Another Try

Yesterday felt like a write off of a day.  Last night when I crawled into bed I wondered why people ever got out of bed anyway. What was the point?

There's nothing much to do but ride those days (and thoughts) out and remind myself that, even though they feel permanent, my thoughts and feelings are temporary. I can say all that this morning but yesterday all I felt capable of was whining to Dearest One for the umpteenth time. Where is my motivation? Why aren't I better already?!

Today is the second anniversary of my dad's passing. No matter what the ageing process threw at him, he would get a wry grin on his face, lift his pointer finger in the air and proclaim, "It beats the alternative." He meant it with every fiber of his being.

I'm writing this at about the hour he passed away. Whew. Deep breath. I still can't write more about it than that.

This morning I cleaned the fridge out ahead of grocery shopping later on. As I took a jar of mostly pickle juice out of the fridge and dumped its contents, I was brought back to a time 25 years ago when the only thing in my fridge was a jar of pickle juice and a few potatoes. Meager pickings with three little ones to feed. We lived on home made bread and baked beans. At one point I went to the food bank and swallowed hard when I told the woman behind the desk that my kids hadn't had any fresh produce in so long. She didn't have any. That was a hard day.

Better days came even though it wasn't the last time we needed to use the food bank. The next time my kids were teenagers. The day the lady at the food bank offered me a 20 pound bag of flour someone had donated was a good one. Baked goods fill bellies. I love to bake.

My dad's favourite dessert was pie. Last summer I bought fresh picked berries and stuck them in the freezer in anticipation of making a pie for dessert tonight.

I'm glad the sun showed up again today. I'm grateful for another try.

Forward

Just putting that photo here as a reminder.
It's not a fucking race, sweetheart. 

For the record so far today I have had a shower (after a weekend spent in pjs and no showers) and did get dressed. I made the bed. I did my deep breathing exercises and my Centering Prayer.

And now I am writing.

In a few days it will be the 2nd anniversary of my dad's death. It feels like a shadow is following me, waiting to pounce. I have written next to nothing about the passing of my parents seven months apart in 2017 (plus the death of my father-in-law in there, too). The ache still runs so deep.

Teaching and Learning

Saturday morning. The sound of cartoons are wafting up the stairs from where oldest grandchild is watching TV with his Papa. Earlier, when I was giving out breakfast options and mentioned oatmeal, he leaned over and said, "Me and Papa call it porridge."

Papa taught him that old fashioned word. Other than being sticklers for manners we haven't gone out of our way to teach him much of anything. That's the privilege of being his grandparents. We do entertain his questions and sometimes offer answers. We let his curiousity lead the way and follow along. It can make for an interesting ride.

Who made all the people in the world? What if somebody breaks into the house while we're sleeping?  Hey, why is it still dark outside when it's morning?  

A few weeks ago we picked up the globe and, along with the help of a YouTube video, explained why it was still dark outside at 8:30 AM. This morning I was grateful for said darkness and used it to tell him it was still night time and so he needed to go back to sleep. That garnered an extra hour of shut eye for us both.

When he was two years old he would wake up and often ask to sort through my orange bamboo bowl full of rocks. We'd sit on my bed and he'd search until he found the lone rock that was shiny smooth and shaped like a bird's egg. He would hold it carefully in his palm and tell me in a hush that there was a baby inside. Sometimes he would carefully bring it to his lips and give it a kiss before placing it back on its nest full of rocks.

One of his Saturday cartoons has, as its theme song, the Beatles' Love Is All You Need. As he was eating oatmeal porridge for breakfast while he watched, he told me that love was not ALL you need. I listened as he listed other things he thought important, too. His typical for a 5 year old reaction and literal interpretation reminded me of someone.

When his dad was growing up and we'd go for a walk, I'd tell him he couldn't fill up his pockets with rocks because those rocks belonged to the government. I wish I had said that in jest, but life was SO black and white to me back then, and my rule following ways dominated my world. I wasn't going to leave any question hanging in case anyone came to a wrong conclusion. God forbid that happened.  There's no such thing as Santa Claus. That flower you just declared breathlessly as a beautiful French Rose is a Peony. Back then I might've said, "That's a rock, not an egg. There's no baby in it."  

I've come a long ways (baby.)

I honestly believed there was merit in teaching his dad that picking up a rock from a gravel road would be stealing. As if a child picking up rocks on the road would lead to a life of thievery. Don't you wish you'd been my kid? It's not for nothing that I've seriously suggested to Dearest One that we leave our kids money for extensive therapy.

