"Anything worthwhile has got to cost us something. And, if it doesn't we are left to question its value." Martin Sheen
It does seem impossible that in order to gain awareness and reality, I had to lose so much.
Yet, I agree that anything worthwhile will cost you something. AND, if it doesn't you have to question the value of that choice.
So, as I watch my brother enter back into the places I have exited, I am left wondering about my choices. What choices have I made that are off balance? What items did I leave behind, that perhaps I should have taken forward? And, even what was the impetus that set in motion my journey? What has changed, that I should revisit a choice?
And, most important, what is the value of what I am doing?
Is there a value to being displaced from the family; from standing outside of the family circle and holding on to the choices I have had made?
Equally, is there a value of remaining inside or rejoining the family?
There is a cost of doing something worthwhile; but what is the worthwhile part of each of our choices?
I know, that for me, what is worthwhile is to try and interrupt the cycle of abuse.
Period.
It will be worthwhile if one child is spared.
If one child sees another way of what love is.
When abuse IS in the family, you have to disrupt the usual family motions to get the cycle to spin differently.
I know, that I alone can't change my family of origin.
But, I can show another way.
My journey has been worthwhile for I value the idea of a family without abuse.
Imagine.
What stops me each time, is that I would have given up on this idea; that I will lay down my vision, of a family of love.
Love free of abuse.
Another quote from Martin Sheen - "Another word for freedom is responsibility."
I believe, that each of us are responsible for the content of our love.
I decide what my love looks like.
I am responsible for how I love.
My love is free.
My love has truth.
My love is total acceptance of what is.
There certainly is a huge cost to gaining love from dysfunction; but anything worthwhile will come with a cost.
It cost me the dysfunctional Me.
Me, in denial.
And, all those who lived there.
To enter back in, I would have to un-see and un-know what I know.
I would have to actively and consciously deny what I know in reality.
And, what would be worthwhile about that???
What is the value of denial?
And, more importantly, what would it say about the 12 plus years of my journey so far? Would it all be for naught, to return to whence I began- to reenter into the cycle of dysfunction.
Is that what the journey is for, to keep cycling back?
Is it not like an addict going back to the drug?
Call me mental, but my journey out has no return ticket.
My wellness, awareness and love and peace is in the forward motion.
It is a journey forward; not back.
I do not carry "justified resentments".
I carry with me truth to power.
Again it is worthwhile to have one child spared sexual abuse at the hands of family.
There is no value for me to go back to where I once belonged.
