IMPERFECT Lady

Challenges You

On Joe Rogan's podcast yesterday with Anna Lembke - they spoke about how our brains work to keep our dopamine in balance. What was so striking to me, was that it isn't the joyful fun and beautiful that pulls us out of a funk or deep depression; but rather stress.

Joe Rogan Podcast

Stress of a new challenge.

Stress of doing something hard.

Stress of learning.

Stress of endurance sports.

Stress of pushing ourselves farther.

 

Oddly, it seems counter intuitive, and yet it makes complete sense to me.

The more I have tried and learned and pushed myself the more balanced I feel.

I just love that it is in the struggle we will become balanced, not in the resting.

 

And, in my experiences, I do feel better after I have done things that are hard.  Whether physical, mental or even emotional.  After the hard conversations, we feel a sense of peace - a clearing of the air and emotions. After hiking 6 miles or paddling far up river.  

It seems that the goal in life is not to live the life of leisure; but to bookend the resting with doing something that challenges you.

PC - Judy Byykkonen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kept Quiet

A dysfunctional childhood is hard to articulate and explain to others - you feel it is normal - when there is nothing normal about it.  You can't know the difference, when it is all you have ever known. You simply call it family.

 

Looking back into my childhood and even into adulthood - I don't recall anyone telling me we were messed up - that our family was insane and had abuse cursing through so many generations.  

 

My mother - who is not mentally well - I saw as one of high morals and values. I failed to appreciate the mental illness of her religion that created a fake reality we called normal.  I didn't see what she forgave - I only saw she was forgiving.  I didn't see what she allowed with each sin she overlooked.

Even typing this it freaks me out.

She was as evil as my father - for not reacting to his sexual abuse - by leaving and protecting the children.

 

The ideals I had in my head about my parents and their religion were all kind - hardworking - with truth and morality baked in. In my head - I had a normal family - but on paper and in reality it was far far from the truth.

 

Reality is my father on the front page of the paper with the headlines "Criminal Sexual Assault".  That is something you can't forgive and make go away.  It is.  It is more insane to believe a normal family surrounds this man. In any way shape or form.

If you were raised in this home, you are messed up.

Our discernment of truth and fiction is all twisted up and backwards.

 

What is up and what is down - what is right and what is wrong?

 

As I see my family continue to gather, I know that these sleight of hands are still at play.

There may be new individuals; but the act and drama of dysfunction are still playing along.

A new perpetrator(s) and one(s) who supports him/her.

It can be no other way.

Sexual abuse within families flows from generation to generation. IT does not die when one abusers dies.

 

There are new relationships in the old family traditions. 

The same sentiment is there - where we are kind, we are family, and family gathers.

Where relationships are built beneath the forgiveness model where reality can and will be swept away.

Not speaking the truth or being real or seeing evil is my family's strength.

My mother's blindness defined her.

 

The mental dance and drama of dysfunction is just normal life.

 

The paper and the headlines are long forgotten, rarely talked about or mentioned. Mother and her offspring still gather in the name of family. She perhaps still speaks of being "grateful we are all here together" and she is.

Each one who continues on 'playing normal' make her normal and not insane.

 

I - who stand outside of this drama trauma dysfunctional play - am seen as weird, odd, mental, cold, mean, unforgiving and unkind.  

Oddly, I represent the truth of what lies beneath our family. The sentiments they place on me - aptly describe our family.  

I was that - until I became aware.

I am wanting to spare a child - to spare a mother - a father - the pain of not knowing - that our family isn't right.  I don't want them to feel it is okay to bring children into our family. I don't want them to only see a large family of 'nice' people. I want our mental health and emotional brokenness to be known.

The first thing any new person into our family should know is what the headlines read - how traditionally the children are abused when we gather.

I have the clippings. I have a file full of 'evidence' of our truths that live in our family tree.

I wish I was told this when I was young.

I wish the family albums showed abusers.

I wish they showed why the ones who left and didn't gather, why they left.

Instead they were made out to be the cold and indifferent.

And, then the abusers and their supporters, kind family members. Really Kind???

 

Too many families pass on heirlooms and treasures - when what they really need to do in order to make healthy generations, is to pass on awareness and boundaries and truth of what is. Abuse of past generations needs to be talked about - shared loud and often.