These days I have bowls of rocks here and there in the house. There's more in the yard.

A few have the word Hope chiseled into their surface.

Some of them belong to the government.

Carry On

It feels like it should be Friday today. It's been a full week. Too full. Saying yes to things I should have said no to. Not having the presence of mind to check in with myself before I opened my mouth and made commitments that have been energy suckers.

Next week I have nothing on my calendar except an appointment with my therapist. It's ridiculous how relieved I feel about so many days in a row full of no plans.

I don't remember daydreaming as a child about what I hoped my life might look like when I grew up. I know I lived in the future, daily looking towards the next thing that could brighten my life, if even momentarily. Simple things. Getting an exam mark back. Days of the week when the mail carrier came (Dearest One and I were pen pals through some of our teen years. We married when I was still a teenager.) Having tea with my grandparents. Whatever it was that warranted a mental note of possibility, I was on the lookout for those things. I spent little time being present in the here and now as it was unpredictable and often scary.

I could easier list the things I knew I didn't want in my adult life. A few of the worst of those things came into it anyway. Some of them were temporary (I'm grateful to be sober nearly 31 years now.) Some of them are still works in progress.

I am working on accepting life on life's terms. On not being able to think my way out of  the trauma that continues to impact my daily life. I can see that there are many things to be grateful for in the midst of the healing. In the midst of the hard work it takes to learn how to let go and simply be in the here and now. That is progress.

At my first appointment with my therapist I told her that my goal was to be able to sit in a restaurant with my back to the door. To no longer be unconsciously surveying my surroundings for safety and an escape plan. Maybe that's another way of saying, I want to be present to the life waiting for me.

Often I take stock of where I am in this journey and tell myself, "Carry on."




*Artwork by Lucy Campbell

Benefits

The words on the photo are ones I keep returning to again and again. I have days when it is easier to trust and moments when I beat myself up, thinking that I'm not trying hard enough to get better.

But I am getting there. I'm better than I was. Making progress.

I have a daily checklist to remind me to do things like shower and get dressed. Make the bed. Stay hydrated.

There was a time when I rocked at completing lists. Gave myself a little gold star in my head for being able to get shit done. I was in competition with myself and damn, I was going to win.

I wish I cared about my daily to do list, but I don't. I'm up to having eight little boxes to check off. Two of them I don't care about at all but my doctor and therapist do. I added those for their benefit. I added one for my benefit and that is writing. It is a soul satisfying activity for me.

I told my doctor a week ago that the hardest thing to accept is that I can't think my way out of this space I find myself in. I doubt I can write my way out of it either, but I'd like to think that it helps.

Baby Steps

I've been oblivious to my body's communication my whole life. I imagine that has its roots in my premature birth and the next to no physical contact for the first three months of my life. Interoception is a new term to me but I've done some reading on it and can see how my premature birth coupled with physical and later, sexual abuse, and it makes sense that I'm not skilled at hearing my body's communication. My default is to freeze. There's whole whack of stuff frozen in my body.  The therapy I am doing is helping shift the trauma and loosen it up so that it no longer rules my life. It leaves me feeling hope filled.

When I had cancer, and was given all my options for treatment, my body shouted "NO" at me. Every time I pictured sitting in a chair for chemo that "NO" was so insistent that I asked for a second opinion about my choices. That opinion (after many tests) confirmed that the "NO" I'd heard was in line with the test results. I have no idea if I would choose differently today.

I had therapy yesterday. Progress is in small, baby steps. Which is fitting considering that my trauma started at birth.

Yesterday, instead of swallowing my tears and tamping them down I let them roll down my face and flow freely.

A Difficult Thing

It's been a busy ten days. I'll be in my pj's for the second day in a row today. Yesterday I served brunch to a houseful in my pj's despite my plan to go shower and change before the food was ready. At least I'd put on a bra so that was a win in my books. I then stayed in pajamas all day. A day made complete with fires going in both fireplaces and food ordered in for supper. With any luck today will be a repeat.

I don't do New Year's resolutions anymore. I have a journal somewhere, from many years ago, with a list of 50 things I wanted to accomplish in that year. My perpetual personal improvement project. Every so often I go looking for that list to see if I've done any more of them. Mostly I look at the things listed and shake my head. All those years when who I was wasn't enough. Ever.

