Birthdays are meant for reflecting back on what we have been through to see where we have been, what we have seen and have done, what we have learned, and most of all, to know for sure what it is that we want out of life.
Today is March 11th. Today I am 42, and I look back at the year which has passed and I find that there have been a lot of absolutes for me, there have been a lot of finalities, and more than anything else, there has been massive change in my life and all of it good.
No one can tell me that when you think about all you have been through that it seems that no one learns from what they have experienced. I have learned well from the school of life. I have learned that I am not a bad person but that I am a good person who has made a lot of errant decisions about things and people who, for all intents and purposes, have been the greatest teachers that I have had in my life, and yes, the soon-to-be-former-spouse was, is the greatest teacher I have ever had. Thing is, though, that just like a child who graduates out of grade school into middle school, and from middle school into high school, and from high school into adulthood, we, the students, evolve and move on. Sometimes, though, unfortunately, the teachers do not.
I have learned that the entirety of my 41st year of life was sort of like the ending of a very tragic love story, and I have also accepted that what I went through, was, in part, my own doing because I chose to fear instead of choosing to see with the eyes of Love - Self-Love, that is, and now, on this date, the date of the beginning of the second half of my life, I can sit here and tell you all that truly, I have been an astute student of life, of Love, of Knowing what it is that I am made of and more, Knowing that I was worth every minute, every tear that fell from my eyes, every enraged and loaded word breathed from my mouth that had everything to do with my life the way that I want it to be - my year was rife with pain, heartache and loss, but it dawns on me now that without those things happening, I may not be here to tell you that indeed, you can recoup your personal losses and you can even reinvent yourself.
I know this is the truth because this is the activity that I spent my 41st year of life doing the most of - laying the foundation for the next 41 years, and these next 41 years, because I want it this way, will be what the first 41 were spent bringing into fruition.
So, in light of this knowledge, I will tell you all now that I will no longer be telling you about the bad things an abuse survivor has gone through, and I will no longer be giving anyone any further a reason to fear.
Instead, beginning with this post, I will give survivors a reason to cheer.
Instead of telling you all about the horrid things that I have borne witness to, I will simply just tell you that it gets better, but that you have to want it to - you cannot heal and simultaneously still live in what happened to you. Healing does not work that way. I learned this very well. I cannot heal if I am proverbially ripping off the bandages that I myself put there to bring about spiritual and emotional healing. You will never find a physician on the planet who will tell you that it is a good idea to rip the scab off of a wound because not only will the scar be bigger and worse, but it will take longer for the wound to heal.
Instead of telling you how badly my heart ached, how badly it still aches, not for the things that he'd done and said but instead for the things that I chose to accept as mine, I will tell you about what happened to me afterward, tell you how those things helped to reveal the light shining through the cracks of the walls in my memories, tell you how we expect God to give us an open door or window to get through to the next phases in healing but that sometimes we are given a crack in the wall of our minds and shown the chisel, the hammer and the will to break that crack open to find a different perspective about the door opening to new opportunities because sometimes it is not a door. Sometimes it is a tiny crack in the wall of our inner safehouse and sometimes it is with work and care and time and more heart ache that we are able to break through the bullshit and see that what we have accomplished was indeed no small feat.
If we expect ourselves to heal, then it is high time to stop reopening the wounds from the past, time to stop making our abusers the people who control us and how we feel about ourselves, and most of all, it is time to really begin to Love Us, because we are as important to the circle of life and living as anyone else is.
If we expect things to get better, we have to take action for them to. If we expect to be Loved, then we must be willing to give Love. If we expect peace, we must live peacefully.
That which we expect, we must do, give...Be.
Happy Birthday to me...
I Love You All...
...Roxanne...
Today is March 11th. Today I am 42, and I look back at the year which has passed and I find that there have been a lot of absolutes for me, there have been a lot of finalities, and more than anything else, there has been massive change in my life and all of it good.
No one can tell me that when you think about all you have been through that it seems that no one learns from what they have experienced. I have learned well from the school of life. I have learned that I am not a bad person but that I am a good person who has made a lot of errant decisions about things and people who, for all intents and purposes, have been the greatest teachers that I have had in my life, and yes, the soon-to-be-former-spouse was, is the greatest teacher I have ever had. Thing is, though, that just like a child who graduates out of grade school into middle school, and from middle school into high school, and from high school into adulthood, we, the students, evolve and move on. Sometimes, though, unfortunately, the teachers do not.
I have learned that the entirety of my 41st year of life was sort of like the ending of a very tragic love story, and I have also accepted that what I went through, was, in part, my own doing because I chose to fear instead of choosing to see with the eyes of Love - Self-Love, that is, and now, on this date, the date of the beginning of the second half of my life, I can sit here and tell you all that truly, I have been an astute student of life, of Love, of Knowing what it is that I am made of and more, Knowing that I was worth every minute, every tear that fell from my eyes, every enraged and loaded word breathed from my mouth that had everything to do with my life the way that I want it to be - my year was rife with pain, heartache and loss, but it dawns on me now that without those things happening, I may not be here to tell you that indeed, you can recoup your personal losses and you can even reinvent yourself.
I know this is the truth because this is the activity that I spent my 41st year of life doing the most of - laying the foundation for the next 41 years, and these next 41 years, because I want it this way, will be what the first 41 were spent bringing into fruition.
So, in light of this knowledge, I will tell you all now that I will no longer be telling you about the bad things an abuse survivor has gone through, and I will no longer be giving anyone any further a reason to fear.
Instead, beginning with this post, I will give survivors a reason to cheer.
Instead of telling you all about the horrid things that I have borne witness to, I will simply just tell you that it gets better, but that you have to want it to - you cannot heal and simultaneously still live in what happened to you. Healing does not work that way. I learned this very well. I cannot heal if I am proverbially ripping off the bandages that I myself put there to bring about spiritual and emotional healing. You will never find a physician on the planet who will tell you that it is a good idea to rip the scab off of a wound because not only will the scar be bigger and worse, but it will take longer for the wound to heal.
Instead of telling you how badly my heart ached, how badly it still aches, not for the things that he'd done and said but instead for the things that I chose to accept as mine, I will tell you about what happened to me afterward, tell you how those things helped to reveal the light shining through the cracks of the walls in my memories, tell you how we expect God to give us an open door or window to get through to the next phases in healing but that sometimes we are given a crack in the wall of our minds and shown the chisel, the hammer and the will to break that crack open to find a different perspective about the door opening to new opportunities because sometimes it is not a door. Sometimes it is a tiny crack in the wall of our inner safehouse and sometimes it is with work and care and time and more heart ache that we are able to break through the bullshit and see that what we have accomplished was indeed no small feat.
If we expect ourselves to heal, then it is high time to stop reopening the wounds from the past, time to stop making our abusers the people who control us and how we feel about ourselves, and most of all, it is time to really begin to Love Us, because we are as important to the circle of life and living as anyone else is.
If we expect things to get better, we have to take action for them to. If we expect to be Loved, then we must be willing to give Love. If we expect peace, we must live peacefully.
That which we expect, we must do, give...Be.
Happy Birthday to me...
I Love You All...
...Roxanne...
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