 

It seems like a major cruelty to bring in new little ones under the auspices of family fun time.

When the likelihood of abuse is incredibly high.

There doesn't appear to have been any child spared thus far.

 

I am the outlier - the aunt and sister who stays away.

I can't know what they say about me - but I know what they said about the generation before me.

"She is cold and bitter and doesn't attend family functions."

 "Very self centered."

"Who does she think she is."

 

I don't believe we are mourned or even thought too much about - mostly what they want/need is for family to be family and not to be the story in the headlines. 

 

I recall many family reunions on my mother's side - I never once recalled a whisper about abuse that lived there. I am not the silent aunts who didn't arrive at the reunions. I am trying to speak to the next generations.  Abuse can only thrive if it is kept quiet.

Echoes of My Own Words

When raised in a co-dependent household, we learn behaviors that take a lifetime to undo - We learned that we were responsible for others. That it was up to us to make them happy, keep them safe, make sure they make the right choices, the list is long and endless.

We were taught that we had the power and influence - that would supersede the person's own free will.

We were taught that our decisions and choices always had to feel good to others.

How dare we live in a way that was not what the majority approved of?

 

My focus for the first 46 years was how my life affected others.  

And, for the past 16 years I am trying to detach from this responsibility of other.

I am trying to give that responsibility back.

 

And, I fail when my children choose to be with my estranged family.

 

It feels like I am responsible but not in control.

 

But am I responsible for their choices as an adult?

When does my responsibility end, and theirs start?

Who will ultimately be accountable for their actions?

 

My rational brain can know - their choice and their consequence.

While my worry and control - or co-dependency - has me twisted in knots trying to sway their behaviors.

 

My choices when they were children - was to be part of the family.

I allowed and helped them form relationships - that they now have the liberty to continue with. Just as I have the liberty to stay away.

It will be now on their watch - if and when something happens.

I have shared that abuse flows within my family, the legacy is many generations long - and growing.

They are not going in dumb.

 

Their reasons for going in can boggle my mind.

 

Perhaps I want to spare them the feelings of knowing you were part of the abuse circle.

That my inability to step away, to listen to my body ended up contributing to the climate that abuse thrives in.

 

So the bottom line is what is my responsibility now?

Whose life do I have influence over and what do I actually control?

 

What is odd too, is that I am in angst and tied up in knots - when I believe I can control others and can't.

 

If I just go by how my body feels and what brings my mind to rest - is being with my business and my life.

To do my own life.

To be in my own life.

To look around and see what is and what is not my responsibility.

 

What I know for sure living outside of co-dependency is much simpler and feels like a peace calm sea.

And, when I am trying to sway another, I feel like I am in a riptide.

 

My Co-dependent mind had me believing it was my responsibility to wrestle control away from my children. Again.

When my focus, attention, feelings and emotions come back into my world - I am present and with my body in my life - there I have peace.

It doesn't take long to slide back into the role I was given as a child - to be responsible for things I didn't control.

 

Being responsible is perhaps my biggest weakness - or more being Care Less a strange place to live.

 

I wasn't allowed to care less - I was put in charge of caring more - of caring for those who could care less.

Caring when others were careless.

 

The zone of caring less - leaves the space open for all kinds of monsters to invade, and they do.

 

Another part of being abused is feeling like you were somehow responsible. The abuser and the supporters seem to go free - and the victims are made to be responsible. Didn't you know, couldn't you tell, who didn't you protect???

At one point or another - most of my siblings blamed me for not telling - for not warning - and perhaps this is why I can't let it go.  I took on too much responsibility - even by feeling guilty - that I didn't spare anyone from my father.  Being I was one of the earlier victims.

This blog was a place where I could warn others, to speak up and to share and to not be one of who knew and did nothing. Who kept silent etc.

Maybe my only responsibility is to keep speaking out.

But if feels like I am talking into an empty tank, that all I ever hear back is the echoes of my own words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flowed for generations.

The legacy of abuse will not end - the string of denial is strong and tied to friendships and the desire to be accepted and loved. It is coated by fun and painted with holiday traditions. It never looks like it really is.

