IMPERFECT Lady

Who Didn't See.

"I See You!  Here I Am!" - Mark Nepo's last entry for 2012...I love it. 

"For centuries, African Bushmen have greeted each other in this way.  When the one becomes aware of his brother or sister coming out of the brush, he exclaims, "I see You!" and then the one approaching rejoices, "I Am Here!"

"This timeless bearing witness is both simple and profound, and it is telling that much of our modern therapeutic journey is suffered to this end: to have who we are and where we've been seen.  For with this simple and direct affirmation, it is possible to claim our own presence, to say, "I Am Here."

"Those people in our lives who have validated our personhood by seeing us and exclaiming so are the foundations of our self-worth. Think of who they are. For me, the first to rejoice at my scrambling into the open was my grandmother. If not for her unequivocal love, I might never have had the courage to express myself at all.  And, after all, isn't art in all its forms the beautiful trail of our all too human attempts to say, again and again, I Am Here."

"It is important to note that being seen enables us to claim our lives, and then it becomes possible to pass the gift on to others.  But just as important as bearing witness is the joy with which these Bushmen proclaim what they see.  It is the joy of first seeing and first knowing. This is the gift of love."

"In a culture that erases its humanity, that keeps the act of innocence and beginning invisible, we are sorely in the need of being seen with joy, so we can proclaim with equal astonishment and innocence that of all the amazing things that could have been or not, We Are Here."

"As far back as we can remember, people of the oldest tribes, unencumbered by civilization, have been rejoicing in being on earth together. Not only can we do this for each other, it is essential.  For as stars need open space to be seen,as waves need the shore to crest, as dew needs grass to soak into, our vitality dependson how we exclaim and rejoice, "I See You!" "I Am Here!"  Mark Nepo

It is not so much having the other person truly see you, but for you also to proclaim "I am Here."  A full disclosure of who you are.  I see it as two people fully standing in their truth, uncovered and without pretend...seeing each other, while being authentically themselves.

This may seem like an easy task, to get someone to say "I See You", and an even easier one to state, "Here I am", but it is not.

In the past 8 years, I have been standing outside of the woods of abuse and not all will say I see you and Here I am...in the light of day.  Most will secretly whisper, "I see you....and here I am" while showing me their battle scars.  They are too afraid to stand out in the light and proclaim, "Here I Am!"

The other very important part of this writing is to the the people who first said, "I see you." 

Those are the ones who believe your experiences and validate the foundations of our self worth.  Without them, it would be hard to exclaim, "Here I Am" with strength and courage and finally pride!

I have to think back to the very first weeks and months after my father's arrest to know who these people were.  My brother Carl, never once doubted what I was saying. The ladies within my Art Quilt group, when unbeknownst to them and I, my story came stumbling out in one meeting, they too said "I see you"....allowing me to stand taller in "Here I am."  They opened the space to be okay with being me.

It were the first few who validated my personhood, that allowed me to express myself with the truth of who I am.  It was then, that the initial courage was born.

I had said in the very first days, that all we would have needed as children, was one eye to see us, one ear to hear us or one hand to pull us out.  His writing today has affirmed this sentiment I felt so deeply and so tragically, that so many knew and no one said, "I see you."  Instead, they turned away.

So many believe that not talking about it, not bringing it up is better, but in my experience, being able to hear someone say "I see you" especially in our battered state, in our confusion, pain, shame etc...allows us to say shakily, "Here I am".

Here I am, as I am.  Not whole. Not perfect, but perfectly me, coming from whence I came.  Here I Am!

If the person who first sees you can hold your gaze and not turn away...if they can hold not only your gaze but see you as okay and not the abuse, that you are/were innocent, that it happened to you, it isn't you...you feel their courage to see you... and they are okay.

