Moving day is drawing nearer…..I have the sense that this is so many endings all at once. I may leave more of this version of me here than I realized.
I’ve been cloistered here, just me alone with myself. When I set my mind to a thing I am unyielding. So when I decided to tear down everything that isn’t me. Every rule, every expectation, every belief, every lie……to root out the foundations of my own soul till I found something true…..I did. It has been one of the hardest most solitary years of my life, and the most meaningful and precious one too.
Learning to love what is about me. Not to wait until I’m some version of myself that is finally perfect enough that I allow myself to love it. Learning to sit with the reality of me, the positive wonderful parts and my smallness, meanness, deception, dishonesty and victim hood. To sit with those parts and accept them.
I am going to break my own heart when I leave this place and I know it…..that is okay too. The goal of life isn’t to avoid pain. The goal was to embrace joy, and happiness, and wonder in-spite of the inevitable pain. Not everyone is permanent, some people are meant to be temporary people, you just get to love them and appreciate them while you have them and learn to let go when it is time to let go.
This version of me still has much to heal. But as with all things not everything can be healed the same way. There is a part of you that is wounded from being scrutinized and judged and measured……when you find that part there is no other option but to sit with it to let it be just as it is.
When I went to foster care training they taught us that no matter how lovely, perfect, kind or wonderful you were…..the kids would fight that out of fear. Their coping mechanisms and safety were entirely wrapped up in knowing and understanding the situation they were in, it’s rules, boundaries, expectations and consequences. They have no defenses for gentle loving homes. They cannot trust that it is real, they are always waiting for the “catch” the cost, the other show to drop. I am the same, some tenderness I can tolerate…..others spirals me into a panic attack…..this will take time.
Things change with time, how you see what happened to you is a reflection of where you are at…..not so much the thing. I am still cycling through all the different and changing lenses through which I view what happened. Sometimes I am angry with a fury that wants to burn cities to the ground and salt the ashes. Other times I am overwhelmed with sorrow over how very different life ended up being for those 2 naive people that got married. I wonder if I’ll ever settle how I see it.
I spent thanksgiving alone, it felt sacred. I am on call, s17 is at his fathers. I could have gone somewhere and they would have invited me in, and I would have been surrounded by love and friends and food. I chose this…..4 days, 4 more precious days to myself with me. I don’t think this next part will allow that much solitude and I think in many ways I will miss it. These days alone with little courage…..we eat her favorite foods, we dance in the kitchen, I ask her questions she won’t answer unless we are alone together. She is learning to be vulnerable with me….to trust me, to allow me in. She is ready to protect, defend, fight……she is ready for anything except tenderness, love, or acceptance. She is wild and fierce and I love her.
She won’t be left behind when we move…..but luring her out and building trust takes time. This place gave me the time and space to do it. Where we go next will be busy, lots of family, lots of activities lots of interaction……she will have to learn how to let other people love her, and to not run away whenever they do.
My sister came and we sorted the garage, which meant a few breakdowns, I am unsure what to do with certain things. A photo from our engagement party where our families wrote their well wishes on the lining. So many of those are from people that have passed, our grandmothers, his mother……sentimental words from dead people on our dead marriage. I don’t really know what to do with it or all the conflicting emotions things like that bring up. So we sorted and I let myself cry, and cry, and cry….by the end of the day everything was sorted….and I was ready for the day to be over. But that is not how things work. I made hotpot for my sister as she had never had it before. I tried to make peanut sauce and of course the bottle exploded, it was in my hair, covered half my face, on the ceiling the floor and the cupboards…..I burst into tears. My sister sent me to the shower with assurances she would handle it. Peanut sauce is oil based which means it smears oil…..everywhere….so I grab handfuls of body wash to scrub my face……and then promptly breath in a mouthful of bubbles and soap….which triggers an emotional flashback to my parents putting soap in my mouth. I had a good long cry in the shower…..but I was really relieved when that day ended.
We move December 20th. I probably won’t write before then. I hope your thanksgiving was lovely. And your Christmas is full of love and joy.
Courage