When family gathers - my estrange family - what bothers me the most is not the fun I am missing out or the lack of relationships I have with them - what grabs my mind and holds on is the potential for more abuse.

The ways in which nothing has changed and we are into so many generations now.

How relentlessly they gather.

 

And, how family gatherings are ripe for abuse when the family legacy carries that thread.

 

Those who are in denial - see only family and the fun and memories they make.

And if they read my words, see me as the mental one - out here worried about the children - still.

 

My head hurts from trying to find an in.

A way to say what needs to be heard.

 

The fun that is seen and participated in block the view from what is going on underneath it all.

Abusers live for these events too - here they can groom and get to know their new victims.

 

Children that are brought to these events are innocent of what may happen there.

Innocent that sexual abuse happens in a family where for generations it has been happening.

They believe in the innocence of the family - that is not innocent.

 

I sit outside.

I am not participating.

I am the one who is in the wrong.

 

When you think of sexual abuse to children, you often believe that the adults are innocent too. Yet I know this is not so.  Adults who have been abused are now bringing more children in.  All in the name of family and holiday and memories to be made. All at the cost of new little ones being introduced to the inner thread.

 

It messes me up - every year - every time they gather - I can't not respond with anxiety and angst.

There will always remain a part of me that wants to warn - to beg and to ask for the children to be kept away.

 

I recall, sobbing that no one told us a monster lived in our house. That the neighbors and minister didn't care enough.  Yet, what I didn't know is the echoing circles of denial that keep the family and religion going.

What I used to think is that they kept the secret secret.

Instead what they do more is keep the family acting like a family or a religion looking like it has morals and values.

 

They don't have to talk about the abuse - but they do have to keep the family looking like a normal one.

They have to keep meeting and gathering.

Being a family.

Regardless of what lays beneath.

 

My body responds with frustration indignation and futile knowing - that no matter what I say to whom and how articulate - family will gather - and grooming of the new little ones begins.

 

I didn't know that this would ever be part of the healing journey - that I would know - and so many would not.  That not only would I know, but I could speak and not be heard. I could shout it to the rooftops and nothing would change. That I could refrain from attending and it would mean nothing.

 

In Anita Moorjani's book, "Dying to Be Me" she speaks of seeing the world differently and how often she would feel different than others.  How she had to accept that everyone is on their own journey.

My lesson is to accept those who are in denial.

Accept that they want family acceptance and to be in the circle of family, regardless of its contents.

 

Accept that there is nothing more I can do - for anyone.

Accept that their choices are beyond my power.

I also have to accept that something within them feels off.

That a truth is being denied and their bodies feel it.

And, that someday, they will be able to live, speak and act from their inner knowing.

That they will be strong enough to go against the family grain.

 

I can be the model of stepping out.

of not participating - in order to put an end to the legacy of abuse.

I may not be able to even spare all in my own family tree.

I must accept that too.

 

My power is limited to me.

I can only live my truth.

 

In the past 16 years since my awareness - I bear witness to the legacy of family continuing on heedless.

I had to look up bear witness - and it means "to show that something exists or is true."

Perhaps I thought I could show abuse - but instead I show how the legacy continues.

How abuse gets covered up by family holidays and social gatherings.  How normal it is made to appear.

 

It is to bear witness to hell - masquerading as family.

 

There are two viewpoints going on at once - yet only one is ever focused on.

Only one is ever on display and shown out-loud.

But the ramifications of the other are in the actual lives lived.

The dysfunction is not hidden for long.

The body never lies and the truth leaks out in unsuccessful relationships.

It is revealed in the un-ease, the awkward at best, displays of love.

 

Who I was within the family and muffled in denial - and how I loved and lived - is  the complete opposite of who I am today.

 

I can have empathy and understanding for those who gather wanting the family.

Yet, I know it is a selfish act. For I know the cost it has on the children.

 

I drove the van to my parents house - I brought my children - I have been part of the masquerade - I was on stage trying to make that family work - and I know the cost.  My denying my feelings and how my body held the truth - didn't matter.  Abuse didn't care what I denied or did not - it moves and is grateful you arrive and with children.

I didn't end up with a solid moral family with values.

I ended up with more abuse.

 

Sometimes the human journey seems pointless and cruel.

 

Other times it is perfectly orchestrated.