If there's anything worth changing it would be that kind of thinking. Now, that's a difficult thing.

But Still

I don't know if I've shared this photo before and I'm too tired to check.But either way it's a reminder for me today. I had great plans. Then I bought last minute Christmas dinner groceries and used up every single spoon I had. Plans were kibosh-ed. Fatigue ruled the rest of the day. I don't know why I am surprised when my energy levels tank.

I had therapy two days ago. I've been trying to settle myself ever since. Late nights and not great sleep have added to the mix. I'm grateful that I have no appointments of any kind between now and the New Year. I'm quite happy to stay home and hibernate.

Every year on this day it feels like a small miracle that one has survived to see it. We had just over 7 hours of daylight today. Tomorrow the daylight lengthens. By three seconds. But still. Hope returns.

All is well.

Speaking

I saw my family physician this week for a check in about my being off work. We've known each other for nearly two decades and that familiarity has it's pluses. He has a quirky and quick sense of humour. I have never once felt like he was in a hurry to get on to his next patient. There's no rule of only bringing one item of concern to an appointment like there is with other doctors in the area.

My goal this appointment was to not cry. Last time I'd cried when I told him how disappointed I was in myself that I had so few things on my daily to do list. Two things that were the sum of my daily accomplishments. It's stretched into a few more since that appointment. Progress.

This time when those familiar  I am a pathetic human being thoughts started going through my head I thought about the little two year old me who threw off her mask. I know she looks at me with pure joy. She's not on board with me shit talking myself. So I forced myself to not even go there. Here's where I am. I am healing. I am getting better. I am not where I wish I was but I will be one day. It helped in the moment.

When my doctor and I started talking about some of the more stress filled parts of my job tears rose up and I told him that I didn't want to talk about it anymore. That my goal was not to cry this appointment. He told me that people are ready to go back to work when thinking/talking about it doesn't create an emotional response. I will get there.

New Steps To An Old Dance

My therapist has a little waiting area outside her office and I take comfort in the predictability of its seasonal decor. As a constant observer of my surroundings, I notice every little change. Like if a new picture on the wall is crooked. I have resisted the urge to set them straight but it takes effort. I've spent the majority of  my life invested in trying to set all manner of things straight. Particularly people I am in relationship with. There are decades of well worn grooves to that old dance of mine.

When I was sitting in her waiting room yesterday I shifted my gaze, from a picture hanging a little off kilter, to out the window and across the parking lot where the area's largest homeless shelter is located. A taxi pulled up and, after what seemed like forever, the rear passenger door opened and its occupant made their way around the back of the taxi over to where someone was standing. I watched as the person from the taxi reached their arms up and out and embraced the other person. They stood nestled together for such a long time that I felt like my observing was an intrusion. Eventually they broke apart and walked away with their arms around each other's waist. In the fading light, I watched as the taxi's rear lights glowed red when it backed up and drove away.

I turned my attention back to the waiting room, avoiding looking at the crooked picture. I tried to remember all the messy bits of life that had happened since my last therapy session. Things I wanted to share with my therapist so I could get feedback and help processing my responses. She has especially offered me a different way to look at something each time I've uttered the words always or  never. 

In the safety and security of my relationship with her I am learning how to change my own steps, as the picture says. Yesterday, my therapist correctly guessed that when I was challenged to a new pattern this past week, my first thought was fuck you.  She was delighted when I shared that I then had a graced moment where I realized I was being offered a new way of dancing, if you will. And I took it.

As we sifted through the previous ten days and the relationships I've been navigating I felt hopeful. Predictable patterns are changing. I'm changing.

As a non toucher my whole life it is a new thing for me to be the one who craves a hug from Dearest One. We've developed a practice of hugging each other when one of us is leaving the house and then again when one of us returns. We hug for a long time.

One of the things I thought about while I watched those two people hug it out on the lawn of the shelter was how good it feels these days to be hugged like that. As they hugged for at least 20 seconds, I'd like to think it was life giving for them both, too.

Breathe

I put this photo up where I can see it while I write, mostly because I love the photo itself.  For the past few weeks it's become more than just a pretty picture as I've been working with Comforting Therapist on some deep breathing exercises to help settle my system.

My tendency is to take shallow breaths. When you're a kid trying to make yourself invisible in order to escape notice, it makes sense that shallow breathing would become a compensating behaviour.

I don't need to make myself invisible anymore.

But I want to sometimes.

