"There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken. 

There is a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. 

There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy. 

And a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. 

There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being."

~ RJD

copyright 2016

A Place For Me?

All my life I feel I have been searching for me. There have been glimpses of what I thought my life was going to be, only to have it become something I never expected. 

Who am I? What is my life supposed to be? What happened to my hopes, my dreams, my expectations?

I wonder if there a place for me when I can't be who I am and become who I want to be.

Sirens

Sirens. I hate hearing sirens. I've always heard the sirens.
When I was in Catholic grade school, we used to stop and say a prayer for those involved in whatever accident or tragedy the sirens were heading to. I did that for a long time afterward.
I still send well-wishes their way, hoping everyone is all right and the damage can be helped or is minor.
But I hate hearing them.
I just heard sirens again.  I'm sending good vibes to the Emergency Personnel to whatever scene they arrive on.

I Do. Not.

Many moons ago, when I was a young christian wife and I believed my husband loved and cared about me and our then little family, I believed life would be better because he chose to stay with us after his affair.

His affair.

Did you say it to yourself? Ok I'll say it: Stop being naive. Stupid. Wishful thinking.

Hindsight is 20/20. Growth changes you. Or it should. I no longer believe in marriage is forever any more. Hell, I don't actually believe in marriage any more. Definitely not traditional marriage, anyway.

If I were going to take a marital vow today, it would go something like this:
"I promise to love" - well, maybe not love, because that word means different things to different people.
Maybe something like, "I'll do my very best to acknowledge you as a human being, see you for who you are, listen to your words, spoken and unspoken, hope the best for you, be there for you, and call you on your bullshit. I'll do all of this for as long as I feel in my soul that we are to be in each other's lives, for the betterment of each other's hearts and souls, and as long as this relationship doesn't violate anything within myself.
And I will expect the same from you."

If I were younger and planning on or hoping for children, I would add in something about "raising them together, equally, to be free from our opinions, to become who they are, always with their best interests at heart" and put a time stipulation to reevaluate our parenting often.

As it is, I plan to never marry again. I plan to love fiercely, without holding too tightly, and not violating my own conscience when it comes to staying or walking away. 

My ex-husband may have loved the woman he cheated with... nah, bad example. He only truly loves himself. A man, or woman, who finds another outside of their marriage may truly love the person they've chosen to go against their marriage vows with. Their marriage may be dead, as mine really was. They may have "fallen out of love" as the saying goes. And what's wrong with that? Nothing. But let's be honest about that, even inside of marriage vows.

Just be honest.

Cellular Memory Trauma: Help Her!! She's Drowning!

I just realized something yesterday when I was talking to my children that was profound and monumental and one of the many things I want to smack myself in the head for not realizing sooner, though its very realization exposes the fact of why I hadn't ever realized it before, kind of the like the old Morton Salt Girl issue. And into the Rabbit Hole I went....

They were telling me they were in the pool last weekend, and the person who is in charge of them was standing poolside, talking on his phone, while my sixteen year-old, was watching the two youngest. The two middle boys were in the pool, when the 10-year-old went too deep and the 12-year-old had to save him. The adult in charge, on his phone headset saw what was happening and mustered up enough responsibility to yell, "Swim swim," to the drowning child. What a responsible hero he is. /sarcasm.

It shook me into the memory of standing there on the side of the pond helpless, watching, while my third-oldest daughter, then ten, was drowning, after the same person told me my three daughters didn't need life jackets in the boat. I had stood there, holding the life jackets I went to get them, and was being told that they didn't' need them and he had the right to make that decision and I better not embarrass him and give him trouble about it.... and off they paddled out to the middle of the pond. 

There I was, then, seeing in my mind's eye, a muddled memory of her going under, going under, and I'm screaming and yelling and trying to scream, but just a whisper comes out, "HELP HER! Please, someone help her! I can't help her! She's drowning!!" and all of a sudden all of the words and responsibilities that have been heaped on me for over twenty years of how horrible of a person I was for never trusting him and never sending a child alone with him without an older child came to me. 

I was mocked, my children were mocked. He called them my trained seals, because they listened to mommy and went with each other and protected each other. I would ask them how things went and if they had fun, and, being children and knowing I was their protector, they'd tell me what happened, even if they had been instructed not to. Later, he coined the oldest ones "the Guardians" and said things like, "Yeah, you may want to send one of your "Guardians" with to make sure they're safe," and I realized, NO! I was right the whole time!! He's dangerous, and I have a right to be worried! 

I hadn't allowed myself to be free of the trauma and manipulation he caused me. So many times that he endangered my children and I had just stuffed it all and told myself it was him being careless and that he has a right to be with his kids and I can't do anything about it. And he has taken every opportunity to remind me and everyone he can spew it at that he CAN DO AS HE PLEASE and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it. And, honestly, it truly feels that way.

I buried that feeling of holding him responsible, over and over again, because the trauma of what could have happened each time he laughed off endangering the lives of my children was incomprehensible to me. Standing there as my daughter went under and under and under knowing she was gonna drown, knowing that I held the life jacket and should have made him let me give them to him was horrifying to me, right up until the point an older teen grabbed her and pulled her up, and every day after. Even now this is hard, because it is so very raw and in there that it will always be what leads me when sending my kids with him.

After 25 years of being the person who covered up his carelessness in life and relationships, I am finally being able to stand up and basically say, "Fuck you I'm done," That person can just figure it out on his own. I'm not allowing him to endanger my kids' lives anymore. He will have to fight me on it.  I'm not covering up and making excuses any more and when he screws up; it's not my job any longer to make up for him when he screws up.
And it's really a good feeling to be there, let me tell you. I wish I'd been there 25 years ago, because as far as that whole relationship went it was never his responsibility for any screw ups. They were for me to fix, and I'll tell you what, I'm not doing it anymore.
If you've been there, you understand.