IMPERFECT Lady

Celebrate my Badassery.

It is the eve of 19 years.

Nineteen years of leaving behind the only life I had known to dare dream of changing the legacy I was born into.

 

This wasn't a dream of mine.

The truth fell into me - and once you know - you can't not know.

 

The woman who began this legacy changing journey was only a seed of an idea.

I had no role models or anyone to help guide me along.

My body and I felt our way forward.

 

We didn't blink or make pretty all the what is - there are in life.

No matter how the truth presented itself, we accepted it.

 

Loving what is - as Byron Katie says.

 

I had to love the shocking, heartbreaking, and the betrayals - from family and friends - and embrace reality.

 

In the early years this was hard - for I wasn't used to standing shoulder to shoulder with my truths and how reality was.

 

Coming from a family of child sexual abuse, there are so many truths that are unspoken and unaddressed - and I was now the one speaking the unspeakable.

 

I would not have dreamed that 19 years later I would still be standing alone outside my family of origin - 13 siblings and one parent are alive and well - and continuing to spin the old family legacy - repeating and repeating.

 

Like an endless mad musical - barely missing a beat.

 

I remember in years of past December 4th was a hard date.

Breaking my heart as I still stood alone.

 

My heart isn't as exposed or bare - and maybe more love and peace and joy have surrounded it and hold it up.  

 

I feel grateful.

Deeply grateful for my journey today. I would not trade it for anything.

 

I am in awe of where I walked, how long and how alone - and yet fully supported by others - non family that feel like family.

 

My vision was for the generations behind me - not those who I started walking with. In the early days I could feel the weight of having others step in my footprints.

Those foot prints had to matter.

They had to be clear, honest and bold.

 

My intentions were to stand against abuse. 

Against those who supported abuse.

The line to me was clearly seen.

 

The only way was to walk differently.

To respond differently.

To love differently.

To eagerly welcome all truths and respond in kind.

 

This woman who sits here today is in awe and has such enormous gratitude to the younger me who set out on this journey, alone, broken and so laid bare. I had no way of knowing I would get to here.

 

Here being a fuller version of me.

 

A legacy changer.  A woman who will stand up to family and authority and to lead herself where others feared to go. 

 

I had to give up the life I had - in order to get the life I could be proud of.

 

The younger me who sat with the detective - only knew she would stand beside the little girl inside of her. The wounded Me.  It appeared at that time, she was the only one who would.

 

Those first weeks, months and years were some of my hardest lived.  Yet they also carried with them empowering strength building. 

 

In denial we deny what is, the truth, and even how we feel or what we want.

Living a truthful life it is the opposite. 

Nothing can be denied.

For to deny is to deny who you are.

 

On this eve 19 years later, I am who I am there is no denying.

I am comfortable with the new me and the changes I have made.

I am curious of where my family is, what they think and how they feel.

Mostly though, these 19 years later - I think of them less and less.

My life has filled the holes where they used to be.

 

I could sit with what I lost - Or I can celebrate what I have gained.

 

I will celebrate tomorrow. 

Me

And the journey.

I will celebrate being the woman I needed way back then.

I will celebrate my badassery.

 

 

It's called Artist

Art as therapy is something that is an interesting adventure.  The piles of things I make often represent the outcome of channeling my anxiety or perhaps waylaying it.

 

Art in itself is odd.

Being called an artist odder still.

 

I am drawn to doing things with my hands - but it mostly feels like my body and soul need to make things.  

 

Not just things; but things that carry energies of joy and feelings of love.

 

When I was unpacking for the Art Show - I said over and over "Oh I love this one." It was like I wasn't there when I made it.   

 

Expressing my feelings in art - is perhaps getting in touch with the feelings I had long been detached from.  It is like my body now craves being surprised by the things my hands create.

 

When I am working, I decide things by feelings.  The colors and the designs in the fabric that seem to dance together are what I love.  There is magic in pairing certain colors together. 

I still feel like a beginner and I have been sewing art quilts for over 20 years.

 

It mostly feels like I am selling my lessons or what I am practicing on - and that I am working towards a goal I cannot see.  Mostly I am present with my art and where it is at this time.

 

As my art continues to weave and change - so do I.

 

The energy that comes forth in my art - refuels me.

I am grateful to make art.

I am grateful it makes my body feel joy and it tickles me.

And grateful that others see what I feel and even more take my art home with them.

Being an artist is more of a feeling than a label.

 

Second to doing art, is enjoying the art of others. I love when I am surprised and made to feel something when seeing what others do with their hands.

 

Art carries a feeling - a message from a soul.

I looked up the definition of "Artist". 

"a person who creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination."

I agree the combination of skill and imagination is what make the magic.

There is a quote about "Worry is a poor way to use your imagination."  Doing art give my mind a better way to be used.

 

Often instead of thread of worry, I have piles of un-made pieces I can't wait to do.