 

Those in denial would keep a family going - for their actions are those of someone who isn't aware.

I looked up denial again "the action of declaring something to be untrue."

So each time they gather as a family it is declaring that the abuse is untrue.

For it is an oxymoron for abuse and family to be as one.

 

One of the main themes in my childhood was keeping up appearances.  The way others saw us.

And, this trait still goes on today.  I had to be brighter than the darkest abuse that lived in our family.

Better, cleaner, kinder, to name a few.

 

Often when my sisters gather they will re-do or clean or declutter a family member's home.

I see this and feel the desire to add a new layer to the thread of abuse. To cover up to make it shine to bring joy and beauty to a broken family.  For years I helped carry the family and its broken pieces. 

In awareness I put them all down - and as a wise man once said, in the exact same spot I picked them up.

Each of us gets to heal our own broken pieces. And, I can't know what it will take to make your awareness shine through.

I am grateful to the ones who see like I do.

 

Holidays are not holidays for me - but triggers to all that is still wrong.

 

When you poke your head up into awareness for the first time; all you may see are huge messes everywhere - but all it is is the truth your mind denied.

I feel like this turtle, seeing what so many disregard.

The truth has legs (from Martha Beck's book "The Way of Integrity" and will not rest, even if you do.

 

What explodes my mind is I see abuse, while others see love/family.

What I know is you have no love of self inside, if you can bring a child to a family where abuse has flowed for generations.

 

 

A young girl on a new bike!

Back in April I ordered a Mod Bike - the Berlin - an Electric Assist bike. 

It has been backordered and then backordered again and again. It finally arrived on Saturday, in the middle of our camping weekend. I was so happy that it finally made it to my home.

I was a bit nervous to try it out. I couldn't imagine having a helper on the pedals with me. Would I be able to control or feel comfortable on it - and how long would it take.

 

So, last night, after reading some of the Owner's Manual I took it for a spin.  

Down the dirt road I went - and I felt like I was about 6 - with endless energy - I was riding with such ease.

I then went to the end of our road and on to pavement - and then I noticed a thump thump thump each time the rear tire rotated around.  Something was not right.

 

So, I headed back home - excited that I LOVED the bike and that I could ride it with ease; but sad that it wasn't right. 

Oh my gosh, there was one small hill and I tried the assist at 1, and then 2, and then 3 - we flew up the hill. Granted it was a small one - all I could think of was how many other hills and places we will see.

But first I had to solve the thumping of the back wheel.

My mechanic husband ascertained it was a flat spot on the rim.

 

Today I had a few back and forth emails with the Mod company - and we both agreed that a new rear end will be shipped my way.  Leaving Austin Texas tomorrow via FedX.

Again I wait - and it is a bit harder.

I know what I am waiting for.

I Love Her!

 

She is my retirement gift to myself.

Her and I will explore many miles of roads and trails together in the years to come.  

I knew the longer I waited, the less days I would have to ride her - but she will be there next Spring. 

She will spare my titanium hip stress.  

She will also be good for my hurting hip.

She will save my body wear and tear - or so I hope!

And make me feel like a young girl on a new bike!

 

 

My Storyline

My Storyline quilts were requested to be shown - and I said Yes.  

The Keweenaw Storytelling Center is interested in showcasing stories and someone gave them my name.  

 

This seems like the perfect venue.

 

I was shown around the center, a work in progress - with lots of potential.  Bringing humanity together through our shared experiences - a place for voices to ring out in a variety of ways.

 

As I unrolled the quilts - it was interesting to see my art from so long ago.  

I believe the first ones were created in early 2005.

It has been 9 years since my quilts and I made our public appearance - well some where actually at an Art Quilt show - but I can't recall how far back that was.

Anyway it has been a long while.

I wondered about our relevance or integrity or even art form. My inner critic comes alive anytime my art is heading out in public - an unflattering soundtrack from long ago. 

I went back in my blog - way back to the beginning to see if I had recorded when my quilts were in the Quilt Show - but it only goes back to 2009.

It was interesting to read me back then. To read about my determination and confusion and trying to explain the unexplainable.  I feel for her.  