My mother did not see me...and I believe she acted similar as she did just 8 years ago, she made sure Ray was taken care of. She made sure others outside of the house were appologized to. She made sure she 'cleaned' up the scene...but, she never not once said she seen me as an abused child. She only wants to see me cleaned up with the mess (old news) behind me.  Forgive and move on.

I will be accepted when I put it away.  Until then...there is no rejoicing to see me. There are conditions to her 'love'.

I am forever thankful for the ones who did See Me, for they gave me the courage to say, "Here I Am"...they allowed me be proud of being me. Even if I was the daughter of a pedophile and his wife who didn't see.

(I wrote this and then went to do yoga, and it came to me that I had a lot of people who saw me...and I need to acknowledge them for each gave me courage to continue on.  

My husband.  He never once doubted me or asked me to do something that I wasn't comfortable with.  He allowed me to be "here I am", with out condtions.  My children too, have all left me be where I am comfortable and in turn, I have given them the same freedom.

I also had a few sisters in the early days, who listened and cried with me. Their being there in the early days were extremely helpful. And I honored their decision to leave me be...and in turn I honor them.

And, I had close friends who also listened, cried and understood...to the best of their abilities and I am sure often my 'troubles' were beyond their level of comprehending, but the listened and saw me.

It was because of you all, I had the courage to be me, imperfectly.)

I was meant to be!

As I sit here at the end of 2012, my 53rd year, I am surprised about all my firsts.  I love that I am doing things for the first time. I believe this is the key to staying young, to keep learning and trying new things.

1.  A solo Art Show at the Sweet Water Cafe in Marquette...sold 4 pieces.

2.  I was on the panel for Take Back the Night at Michigan Tech...my first public appearance as a spokesperson for victims of sexual abuse.

3.  Was the Featured Quilter for our local Quilt Show in Chassell.  My 20 Art Therapy quilts were on display.

4.  I made a book about the quilts and one is on the shelf in our local library.

5.  I gave a keynote speech at Dial Helps Fund Raiser Gala at Michigan Tech and my Art Quilts were on display...a reception, it seemed, for me and my journey. I even made the paper both here and in Marquette...a couple of times.

6.  I Co-Founded the women's mentoring group, WIND; Women In New Directions with the help of Dial Help.

7. Speaking of Dial Help, I went through their 30 hour training for sexual abuse for their Victims Service Unit.  I learned plenty and I have not gone out on any calls, but feel that I will use the training in WIND and as I continue to hear victims stories...

Those are what came to mind as highlights of my year and it has me wondering about my intentions for 2013.

What do I want to do?

What things do I want to learn?

How can I serve using my experience and art?

I would love to expand my knowledge about this blog and how to set it up and change the looks...to understand the full layout.  A class would be awesome!

Expanding or actually just moving my art.  Getting prints, cards etc online and in storefronts.

Find new places to display both my Healing Art Quilts as well as the ones for sale.

Take WIND on field trips...bring in speakers....expand the menu of what we do.

Be open to new ways to help victims and be a spokesperson.

Perhaps start a real book.  Chapters and verses....find a format that or timeline/outline to set my words upon.  I believe once I have a pattern, I can plop in my experiences.  What do I want to share and to whom and how will it look?

There is a good chance we will be empty nesters by summer and I would love to redo our home to fit just us.  Removing the excess of stuff we needed to be parents. To make it more a grown up home.  Room by Room.

I will be on the look out now for the opportunities for these intentions....I am excited for 2013.  I wonder how many new firsts I will have?

Intentions are the seeds to new experiences.  What do you want to experiece?

For me....more Art, more speaking, more connecting/helping/mentoring....more writing (seriously) and learning and growing into who I was meant to be!

My Song of Freedom

Mark Nepo - December 29

"As long as we sing, the pain of the world cannot chaim our lives."

"Through cancer, through growing up in America, through learning about the innumerable struggles for freedom around the world, all different but the same, through being with the people of South America, it has become very clear that giving voice to what is the inner essential to surviving what is outer.  No matter where we live or whom we love, no matter what we want or what we can't have, this is the lesson I can't repeat or learn enough."

