftwood, Bella and I raced for the water's edge.   There is something about getting my feet into the ocean about feeling the undertow such at my toes and then the waves crashing against my feet and calves that soothes me like  nothing else on the planet.   Bella is so well trained now that I was able to let her off leash, and she bounded around me, running with me through the surf, and I saw my own joy and sense of freedom in her big brown eyes and felt tears streaming down my cheeks though I was smiling.

In that moment of her own first real freedom and my own, we were both filled with joy and ran through the surf together, racing and playing, splashing and I found I was both crying and giggling.

 I realized in those moments, that every single moment of hard work, every flashback, every body memory, every night terror was worth it.  And, more than that, that I wouldn't change a thing about my life for anything in the world because it made me who I am here, today, and I like me... in fact I love the whole, sum total of me....   That is an amazing thing, a miracle.

It's a miracle I Survived, it's a miracle I'm alive, it's a miracle I'm not in a mental institution somewhere, it's a miracle that I can like myself and more, it's a miracle that I can love myself, just as I am.

The trip left me both physically exhausted (it's hard to keep up with a 3 year old pup at 43!) and emotionally renewed.   Today I am feeling so graced and so grateful to be alive, and ready to continue the work, all of it.  I know now I can finish this healing process, that in fact, nothing will stop me because it can only get better from here, yes.....the hardest of hard work is what's ahead, but I will go through it and come out the other side and into the light, and I will fly, soar and be able then to reach back and help others in their own healing path, which is my dream.

So I leave you with this today, no matter how hard or impossible your healing may feel, no matter how dark and alone you may feel, no matter what.... You CAN do it, you will do it, and you will succeed because you are a Survivor and we Survivors are Warriors, fierce and strong and nothing can stop us.

And when the battle seems it's hardest, there will be days filled with mountains and sunshine and an ocean so huge it can take and hold safely all the pain, tears and fear.   There will be moments of such joy it seems too huge to hold and there will be tears and there will be laughter and the realization that, we already won.   We won, we Survived.

May your day be filled with light and love and wonder.

Reclamation

RECLAMATION
  Use Reclamation in a sentence

rec·la·ma·tion

[rek-luh-mey-shuhn] Show IPA noun

1. the reclaiming  of desert, marshy, or submerged areas

2. the act or process of reclaiming.

3. the state of being reclaimed. 

I'm not sure why this word has captured my attention so strongly just now. Reclamation.   Perhaps it's because I DO feel as if I'm reclaiming my life, my heart, my soul, my body, my mind.... and even things like my apartment, my kitchen, my bathroom.   I notice all the "My's" in the sentence above and the inner urge is to erase them. But, I won't.  Mine.  Each day as I wake up, there is this moment before the world starts, before the pup needs to be taken out, the cats cry to be fed, the phone rings .. where I lay in bed and think: "Today is Mine."

There is power in those words.

As a survivor we learn quickly that nothing, not even ourselves, can we claim.  We certainly can't claim a home, or safety, or our bodies, or our minds.... that's all ripped away, or violated or claimed by an abuser or, or, or.....   

To this day, 43 years old, I still cannot say: "My desire is...."   Just typing half that sentence causes anxiety for me, my old familiar panic rushing up, heart racing, the urge to run washing over me.  Run where?  I've never known, but the urge is there nonetheless.   So, there is much work still ahead for me, clearly.   This path of healing is long, hard, exhausting and often terrifying.  But today, just here, just now.  I don't have to conquer THAT particular piece.

For today.. This Moment right here, I reclaim my right to a wonderful life.  I reclaim my body, the whole of it, mine.  I reclaim my mind, and heart and soul.   I reclaim my kitchen, my bathroom, my living room... all mine.. no others.

This Moment... reclamation is my goal, and more than that, it is my present.  Even if it means repeating to myself inwardly or outwardly, whispered or shouted.... This is MINE.. mine alone.  Nobody and nothing can take that away.

May you have a blessed and beautiful day today, find something, anything to reclaim, and whisper.. or shout it from rooftops!