Like in a recent rough patch in one of my distant, but necessary, relationships that has caused me a lot of sleepless nights over the years. Well, my reaction to the relationship has cost me a lot of sleep. That's the more honest statement. Just when I think things are predictable they morph into the same kind of unpredictable shit I grew up with and it's hard not to feel like I'm in the middle of a childhood nightmare. My breath got very shallow as I tried to navigate the conversation and prevent an all out shit show. I momentarily forgot every coping skill I'd learned in the past 18 months.

When I woke up the next morning I stayed in bed for a bit and watched as my mind started to shit talk myself for forgetting those coping skills.  I'm so disappointed in myself was my first thought. This is a well worn path in my brain. Thanks to my two year old self I took some deep breaths and stopped my inner critic in her tracks, reminding her that it served no good purpose to go down that path.

Breathe. Just breathe, I told myself.

One little victory. One change of pattern. One more breath.

Healing Takes Time

I've had a rough few days physically. Rest has been my best medicine. There was a time when I had such limited spoons that I could have a shower or use my one available spoon for something else. Dearest One used to wash my hair for me on those days so I wouldn't use up all my energy doing it myself.

I spent some time getting help for my emotional health back then and that extended inpatient help was the difference between limited spoons and more than enough spoons to function. I had no idea at the time that my emotional health affected my physical health to the extent that it did.

Yesterday I went to an event and quickly realized I didn't have enough spoons to manage it. I came home and crawled into bed and slept.

I'm grateful that today is better. Not a lot of spoons but more than yesterday.

Sometimes I forget that healing takes energy. That emotional work can be exhausting even when it's fruitful work.

I had plans for today. Just writing all this out brought my attention to the reality that I don't have enough spoons for my plans. Good things plans can be changed.

Try

In therapy yesterday I threw back my head in laughter and laughed until I was done. I let my head rest on the back of the couch for a bit afterwards, catching my breath. That kind of laughter was a first for me in therapy. I couldn't help myself.

 A few weeks ago we shifted into doing some guided work in therapy sessions. It's the kind of stuff that, if I think about it for too long, I'd put in a basket labelled Airy Fairy Shit and leave it there. But I trust my therapist so I'm following her directions and seeing what happens. Guided work is really an experiment in trust. For someone raised with abuse, the not knowing what's coming next, can be a little scary. I'm glad I haven't let my fear stop me from trying it.

Yesterday, when my two year old self appeared in my mind, she was guided to take off the mask that protected her from harm at that age. The one that held negative voices bearing conclusions as to who she was as a little person. The mask that contained harsh words and states of mind filled with panicky thoughts of what she needed to do to keep safe.

It took some work. She peeked out from behind it first. She wanted to run. She wanted to curl up in a ball. Eventually she felt safe enough to hold the mask a little bit in front of her and then even further. Her Core Spiritual Self *came along and was ready to be with her as she got the courage to step out from behind the mask altogether. They picked up the mask and danced with it as it went from being plaster to foil. Once it was pliable she folded it up into a tiny square and tucked it into her front pocket. Then she declared, "I am in charge!" I felt laughter bubble up inside me as I watched her.

I wish you could've seen the dance she did and the joy she radiated at the thought of being in charge. I bet you would've laughed, too.


*This isn't the exact guided work I am doing but is similar.

Practicing

I've had the same family doctor for 20 years. We know each other well. I've often felt like my doctor wishes I would show more enthusiasm for life. I'm not the kind of person who jumps up and down with joy about anything. I envy people who do.

Comforting Therapist explained to me a few weeks ago about people's natural energy levels of expression (my term, not hers) and that she'd observed mine tended to be on the low side. Some people run the gamut from 0 to 10 and for some their range is 0 to 5. She said that for someone who literally jumps up and down when something great happens theirs might be a 9 in that moment. Mine in that moment would most likely be a 4. Same inner feeling but vast differences in outward expression.

Her explanation helped me stop expecting myself to morph into someone I'm not. It helped me judge myself less for my life long lack of getting overly excited about anything. I can be pleased as punch about something and may even be doing a happy dance within myself and you might not be able to conclude that by my outer behaviour. Okay, then.

I tried explaining all this to my doctor this past week but interestingly he heard it through the grid of pessimist and optimist and figured my therapist was trying to get me to be more optimistic. Arrgh. I actually don't see myself as pessimistic. I didn't try to clarify any of it with him even though it was hard to leave him with an impression that was inaccurate about what I was trying to explain.