"When everything in life presses from outside of us, we have no choice but to sing like scared children relying on their song to stop the pain, the way that fire stalls the cold. This is the secret of all spirit, why it cannot stay inside, but must be brought from within us into the world. For it is the song from within that keeps the pain of living from snuffing our lives. It is the song from within ignited again and again, that keeps the world going. When we do this for ourselves, we do it for every child not yet born."

"As night and day takes turns of this massive Earth spinning nowhere, the song we share within takes turns with the catastrophes of living. When we go silent, the age goes dark."

"Sing, then, in whatever tongue your pain has taught you. Sing, though you have no training and never went to school. Sing, because the cry from all the places you have kept quiet will stall the cold, will soften the danger, will keep the world possible for one more turn...."  Mark Nepo "The Book of Awakening"

Singing for me means to share your life, to give voice to your experiences and words to your pain.  Singing is being you.  Singing is not silencing your life, but to sing even if you can't carry a tune.  Sing out loud from deep within you.

Most often the second stage of abuse is forced silence.  We have to stop singing our life...we are controlled by the silence we feel we must keep.

We are only allowed to sing about things that don't matter and the ones that do, the life altering events, we stifle those words...go mute in fear and shame.  We learn to not talk about our truths...for we were told that it is shameful and we will lose those we 'love'.  So we don't.

When we dare to speak of the abuse, we get our song back...and we may lose relationships.  But, in my experience, the relationships were based upon my silence and keeping my song inside of me; my truths.

How can you have a relationship where the truth is left unsung?

What I feel is the most devasting and long lasting affects of abuse is that our singing voice is silenced.  That we have to bear witness alone without a voice...we become part and party with our fear of singing out loud what happened...and to keep singing until someone hears us.

In the past 8 years, the way I have been treated as a big adult who began singing, is that you will not find a familiar ear to hear your words.  

Families of dysfunction are all tone deaf to your words.  They only will hear songs of praise and good memories and will fall deaf when you sing words of abuse.  Oh, they will say they hear you, but they will continue on with their life unchanged.  Like your words passed through their ears without falling into their consciousness.

What I have come to know is the ability of the human mind...how it can take the least amount of information and weave the most plausible story, or it can in 1 10,000th of a second, disregard what it hears and replace it with what It believes.

I also believe that it is not our singing voice we fear, but the lack of being heard and for the world to stop spinning in its normal routine.  What I am most perplexed by and even admiral about, is the way most lives will return to back to normal, like nothing happened...with barely a skipped beat.

What I called life changing and life ending, was just a small blip on their screen.

It shows to me their controlled minds...and how their beliefs block my song from entering. It is wildly intriguing and at the same time extremely maddening.  It shows live living proof the affects of abuse...an abused mind.

The greatest feat of our abusers is their ability to convinve our minds to believe something that isn't real.

And, once they flip our minds out of reality, we then live from this skewed view.

Imagine if you will, we BELIEVE that our abusers Love us.

We believe that we did something wrong.

We believe we did something to be ashamed of.

All the beliefs are attributes of the abused mind.

It isn't the fact that we endured the physical act of sexual abuse that leaves us scarred for life, but rather the way our minds has been turned.

If you were abused and had a loving parent see it for what it was, you would not be left with an abused mind.  

The abused mind flips around all the facts of the event of abuse and the characters that are involved. Where you take on the traits of the abuser and the abuser becomes innocent.

In order to flip this around, you literally have to go against your mind and your beliefs and literally stop living life by what your mind says and rely instead upon actions that your eyes can see.  And sing what you see.

I refused to be swayed by the words that many wanted me to hear to 'explain' their actions away.

I did not care for words, but relied instead upon actions.

Imagine if you will how a child is convinced that the perpetrator loves them while forcing them to preform sexual acts. This extreme juxtaposition is made 'right' in your mind.

