Waking up here

In 2013, something horrid happened to me. It didn’t happen to just me, or affect me the most.  It happened as a betrayal of me, and of those I love the most. 

For years I disregarded how this affected me because I had to focus on how it affected others I  love. How it affected me became a small side story. So, for years, I didn’t bother acknowledging my own hurt. I had huge obligations to assist others through their journey toward ok-ness. 

What happens then, if there is no ok-ness for me? I’m about to tell you. 

The first thing was tears. It was about ten months of tears, every night. By myself, alone. For all of us. In waves. During the day, I was raising kids. At night, I was grieving my wounds and losses. 

Next came denial. Maybe we aren’t that hurt. Maybe we can live with this? After all we aren’t dead and it’s surely been misery, what’s the way out of misery? And others I loved chose denial, and it seemed to work for them.  Some who hurt are still using denial to cope. 

One day, like a lifting fog, I realized denial costs too much. Almost immediately denial was replaced by intense anger. 

It’s exhausting to be perpetually angry. Being the body of all consuming  anger is  only useful if it leads to justice, and, sadly, it didn’t. 

Numbness replaced the anger.  God faded into meaninglessness. Emotions faded from red to pastel pink.  The duty to continue to exist remained, and that was all I could manage.

For years. 

For a decade. 

I became a pale version of myself. I could function. I raised kids. I held down a complicated job. I paid my mortgage and took showers and cooked meals and taught my kids skills to live. Kind of. 

If I could have been a better version of myself, I could have taught them more than the bits I managed. I guess I taught them to persevere.  And the struggle began to seem normal, and I really thought I had pulled it off, this existing after horror gig. I truly thought I had healed.  What I had done was mute emotions and function in logic as a self protective mechanism. It was very effective, I felt functional.  I had emotions, I just checked them very tightly. I was surviving. I felt safe enough to go on.

It took 11 1/2 years for me to fully face myself, and leave safe logic and dull existence on the table, and try for a little authentic joy. 

At first it was scary to feel emotions with some intensity. Emotions lie! They lead me to hurts. But maybe not always? Slowly I let them lead me to some old loves: baking, drawing, building, painting, sewing, exploring, dancing, writing. Can I do it? For myself? And can I survive feeling it?  Can I forge trusting relationships with others? Can I trust myself? Eventually I began to see the world in wild color again, after so many years of color washed out by pain. 

Not every day goes too well. Some days I retreat. This healing journey will take more time. But now, instead of hiding behind logic like stone walls, I use creativity to process life, as a way to feel myself heal, to feel myself be alive. 

I imagine this is waking up from a trance. It is like stepping back into my authentic self after an absence. 

It is nice to recognize the person inside, although she is much older and much more worn, she has a hard fought value. She is here.