I see him again in a few weeks. I had a major breakthrough in therapy a few days ago. The kind I recognize as one of those places where you place a stone on the path as a remembrance of what happened. My doctor might recognize the change and then again, maybe he won't. But I do.

Welcome Home

I didn't know the truth of that saying over there about transitions at the beginning of this melt down, but Dearest One did. He'd been through the process and in doing so became unabashedly himself. He can tell in his body if something is right for him or not. He can place his hand over his heart and ask, "How does that feel here?"

This fall he flew to another province for a funeral. Funerals in his family involve hundreds of people and that's not including the community. I think for his grandpa's funeral we were 189 immediate family members.

The day after the funeral he had had his fill of people. So when his hosts mused aloud about throwing a barbecue and starting listing off the people they could invite Dearest One told them if they did so he wouldn't be there.

He knew it would be too much for him. That he'd rather get in his rental car and go for a drive than spend the evening with too many people. He didn't feel one bit bad for speaking up and owning his truth. It was a better option than having an anxious knot in his chest grow due to social pressure to be someone he isn't. Because of his close relationship with his hosts, and the respect they have for one another, his boundary was honoured and the gathering was much smaller and more manageable for Dearest One.

Last month I brought home a paper from my therapist along with a photo of a diagram she'd drawn for me. Written on the paper was my biggest fear about what would happen in Dearest One and my relationship if I softened and embraced what was on the diagram.

The diagram had categories of what we do from birth to three to try and have/keep secure attachments and what happens if we don't have them. I didn't develop an edge accidentally. It was survival; looking for ways to feel safe. Ways that tend to keep people out. Dearest One and I have worked hard the past two years to form a secure attachment and become each other's person.

My therapist and I talked about how much softer and kinder I could become if I was willing to commit to the process of laying decades old coping mechanisms aside. If I was willing to challenge my thinking when I let those necessary coping mechanisms of old be old news and not current news. I'd thought that edge I developed was integral to being me. So much so that I had been looking at new hairstyles that could possibly indicate to others that I had an edge before I ever opened my mouth.

Immediately I worried out loud that without the edge I would be too much for Dearest One. That I'd ooze all over the place without boundaries. Comforting Therapist was quite sure I wouldn't be. I had her write down on a piece of paper exactly what my fear was so that I could remember to talk it over with him when I got home.

When I did, Dearest One's face lit up at the thought of a softer, kinder me. Not for his sake, but for mine. He could see the potential for me to live free. After assuring me that a softer me would not be too much for him, he told me that letting go of those coping mechanisms would allow me to become who I was created to be. I started to do that ugly cry sobbing.

When he reached over to comfort me I wish you could've seen his eyes.
Eyes that said, "Welcome Home." 

Someone With A Story

Dearest One and I spent the weekend away visiting with family. It is good to be home again and sleeping in our own bed. If only sleep would come that would help. I got up after an hour of laying there with my brain buzzing from one topic to another.

I've been using an App on my phone, at my therapist's suggestion, to track my mood. As I tend to overthink anything, I find it hard some days to figure out what exactly my mood is. I'm convinced other people don't have this issue. Dearest One looked at me funny when I asked him if he could easily tell the difference between feeling okay and feeling good?

I think the app used words such as Meh and Good for those two options and I felt so irritated (no problem figuring out my mood at that moment!) at the word Meh that I promptly paid a fee so I could customize the App and change that descriptor to something else.

To me, feeling Meh for any length of time would be incredibly depressing. Never mind that I've chosen it's replacement word as my mood half of the last 12 days.

One of the things I mulled over while I was trying to get to sleep was worrying that I'll get better soon. What a weird thing to think. I promptly judged myself for it. Then I followed that thought through to find that what I was worrying about was that I'd be be cleared to go back to work soon only to find out that once I got there I felt just as overwhelmed as when I left.

It's good to follow a thought to see where it will lead. As soon as I figured out I was worrying about feeling overwhelmed, I reminded myself that when I'm ready to go back to work I will feel ready, I will look forward to going, and I will feel confident at problem solving whatever I might face once I get there.