When you can finally get right with reality, you are no longer under the affects of abuse...the flipped around mind.

I sang my truth against the protesting mind...knowing it was my way to being free from the affects of abuse.  My writing and blogging is my song of freedom.

Listen to ourself!

December 28 - Mark Nepo

"Integrity is the ability to listen to the place inside oneself that doesn't change, even though the life that carries it may change.  Rabbi Jonathon Omer-Man

"Much of our journey throughout this book has been about discovering that place inside and cultivating the ability to listen to it, while having compassion for the life that carries it."

"It moves me to share the story of a troubled man who,exhausted from his suffering and confusion, asked a sage for help.  The sage looked deeply into the troubled man and with compassion offered him a choice: "You may have either a map or a boat."

"After looking at the many pilgrims about him, all of whom seemed equally troubled, the confused man said, "I'll take the boat."

"The sage kissed him on the forehead and said, "Go then.  You are the boat.  Life is the Sea."

"As we discovered so many times, we have everything we need within us. This ability to listen inside is our oldest oar. You are the boat." Mark Nepo

 

We truly are all boats riding along in life....and we steer our boats by what we hear from inside ourselves.  Not only hearing what we feel is right for us, but then the follow through, to point our oars in the right direction.

I used to be a boat that bobbed along with others pushing and pulling me; I did not have any oars in the water.

Now, I have strong oars that are connected to my insides.  I can and often stand against the majority for the sake of my self.  This has been 8 years in the making, to use and be confident with this oar.

In the past, my comfort was to be in a crowd and going along...like bunches of boats tied together floating down the river of life...with the sentiment, there is 'strength' in numbers.  Now, that would panic me. To be tied and bound to other boats; not free to move independently.

I believe, that in order to have integrity, you have to be free to move.

Perhaps integrity is freedom...love is freedom.  

Being able to be yourself no matter the circumstances you find yourself in.

I used to blend with the circumstance, I was ever changing...now, I am me and it often seems like I am going against the current or what some feel being nice would dictate.

My integrity now matters more. 

Having integrity to be me...is the freedom to be who I am...no matter how life flows. There is huge comfort in being comfortable with who I am.  Before I tried to become comfortable with the ever changing outside....now, I get it. 

If you are comfortable with who you are....you know you can handle what life delivers.  It may not always be comfortable, but you will know how to respond.

I love that the oldest oar is the ability to listen to ourself!

Lives in Now

"If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy?" 

Mark Nepo's, Book of Awakening, December 27th.

"Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what's been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has hardened about me, what will I do with what I have?"

"At first,this might seem scary or sad, but as a tired swimmer comes ashore surprised to find pearls washing through his legs, I lift my tired head again and again to find all that I need is right where I am."

"But, being human, I stray and dream of lives others than my own, and soon I am busy wanting something else, somewhere else, someone else; busy imagining something just out of reach to strive for."

"It leads me to say if you are unhappy or in pain, nothing will remove these surfaces. But acceptance and a strong heart will crack them like a shell exposing a softness that has always been, exposing a soft thing waiting to take form.  It glows.  I think it is the one spirit we all share."  Mark Nepo

We are getting to the end of Mark Nepo's book, The Book of Awakening. I read a passage each day, and I commented on many of those that struck me as true in my experience.  He writes not about finding the perfect life, but being perfect with life...

He also uses nature as a guidepost or reference in knowing how to respond.

It is our challenge always to find Joy here...and not look ahead or beyond where our breath is.  In this moment of time.  I feel joy in being calm, in relaxing with the tree lights, in writing cards to send to friends...in sipping tea...in being online, wirelessly!

I like that joy is found right now...joy lives in Now.

Flow with Grace

"Sometimes I go about with pity for myself and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky."  Ojibway Saying

In Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening, he writes...