All these years later I still feel the misfit or the one who is unlike the others. I love my words though and my exploring and the books I read and who and how I quoted.  I love how I began seeing the world with a new perspective.  I can see that my storyline is still relatable.

 

My Storyline quilts are not scheduled to be hung until January and the space, or gallery wall, will be painted to showcase my art in ways that will flatter them.  I love how my art is always handled with care - and my story line too.

The woman who runs the place has great ideas and it will be another interesting walk on my journey.

Imagine them up in Calumet just few miles from the church.

I wonder who will happen upon them.

I wonder who they will comfort and who they will disturb.

 

All in all, it was a weird step into the past, and even more a step out into the public with my story.

Re-reading about my Keynote with Dial Help 9 years ago, I remember waiting for the rebuke and insults, the anger and rage for me speaking out - and that did not happen. 

It is odd, that we fear the reprisals and our story is often met with silence.

Nothing.

From those closest to us.

 

I have time to prepare and sit with each quilt to travel once again along my storyline; putting my story together to offer words and art to someone who feels alone in her journey.

These quilts have already given me courage and allowed me to be brave. They stand louder and bolder before me - telling my story in fabric. 

This time out I am stronger - more time has passed and I have grown - emotionally and spiritually. I know who I am now - I know my depth and love.

I could actually stand before my art.

Yet, I am so grateful to have it with me.

 

Soon, I will hang them back on the clothesline and take their pictures again. Perhaps take them out on a photoshoot.

Looking at them was like looking at old friends.

Parts of me that I didn't really know - then.

 

I am now excited to re-visit My Storyline.

 

I am now brave, bold and a badass - with my truth.

 

 

 

A life full of riches!

On Tim Ferris's podcast with Ramit Sethi they spoke about your Rich Life. 

The idea is what would define a 'rich' life for you?  

It doesn't have to be about finances or even items - but what feels luxurious to you.

What do you do to spoil yourself and make your heart sing?

How often do you feel joy by doing something you love?

And they also talked about dreaming into the future - of planning for a richer life experiences.

To put goals out there, and ways in which you can achieve them.

 

Ramit said that we are taught to save; but we are not taught how to spend.

Often we don't know how to spend what we save when we arrive in retirement.

 

We find security in the big bank roll - or how we so diligently have secured our retirement years - but never talk about how we will spend that retirement money.

 

He also has a challenge to spend $100 on just you - It can't be for your kids/grandkids or someone else. Just you.  To think about shopping for yourself.

 

What I loved about the conversation was that there were exciting dreams and ways in which we can save to experience things we love - to go places and plan and dream.

 

In my first 46 years, I didn't know how to focus on what I loved.  But, in the past 16 years  I have learned to this quite well. And, it isn't selfish feeling at all.  It is self-loving.

I love myself enough to have purchased a kayak, bikes, skis etc.

I see clothing that will work well in the outdoors and spoil myself buying it.

 

As a couple we have been good of taking care of us.

We go out to dinner and splurge - to take rides and weekend getaways.  We not only save but enjoy the fruits of our labor.

 

I have little bits of dreams for retirement - ideas that need to be fleshed in and planned for.

Road trips, bike trips, kayaking, camping, hiking, art fairs...

With family and friends.

 

Mostly what I am doing already; but maybe bigger, longer and further away.

Perhaps retirement opens up the landscape of time to do more of what you love.

My rich life is what I am living today.

 

Often we wait to be delivered 'riches' when the richness of life is doing that which you love to do.

How grateful am I to be living a life full of riches!

And the greatest richness we can own is the relationship we have with ourself and then with others.

 

 

Choices Matter

There is a frustration, and an excitement, when I feel out of control, or more wanting to control - a place that feels familiar to so many past events. A rage and carelessness floods through me.  

 

Mostly it is when plans go awry.

 

I have an inappropriate reaction to reality.

Or, an appropriate one, coming from whence I came.

 

When I was old enough to babysit - every few months or so, I would arrive home from school or wake up in the morning and my mother would be gone.  Leaving the house to me and all the kids.

It didn't matter to her, what plans I had made, what was going on in my life - her needs eclipsed it.

There was no asking.

 

I would be plunged into caretaking with a careless heart.

Into her world of raising children.

Lots of children.

Too many for a young girl to handle, on her own for a whole weekend.