I dropped off a baby present at work after hours a week ago. I looked at my desk and the papers that had been piled on it in my absence and thought to myself,  I don't give a shit about any of this and walked out the door. I'm used to not only caring about my work but doing a stellar job of any task I need to complete. I try to see people as someone with a story when their behaviour is suspect. Coworkers are used to my refrain of I wonder what their story is when someone reacts instead of responds to a situation. I should have been tipped off then, that not everything was right in my inner world, when I commented to one coworker that someone else was a fucking bitch. I dislike that phrase greatly and have rarely uttered it. Never at work. It slipped off my tongue with incredible ease that day.

Anyway, I have no idea why I'm writing this all down other than I hope that in the writing my brain quiets enough so that I will soon be able to go to sleep.

My daily goals right now are to have a shower, get dressed and drink 8 glasses of water a day. I added in Centering Prayer last week but managed it only a few times. I lessened my expectation of doing 20 minutes off the bat and changed that App to 10 minutes. Centering Prayer has been a great addition to my daily routine in the past. So much so that when I practice it with any regularity, I find that in stressful situations my sacred word pops into my head and reminds me to ground myself. I think a bit of that could be helpful, don't you?

Seeing The Real

I slept through the night last night with relatively few bits of being awake. That's the first time in a week. Today has felt much more manageable because of it. The sun is shining. That helps, too.

Sparkly Eyed Grandson will be here soon for a sleepover. He has seen all the characteristics on that picture to the right that make up his Nana. I'm more than fine with that. He is an old soul in a little person's body and I love him immensely. My grandchildren give me such joy. I couldn't have predicted that they would play a part in my healing. I didn't know, before grandchildren, that I was capable of loving anyone so fiercely. That's the truth, be it as it may. They melt my heart.

I try to make space for my grandchildren to be all those things on the photo up there, too. What greater gift could I give them? Sometimes I think my message to them is, "I see you and what I see is beyond okay." 

Our grandchildren get to reap the benefits of all the inner work Dearest One and I are doing. I work hard to never invade their space without asking permission. I don't take their no personally.

I speak up when other's invade their space and remind them to stop it. We still live in a culture that often sees children as not having a right to a voice about their personal bubble. It irritates the shit out of me. Especially because of my trauma history I would never expect a grandchild, or any child for that matter, to give me a hug or a kiss or any touch at all. When my grandchildren snuggle up to me it is of their own volition. (And I soak up every moment.)

I know that my actions speak for me. What comes out of my mouth has little to teach unless it is cohesive with my actions. My grandson, especially, has heard me say words I'd rather he didn't. ("Nana, why did you say, 'fuck'?") Although his capability to repeat things in perfect context maybe isn't such a bad thing.

On sleepover nights he still comes into our bedroom the next morning and crawls into bed with us. I pull a bit of my pillow over for him to share. He snuggles down and usually lets out a contented sigh. I love that he feels safe.

One morning he crawled into our bed and snuggled between us. When Dearest One woke up I reached across and put my hand on his arm. I left it there for a while, content to talk without saying a word. Sparkly Eyed Grandson looked at us, leaned towards me and whispered, "I love him, too."

Changing My World

Today was a hard day. I had a glimmer of hope yesterday morning after laughing with Dearest One the night before. First belly laugh in a long time. I'm not sure why I thought that meant there would be a straight line from glimmer of hope to healing, but I did.

I'm spending much of my time doing handwork these days and that involves untangling yarn from the middle of the skein. I should have my own  brand of yarn named This Is What Healing Looks Like. A mess. That's what it looks like. Doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Sleep was elusive last night. My brain busy. It follows that getting dressed today felt like too much. Late morning I remembered -  there's that thing called supper.  Supper time came around and I went into the kitchen, looked at what I had taken out to cook and walked out again. I repeated this several times until Dearest One came home from work and we ordered supper in.

There were tears tonight in the midst of a normal conversation. I'm sensitive to anything that smacks of me feeling like I don't have a voice. I jabbed at him with a light, but effective, verbal punch. I cried when I realized what I'd done.

I'm grateful that Dearest One and I have done such hard work in becoming each other's person that when words get misconstrued and conversation starts going sideways, when tears fall and harms need to be made right on either side, we can talk and reassure one another; sinking into vulnerability as the place to connect with one another. It took us nearly 35 years to get to this place in our marriage. Previously we pinged off each other's trauma and piled more baggage onto our journey.

This work is worth it no matter how hard it is on days like today. It may not be changing anyone else's world but ours. I am grateful.

Forgive Yourself

When I saw this poster, with its words of wisdom, I instantly teared up. My therapist has been saying these things to me for a long time. The last time I thanked her for investing in her ongoing education, because it impacts our learning and growing, she thanked me for being willing to try something different than the survival patterns I've used all these years.