"Our crucial task when in pain or dispair is not to let the sour feelings spill into everything, so that we stain our sense of the world. Yet we must also take care not to so contain our feelings that they fester and infect our sense of ourselves.  Somewhere between the two extremes waits the life of healthy expression, not personalizing everything and not painting the world with our troubles."

"Our inner work is often most demanding when we are sad and afraid, for we can easily be overwhelmed by the power of these emotions that we can start to believe the world less possible or ourselves diminshed.  Once feeling less than, we stop feeling the truth of what is genuine and start losing touch with the Great Winds of life."

"Yet, somehow life has a way of carrying us along whether we are aware of it or not. Just as the stream carries both the hungry fish and the sleeping one downstream, the Great Winds carry both the agitated heart and the peaceful one into tomorrow."

"Thus, the work of prayer, when we feel least like praying, is neither to inflate or deflate the world or ourselves, but to restore our connection to the powerful currents of life."  Mark Nepo

What I like about this reading is the thought that the Winds of the Universe will carry the hungry and the sleeping, the peaceful and the agitated; all go at the same pace....so, it is up to us how we enjoy the ride or become stressed and worried.

I was in an online discussion about Burdens and how the native americans hang a burden pouch besides their entry, so you don't enter into their homes heavy laden, and they believe that the only place you bring them is to the Wise Elders.

It is an interesting idea.  I believe that we each should hang a Burden Pouch on our body, so that we are continually considering what to carry and what to place in the pouch. I decided that the pouch should actually remain empty....for we either can fix/change something or we are being asked to accept it.

The only burdens we carry are the things we cannot change or have no control over....so, they truly are not ours to carry. 

I find that when I start to frett, I am usually in someone else's life...I am worrying about another's life and wanting to get involved in something that is not mine to move around.

In our own lives, you will know immediately if it is something you can change of it it is something that you have to accept.  I believe our burden bags are full of things we prefer not to accept, so we are fighting what is.

If you do as the old saying goes, The Serenity Prayer.....to change what I can and to know the difference.

What I believe many carry around their necks is a Pretend Pouch, where they believe they can magically change the very things that cannot be changed, but they are not willing to gracefully accept them...instead they carry around an untrue reality.

Not sure what is more burdensome, the weight of worry trying to change what is impossible or pretending there is nothing to change?  Both leave you fighting the Great Winds.

You are not going with the flow of reality.

It is not easy to accept with grace and own to your soul some things...but once you can master this task, you flow with Grace.

Positive Negative

My brother wrote on his blog, www.messyguru.typepad.com about Being positive and acting positive...being polar opposites, and I agree.

What I believe happens is that when you are raised in an abusive family you work like hell to keep it appearing and looking positive, nice and pretty....and that space is where you believe the heart of the family lies...in the space above the abuse.

And it is the child's job to continually create and re-create this space...and not look directly into the parents lives...but to see them with one eye closed and humming loudly to block out the harsh reality of what they are doing.

While beneath this pretty picture the children are painting, lies the dark ugliness of abuse...rotting and infecting each new generation...while the older generation continually tosses out abuse like yesterdays OLD NEWS. 

Acting positive in order to be a family...while the negative feelings surge and rage through you, require you put on a pretty face.

Trying to be patient, trying to be kind, trying to be positive.  Using alcohol and drugs to keep you feeling positive.

It is a false positive...in a false positive family. In order to be part of this family, you have to leave your abuse and its affects and stop talking about it.  IT is not welcome here. It is over and done, we moved on.

 This isn't something that is taken lightly or not defended.  I am shoved to the side in order to protect this false positive family unit.  For I will not act positive about a negative member(s).

Somehow dysfunctional families are striving to be perfect by NOT talking about the negative, when in fact, the only way to return to being positive is to talk about it, to keep talking and dealing until it is fully displayed and dissected and no longer putting in a negative charge into your system.

If only abuse was a one time event.  