Without prep.

Without notice.

Without the proper skills and understandings of child rearing; I was but a child myself.

 

And, then after a few days, she would appear.  She would be there in the morning.  Having come back home the same way she left, unannounced.

Her morning wake up call - would announce she was back -"Rise and Shine Everybody".

To which my anger abounded into a full blow rage at her.

Seething inside a volcano of hatred.

For her audacity to have left me in charge.

 

She appeared to have rallied.

To have found her re-charge.

And, was back - for now.

No explanation.

I never had a way to reach her.

Nor, did I ever know where she went.

 

This feeling of being in control - but out of control - and to be at the whim of another's choice - has stayed with me.

 

My responsibleness - and love for my siblings had me doing my best in the worst situations.

Caring for children who were left behind.

I wasn't their mother, but I was left to act like it.

This happened mostly before I could drive.

I wasn't allowed to drive a car; but I was allowed to care for way too many kids.

 

So, in my nowadays world, when someone abandons plans - my knee jerk reaction is to see my mother's past behaviors.

A question that is asked in the healing of the past is "What does this remind you of."

 

I wrestle with my emotions and control when others change plans.

 

It feels deeply hurtful to me.

I feel disregarded.

In a volume way way too loud.

 

I believe, that these are the expressed emotion I had way back when - when my mother changed her mind on being a Mom, on those weekends.

 

Her running away, literally - to escape - left me unseen.

Her emotions, her feelings, her life mattered more; than mine.

 

As a child I didn't have a choice.

I was left in a home with babies and young kids.

Without a parent in charge.

I had to stay and live out the cost of her choice to leave.

 

I had to bury my resentments and cope.

To be in charge in way that was impossible and way beyond my means.

 

She would often praise me for the good job I did - or bring home a 'gift' as perhaps payment.

But, my rage and resentment towards her never really got to be fully expressed.

I wasn't able to voice my anger and feelings.

 

It is the way of a dry drunk. When they are happy, you are not going to bring up the crap and set them off again.  In a way, I suppose I was happy she was back - for the simple reason - I was no longer in charge.

 

I resented the fact that she could pop out of her life whenever she wanted.

I resented the fact that she came back cheerful.

 

What I didn't know way back then - was all the abuse that was going on in my home, and in my neighborhood. The sheer volume of what she was leaving me in charge of blows my mind.

 

I have been wondering about the exaggerated feelings - when someone changes plans - and how it affects me so deeply.  I tried to find the links backward.

I guess what is even odder, is that now I get left usually having fun - not left in a mess of untold proportions.

 

I know that my feelings are my problems.

Mine to resolve and express.

And, that anytime I feel out of control - I have given my power to someone else.

 

Of course as a child - especially in toxic homes - we are powerless.

Powerless is actually the voice of our childhoods.

Not love.

Not responsible love.

Not caring.

But not being seen.

 

I get me - and my weird overblown responses.

 

We are formed by our childhood experiences. I seek relationships that are solid and reliable - and I also know that I am the one who needs to be the most solid and responsible - for me.

We are all free to chose - our choices matter.

 

(For those who don't know. I was the second oldest to 14 children - and the oldest girl.)

 

 

 

 

 

Right Now

“Wherever I am, wherever we go, home will always be the in-between place, a wilderness I've grown to love.” “EVERYONE WHO IS born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick,” Susan Sontag 

I finished Suleika's book "Between Two Kingdoms".

I highly recommend it.

 

What I was introduced to is the Between Space.

Where many folks live.

 

In life things happen - and we can't go back to the before, and we are not fit for normal.

Or, we have changed so much, there doesn't seem to be a place among the rest.

 

Again, hard to explain - but it feels right for me.

 

I am different.

Not the daughter and sister I used to be - nor will I ever be again.

I am not striving to fit into a new place in the family.

I am living in the between space of both.

 

No longer defined by the labels - rather living without them.

 

Life is often defined in or out.

With or against.

 

When there is the third option.

I didn't understand that what I was doing was developing the third option of in-between.

While you feel like it is an outcast position - it can also be an empowered one.

A sovereign space - where you live from.

As an individual.

Honoring your truths and experiences - being/feeling/knowing differently.

 

I am thinking there are more of us in the in-between.