My aunt whose sewing machine I inherited when she passed away - used to worry that she would die before creating all the ideas she had.  I get this.  And the more you do, the more ideas grow out of nowhere.

 

Art is a therapy for me, it keeps my wandering mind entertained. 

And maybe I am creating images that bring me love, peace and joy.

 

Artist isn't about me - it is about what comes when I follow my imagination.

I am inspired by others and use their ideas and make them my own.

 

I don't take being an artist seriously; but I do making art.

My life is better when I find the time to do things that bring me joy and excites my imagination.

I feel that my soul speaks through my art.

In looking at my art, I love my soul.

I love the playful colorful joy it expresses.

Perhaps my soul has a name - it's called artist.

 

( I have been going through old pictures - deleting them to make room on my devices. It is fun to see the older ones.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a Holiday.

Holidays look a lot like your relationship with your family. Those of us who are standing outside of our family of origin, we see the holidays as fractured.  The lineage is broken - and the extended parts no longer work.  We are starting from square one. The traditions - if you decide to have them - begin here.

 

The holidays bring to mind family, and if yours is broken - it brings that up too. 

They come to mind and your heart feels old wounds. Our child self feels out of sorts. There is an odd tug of war between the past and the present.

The holiday cheer loses its tone - for we can't just think of our own family - we think of our past family.

 

I lost the sacredness of the holidays - when the sacredness of my family disappeared.

For there is no way to separate family from the holidays.

So my holidays appear more like a day.

 

Just a day - maybe with a bigger meal and some fancy things - perhaps a decorated home - but a day.

 

What I do find sacred is my relationships with my husband and children.

I find my truth and my integrity with them IS more than any holiday. 

More than the past these holidays commemorate.

 

Where I used to focus on the holiday - my attention now is on the relationships I have with family.  

 

I am grateful not just on Thanksgiving. I am grateful so many times on so many normal days for so many ordinary things.  

 

Perhaps because my family of origin fell apart for me - I celebrate family.

I know what it is not - and more importantly - I know what is important. And attending a holiday dinner is not that important.  

 

Truth, freedom, authenticity, love, respect, friendship - to name a few - these are important.   

 

I love when my family is together and I love them when they are not.

 

Holidays mean less to me - because my holidays won't make my family better or less.  

My family and the holidays truly are separate.  Each time we are together it is a family holiday.

 

When these holidays come I focus on my present family - the best I can.  

 

I feel for so many whose families are broken. It sucks this time of year.  Some how holidays show all our cracks.

 

I think my way of dealing with them is to lessen their importance - to not give them the power or sacredness above the present.

Each day I am alive and living life with love and integrity - it is a holiday.

 

Without the truths.

I used to believe that we all knew what truth was and that some of us just chose to not live by it.

 

I now believe it is rare to be raised with truth as the core component in the relationship between parent and child. That many parents feel they can spare the child by leaving them in the dark about some truths.

 

Often these truths are life shaping ones.  Ones that would feel like holes you intuitively feel; but can't put a finger on its content.

 

I just assumed everyone knew their own truths - and the generational truths of their families.

 

Yet, I was 46 before I was hit in the face by truths that shaped my life - or more how my life was crippled by their concealment.

 

It was hard for me to speak truthfully about my feelings or stand up to truths that appeared when abuse was exposed.  

 

And it seems a backwards way to live, where lies are easier to speak.

 

I am not sure if you can know the truth - when it is normal to have relationships built upon pretend and cowardly steering away from truths. 

 

Truths that would color a person differently.

 

Often others will speak of my truths - but not their truths.

I find this interesting.  I have bravely sat with ugly truths. Learning how they feel shocking and horrid and yet so comforting and regulating.

They allow me to see the world without holes where lies live.

 

Some may find it confusing to think of lies as holes. But, if you keep important things away from a child, you are creating a world that crucial pieces are missing.

 

Folks don't typically lie about mundane things, they will often lie about things that matter and are character defining.

 

Giving a child a false picture of their world. They live in this make-believe space calling it real.  Calling it even truth.

 

When truth is really fake, they don't know what truth is - if that makes sense.

 

Just because you call it a truth, it doesn't make it so. Or just because you leave out the truths, it doesn't make them disappear.

 

Again, while abuse and being raised in a cult like religion had a great impact on forming who I was, how I saw myself and the world.  The bigger missing piece was simple hard truth.

 

Just becoming familiar with truth - in all its facets.

 

Folks pretending to be someone they are not is far more normal than we'd like to believe.

 

Sometimes we hide small things. Seemingly inconsequential things. But more often than not what is hidden are ugly truths.  Sick behaviors and/or bad things that happened to us. Or moments of poor choices and things we wish we hadn't done.

 

There are folks who do bad things and then there are those who refuse to see them in the truth of who they are.

 

My truthful feeling about my father, Fear - was not reflected in how my mother engaged with him. She acted and treated him like he didn't have this predilection to abuse children.