If only abuse happened, and then was dealt with, but instead in abusive homes, it happens, it is covered up and never talked about, and you are left with a negative feeling inside of you that then goes on to collect more negative feelings, while the home life surface looks like a Hallmark Picture...

If you look again, at the family snapshots my mother sent, of a large family doing christmas, you would not see any indication of a pedophile or his damage upon the children...you would have to look deeper into their lives.  It is to HER benefit that a false positive be hung up. 

She doesn't want to air the dirty laundry of her marriage and child rearing years...she wants it to reflect the kinder side of her life.

It leaves those of us out here with the affects of the abuse, no where to go.  We don't fit into the family picture she paints.  In order to come in, you have to pretend to pretend that you are not abused OR that it has had any adverse affects in your life.

It is okay to say your abused, but don't talk about it or act like it...and certainly NOT for 8 years!

I guess I talk about it because she won't.  I talk about it because it made me who I am today...I make sense when you factor in the negative in our home.

It is not having the space in her life for us to be abused...that pushes us away.

Even my brother doesn't want me there, for I have this negative side of my life.

A side that has wrecked havoc in my world.

How could I ignore it and live a full life?

And if I did ignore it, would all the affects go away?

What I know for sure, is that my life was out of control until I was forced to face the negative and see where it was the leading director in my life.

I lived my life dancing above the abuse...in order to feel positive.  I was the good girl to make me good.  I had to please others to feel positive.  I had to make my children be good for me to be a good mother.  I was directing the world around me to make me good.

Now, I am good inside.  I am good with being abused.  I am good in knowing that I was but an innocent child and I was abuse.  It isn't who I am, it was what happened to me. 

It matters not how many kick my ass to the curb, I am still a good person inside.

Their actions say more about them, than they say about me.

As they kick me away, I know that they are kicking away abuse.

I am not my abuse.

I am me.

In order to make a false picture family, you will kick aside the good and keep the bad, for in order to make the negative positive, you make the positive negative.

Passing on the Love!

My youngest brother let me go, said good by and backed up from this situation....moving on.

Interesting that I am the problem.  I am the trouble, I am the one to leave.  Why?

What did my do, as my son used to say when little, what did I do?

My persistance and bulldog stance in not capitulating leads them to walk away from me. Most have claimed they can't live 'being so negative', they in order to move on, they have to just be positive.  Or, like my mother...pack it away as "Old News".

My latest brother to leave, wants most to move on and be positive and to forgive and love, so he will. But, not me.

I am one that is too hard to be with, for I will not see life through only one lens, positive.  I will see clearly both sides of life and I will move freely based upon the actions of others.  

Unbeknownst to him, he is showing clear signs of being confused, by throwing away the one who speaks the truth and clinging to the one who overlooks it.

I know I will get flack for this, for saying they are overlooking the truth...but they are, for they are not moving away from it, just allowing it to be IN the relationship.  It is okay.  

What always makes me nuts is how they will walk away from me, who hasn't done one negative action toward them, but will stay close to those who have.  

I also know, that in their confusion, this makes sense.  In order to keep a relationship, they have to make someone wrong or bad, and it gets to be me.

I just want to know what I did?

What did I do specifically to you?

Besides writing about abuse.  Abuse which you claim happened.  Abuse which you all say YOU TOO WERE affected by.  If we are all on the same page, then why is that you let me go?  Why is it that I am kicked to the curb for writing about something that is true?  Oh and if you all agree with me, why is it that we walk differently?  

My brother showed me once again the juxtaposition of words and actions.

We agree, but we show it differently?

There would be no disagreement about our parents and our childhoods, there only is a disagreement in how we move.

I move completey away from abusive actions, while you all stay...and move on with the relationship.  I wonder why that is?  I wonder why you stay as much as you wonder how I can go?

While you kick my ass to the curb, you are choosing to stay for a reason, you get something in return, a reward, a prize, a benefit...there is more of a payoff for staying the course in your lives...for overlooking abuse and being family.