And, instead of feeling like the "other" - we can make that a more normal space.

We are tossed into this space typically by a life interruption event and often strive to fit back into

something - and it is impossible.

Little did we know, the in between is a life space.

An honorable one.

 

The vast space of freedom to NOT fit in.

 

We are different.

Unique 

Outstanding

 

Subconsciously I felt less than - due to my in-between status.

Suleika has shown me the beauty of not living in the kingdoms.

 

So, if you find yourself outside of the norms or ensconced in the family - know it is not only okay but a valid

place.  

It is your land.  

A kingdom of your own. 

And, you the queen of it all.

It is up to you how you decorate and orchestrate the things that live in this space.

There are no rules to be had.

It is the space where you are free to be you.

Untethered and detached from so many of the labels and constraints of 'normal'.

A false unreachable space.

I am so grateful it is impossible for me to reach normal.

The freedom that has given me is immense.

Freedom to just be, here as I am, right now.

 

 

I will be her - until...

 

 

 

I am reading her book "Between Two Kingdoms" - well listening to her read her book. I love the way she re-frames things in order for her to really live life.

We often feel like there is a 'correct' way of being.

And, that after life interrupting events, there is a 'normal' place that is waiting for us to arrive.

 

What I know from experience, the quicker you can disregard the ideas of normal - or believing that you are 'supposed' to be this way or that, the quicker you will find a new stride.

The new stride doesn't have to feel easy or comfortable.

The new way of being means you are okay with you.

 

The 'after' you.

 

She is right in saying that the hardest part was after the trauma.  The hard part is to integrate back to a life.

A life that now holds a stranger - You.

 

It isn't as if life itself all alters and reflects your own changes.  Instead we have to adjust ourselves in order to hop back on the merry-go-round called life.

 

Some of my hardest days came long after leaving my family.

Long after the last conversation.

 

More, the hardest part of all, was becoming the new version of me that now held sexual abuse -dysfunctional family- toxic religion. How do I live as this?

 

She talks about leaving the hospital without the inner scaffolding inside of her.

THIS, I know way too well.

 

Inside of us, unbeknownst to us, is a scaffolding that holds us up.

It is who we know ourselves to be, and fit into the world around us.

You don't know know that it is there - but you will certainly know when it is no longer there.

 

Learning to re-build a life after a life interrupting event - takes time.

And, Fearlessness.

an, open heart

and the belief that you can live a life worth living again.

That you can take the heart that has been shattered, and love from there.

 

My second build of scaffolding was done by me.

It was directed by me.

It is strongly structured by things I know that strengthen me and bring me love, peace and joy.

 

Early on I realized the before me would never live again.

I had to find a way to be me, without her and what she was built of.

 

It is hard to describe the hollow scary spot you get left in - when your scaffolding collapses.

When there is very little that is holding you up.

 

I love how she sees the world of two kingdoms and how we move between the two.

Yet, in estrangement - we mostly are divided into one camp or the other.

It is rare for us to move between.

You are either in the family, or out of it.

 

So, while she worked to assimilate back into society and find a new self.

I was more learning to live without a family and be that girl - in society.

 

Our society has placed great value in family.

With reason.

 

I too believe in family.

When family has a pure core.

 

It is funny, in a peculiar way, that in order to save my own family - I had to leave my family of origin.

 

If we live long enough, all of us will face some kinds of interruptions in our lives.

 

The lives we believe will go on forever will, at some point, be changed.

And, when that happens, you will have to change - in order to live whole.

 

Accepting the unacceptable - is to live whole.

Bringing with you all the broken parts and live and love from there.

 

I have felt that the cost of leaving my family had to equal the value of my new life.

I needed and sought out a life worth having.

I intentionally brought in what made my heart happy. 

I wasn't interested in doing or being fake for the sake of someone or something.

I needed/wanted a scaffolding of value - as this new me.

 

The biggest lesson we can learn from her, is that we don't need to be defined by what happened to us, and that we can change who we are when life changes us. And, that all life dark times don't last forever and we can have a wider broader and deepened sense of self - after.

 

We should teach more of how life can change us.

How we can live more than one self in our life times.

 

I love the 2.2 version of Me.  

I will be her - until...