Years ago I was in a Bible study group with all elderly women. My children were all preteen at the time and I would listen to these women talk about their grown children, and the sometimes shocking choices they were making, and I wondered what age a person had to be before they didn't take their children's behaviour personally. I was very much into seeing my children's choices as a reflection of myself. That only added to my inclination to be a very controlling mother. After all, my reputation, such as it was, was at stake. I had no idea that my unresolved trauma history was impacting my parenting in ways big and small.

It turned out that the age one had to be was the age you were when your adult child made one of those life decisions that makes you cringe. It took that decision by Youngest Son to be willing to pry my fingers off the edges of my adult children's lives.

I know now, in a visceral way, that all my kids have their own trauma history to work through. My unresolved trauma impacted my mothering deeply. I was often not the mother they needed and I have deep regrets. People have a hard time picturing me as a verbally and physically abusive mother yet I was. I was bound determined I would never be an alcoholic like my mom either, but I went down that path, too.

Motherhood was the catalyst for my recovery on many fronts. It was what gave me courage to reach out for help and be steadfast in my search for healing even though that search has been a winding, and sometimes, not so pretty path. Only Daughter tells me every so often that the work I am doing in therapy and the changes I have made over the years, are impacting her life and her children's for the better. It's a reminder that today is not the end of the story.

All those words of wisdom in that yellow box up there are closer to being my reality than ever before. At least I am able to entertain them as truth, now. Although I think my regrets will always be there, I think it is possible to forgive myself for them, too. I inch closer to that every day.

A few nights ago I mused aloud to Dearest One that I wondered what age a person was when they decided to be at peace with what they believed and how they lived their life without feeling like they needed to defend it or apologize to anyone for simply being themselves.  I told him I was much closer to being that person than I had ever been and maybe now was as good a time as any.

Spring Chickens

Trigger warning: sexual abuse.

My mom would have had a milestone birthday today. I think she would've been surprised and wondered out loud how could she be that age already. Where had the time gone? She'd tell me again that I was a Spring Chicken at the age of 56. I don't feel like one these days.

I've been wondering what she would say about my time off work right now. I seriously wonder about that. She was an integral part of why I was put in the situation that ended in rape and continued sexual abuse for the months that followed. If she was alive I would've told her exactly what happened that lead to my being on an extended time off work. Yet she was so fragile at the end. Would I be obligated to protect her from my reality? What is fair? And to whom? Will I always feel like a bad person for feeling such anger?

I never allowed myself to feel angry about it while she was alive. There's still that frown of hers that I can picture in my head and the very real comment she made me to when I was 13 that what goes on in our house stays in our house.

There were many things that she didn't think should be brought out from the shadows and into the light of day. I don't think she ever experienced the freedom that speaking the truth can bring. I don't think she ever got over the boatload of mother guilt she carried. I'm guessing at these things because we couldn't have an honest conversation about the guilt although we came close way back when. She admitted that day to being an abusive mother. It cost her all she had to voice it. It was so much more than anything her own mother would have admitted to being or not being. There's that.

But. She knew he was a predator. Knew he bragged in the bar about the young women he got. She let me/sent me there to babysit anyway. I intuitively knew she had her own history with him. Intuition is a bitch sometimes.

She knew things were going on between him and I. I found out later that she rationalized that I was old enough to handle it. I remember thinking to myself , as I shoved blood stained underwear into the back of my jeans, "where are the adults and why isn't anyone rescuing me from this?" That I didn't feel like I could go to anyone is a sad reality. Let's take a detour down a back road and keep you there for hours. Tell you I'm not done with you yet when you try to get dressed.

It took years of therapy to see that he was always in a position of power in any encounter we had. That my voice meant nothing. My "NO!" eventually fell silent amid anxiety and fear. I thought it was all my fault for decades. To this day there are moments when my instinct, if you touch me without permission, is to want to throat punch you.

Motherhood is such a winding path. The baggage you bring with you into it. Baggage you don't even know you have. It can drag you down. The baggage that accumulates while you are actively parenting. She had enough to make one shudder. But still. There is no excusing not protecting one's own daughter. Not even doing the best you can in the circumstances.

If I indeed, am a Spring Chicken now at 56, she was a real Spring Chicken at the age of 41 when all this happened. I wonder what her milestone self today would tell her 41 one year old self if she could.