Is it family?

Can you overlook the 'bad seed' and call it old news and get a family you can trust and know and rely upon? Really?  What is the exact make up of the person you are holding on so dearly to?  And more importantly, what exactly did I do wrong.  

I stopped all relationships with were connected with abuse and I am wrong for doing that because I tossed out family with the abuse???  Well, where else does abuse live?  It isn't in the furniture...but in the actions of the individuals.

I stopped my relationship with my mother for the exact reason that my abuse is old news to her, it isn't something worth speaking about any more.  While I am still working on changing the patterns in my behaviors so that my children will have a new one to follow.  8 years it has taken me so far to right her wrong.

Not my wrong, but hers.  What again did MY Do?

Please be specific...show me where I wronged my family of origin.  

I know where I wronged my children.  

I wronged them by repeating what was done to me by my mother. I am still working on a new pattern with my children.  A loving pattern.  

While you all see me working on hate....I am actually working on loving me and then passing on the love.  

At any Time!

I am hearing two different modes of "Moving On".  One is to move with the relationship and the other is to move on, by moving away from the relationship.

Both are moving on...yet one is to move on like nothing happened and the other is to move away because something did happen.

My mother told my brother that I was still mad about something that happened 8 years ago....indicating to him "Old News".  She has told me repeatedly to move on, to get over it and rally forth.  Like it is nothing.  Well, nothing to her. She is not on the receiving end of her bad behavior....which in my book makes all the difference in the world.

I did move on.  I moved away.

She would like me to move on within the relationship.  To slide over the lump of what she calls old news, to forge into a new and bright future. What she fails to realize, is that I have no desire to be with folks who want me to continually slide over their negative behaviors...and move on while not taking notice of their actions...to continue forward, like nothing happened.

Am I the only one who sees this 'moving on' as only beneficial to the abuser to the one doing the negative actions within the relationship?

Why am I seen as the one with the problem due to my not moving on like nothing happened, when it did?

My mother would tell you it is over.  It was over 8 years ago. He died a few months ago, it is over, it is old news....get over it and move on.  

It begs me to ask what would make her stop? What action would it take to get her out of a relationship?  

I believe she feels she is stronger for withstanding the blows that rained upon her while married to my father. Whether it was his infidelities or his abusing her daughters...what action would make her move out of a relationship.  And, I am the one with problems?

Old news...she sees my abuse, my sisters abuse, her granddaughters abuse as "old news".  Just move on.  

Really?

How?

And in what condition?

How do you forge ahead in a relationship with her knowing all it is to her is 'old news'?

I am amazed and affirmed by her quick brush aside of such a wide scope of abuse...in how it would be impossible to relate to her.

I see abuse as being very life changing, very soul shattering, not an easy wipe away and to move on from.

And, for the record...I have moved on.  

 I have moved away from people who so easily disregard the severity of abuse.  

I moved on from folks who continually support and be in relations with folks who do not take it seriously the affects of abuse.

It isn't so much their abilitiy to move on, but the fact that what they are sliding over are lives that have been sorely affected by abuse. That they are slipping aside actions of huge proportions.  

They see it as Moving On....and focusing on the good times and saving the happy memories and not 'wasting' today mired in yesterdays 'old news'.

What they fail to see is what they are not taking into account.  They over look the 'bad seed' like it is a blemish on the face, and not that it has the capabilities to continue to hurt others.

My mother overlooked and moved on each time my father 'sinned'.  And it didn't make him brighter, nicer or kinder, nor did it make her stronger or have more self value.  So, why in the world do so many follow her lead?

To me, there are two distinct moving on models...one will lead towards healing and wholeness and one will lead to further self abuse.

One is to remain in a relationship and one is to move out of the relationship.

Which one do you believe would have stopped my father from abusing her girls?

Which one would have led to a life filled with empowerment and self love?

All I can say, is my mother is a great teacher. She is teaching what happens when you move on within the relationship, overlooking the evil acts that pop up.  

I am teaching the other moving on.

You get to pick one, and you can change your mind at any time.

I Left Them.

A message was left on my answering machine yesterday via a Text to Land Line service.   A computer generated voice haltingly spoke, "Happy Birthday, you are special.  Love Mom."  It sounds like a telemarketer...hard to discern what you are hearing.  It was an almost call from my mother.  Close but with no way for me to respond.  Well, I guess that is a lie, the first part of the message is that this is a text from number xxx-xxx-xxxx.  So, I could have returned the call.

When you lean it up with the rest of the birthday wishes, it feels odd...

I am never real sure why they reach out...for whose benefit, theirs or mine?

What is the expectation?

So much time and life has passed us by, and yet the relationship stalled 8 years ago. In order to resume, we have to start where it ended.

I always feel that when they come in, there is an expectation to begin 'like old times' to overlook the passing of time and the reason for the break up, to just slip back into the casual and normal exchanges...like nothing happened.

It lessens and minimalizes the severity of shattered relationship by not talking about it, and expecting there to be normal social exchanges.  I just can't seem to find a way to hop over the wrecked relationship and resume a shallow interaction...without delving into crash.

In order for me to restart with any of them, I would have to start where we ended...answering the questions once again and seeing if our answers have changed.  

Overlooking the reasons for my estrangement would negate my reason for leaving...

Which leaves us in an odd spot. The very thing that caused me to go, is the very place they are not willing to dialogue.  My entry back into their lives begins where I left...while they want me back by leaping over the past 8 years and start here.

That is what many dysfunctional relationships are like...to overlook the bad and focus on the good memories and times...never staring at the bad or digging to find out what is really there.

And if we start where we ended and we each feel the same, then the estrangement still stands.

I somehow always feel that I am to blame for the differences....and not that each of us carry equal halves.  It is no more my fault than it is theirs...we are just two people who looked at a life altering event completely different....OR perhaps seen it the same, but responded differently.

I would feel better if, instead of coming in with social niceties, they would show their interest by coming in wanting to know where I stand and why.

Mostly what I get is that I am wrong.  I am 'choosing' to walk away from family....It is up to me to make changes in the direction of my life.  I am to blame. They do not feel that they did anything wrong, but I have done bushels full.

Interesting....I broke the relationship, not that the relationship broke due to the irreconcilable differences.  A valid reason for divorcing...and, since I can't divorce my family legally, I have to do it this way....estrangement.

What is the 'normal' protocol for this?  What does estrangement look?  It almost feels like I divorced them, but they didn't get the paper work.  For, in my world, if there were to be a reconcilliation, we again, have to start where the trouble began. Fiinding the root cause for OUR estrangement...and begin there.

Looking around the reason for our estrangement somehow reduces it to a temper tantrum, that I am just out here spunking.  That I am wasting precious years and missed opportunities to be part of a family.  It isn't a we statement, but that I am doing this.  I am the one to blame. 

For what, I again ask?  Why am I to blame for the tear in OUR relationship. Who tore it up or what?

We are not stupid, we all know.  But what we don't know is how to act and behave in a relationship that has died but the bodies live on.  

There seems to be no relationship integrity when they act like nothing has happened.

I would much more prefer them to see it as totalled...then pretending it was a surface scratch.  Our relationship crashed and it will not run unless and until BOTH of us are willing to shoulder their responsibility for what happened.

AND, be willing to fight and work hard at creating a new relationship.  Our old one died and in order for a new one to be born, we will have to find a reason to want it.

It will not be a surprise birth or an accident.  It will have to be a conscious effort on both sides.  I am not willing to leap frog back over my (OUR) estrangement to start again. 

What I love most about this writing today....it is OUR estrangement, not mine!  For in truth, they left me as much as I left them.