Living in her house, you would not be able to tell by her actions anything was amiss. Her truth was missing in her actions.

 

There were odd events that now make sense; but life didn't change.

It was like the truth made a brief appearance - and then false narration covered it back up.

 

Even when my father was in the Houghton County Jail. My mother stated in a letter to the family, that He was on trial by the state of Michigan; but not by our family.  

 

Like the state pursued the truth - but we would not judge him by these sexual abuse truths. It felt to me, like we would continue to call him dad and treat him as such.

 

This truth fearing way of living, makes for crazy making.

But it assures that family is family - no matter what truth appears - that could tear it apart.

 

I am sure there are many examples in many dysfunctional homes who will water down and make nice things that need to be exposed.

 

I believe when the truth is kept away, we keep away from our own truths.

When you keep a distance from your self - you can't be you.

 

You don't know who you are.

 

I recall feeling this huge sense of relief when the worst of the worst was exposed about my family. I made sense.  I didn't make sense with the truth hidden. Or worse I felt something was wrong with me.  

 

Bottom line, when we keep truths from our children - we raise them in a world where they don't know what truth is - they never met it.

 

I wonder what it does to our minds and the files in our heads - when we label things incorrectly.

 

Labeling each incident and experience as it is - is not common place.

For some reason we fear the truth and it being exposed.

We learn to live in the complicated space of holes and false information.

 

Like having a map that leads to nowhere - but believing it has a real destination.

Or a map of fake towns and destinations.

 

I am very skeptical that there can be love amidst the lies.

Or can love even co-exist with lies.

Does love need the truth in order to grow and evolve and love yourself?

And, in the end do you just love the lies.

 

What is life if truth is left out?

 

In my experience the absence of truth is directly correlated with the absence of the sense of self.

 

I was 46 when the truth crashed in and I didn't know who I was - for I had never lived with truth before.  To live with it, to speak of it, to view your world without holes and no silence - changes your life completely.

 

There was no part of me that hadn't been created with this false narrative.

I was a pretend person. Built in a land that feared what the truth would do to our family.

 

What I find so shocking - is the truth came in, it sat in the Houghton County Jail - and so many didn't see it.

 

I believe when you are raised to look around and over truths, it becomes a way of life.

 

It has to be denial.

 

Denial must feel like a kinder place to be - where nothing is required of you - are there even consequences in the land of denial?

 

It feels like it is a happy family - when I look at them from here.

 

They get a family - without the truths.

 

Perceive

Almost 19 years later and I am still wrestling with things in my mind - trying to understand the things that can't be understood. 

I am not sure if folks who were not abused look so deeply into life and people and their actions or intentions; but I am stuck here trying to figure me out.

 

Not only myself, my traits, my beliefs, my mind - but also humanity at large.

What makes a person good or evil?

What makes a person unforgivable - and often this is me.

I am unforgivable - yet my mother is forgiven - yet what did I do?

 

How bad am I?

 

How are we constructed into being a good person, and how much does it take for us to slide off the scale of good into bad.

Are we as good as our worst behavior or action?

Is there a spectrum of good and evil?

 

In my old church the evil was forgiven and sins tossed into a sea called grace.

Folks who did bad things, could return to their goodness - evil never stuck.

 

My mind is having a hard time trying to come up with a clear definition or concept of good and evil - and if there can be good people who do bad things.

 

My mind wants this to be cut and dried - good OR evil - not good with a smidgen of bad.

 

Once my brainwashed mind cracked and I saw truth and reality - I also became more discerning about actions - words grew faint.

 

I watched how people moved and who they stood by and what they championed.  I colored them by their own behaviors; while questioning my harsh judgements.

I kinda felt pangs of guilt using the word "judgement" like who does she think she is....

 

So, I looked up the definition of Judgment to see if that is something to be shameful for.

"The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions." 

Nothing to be ashamed of.

 

The church was forever preaching against judging - and that God would be the Judge someday - that we were not to judge.  An old guilt system arose as I saw myself judging.

 

What is interesting that I question my judgment - almost more than their actions.

This I feel becomes a smoke screen for the evil folks - where they want us looking inward and not outward at what they are doing.

Especially folks who are behaving poorly.

 

My head hurts trying to figure out what's more true that there are good people who do bad things - or are there just good and bad folks.  That there are some bad actions that can sit in harmony with good.

What else stirs my mind into crazy thinking are the people who can switch sides. 

It is like they don't have their own standard - but can flow from side to side.

 

What does that mean?

 

Is it possible to not sit on a side?

Can you flow detached - and is that being neutral?

 

Is there a place to stand against evil and be with evil all at once?

Where is it and how is this achieved?

 

Oh and the other thing that comes into my thoughts, is how we see people how they treat us.  

 

My husband said about a person that I no longer want to speak with - is that he's always been kind to me.

 

I get this.

I am not expecting him to follow my lead.

But, what I feel is that folks can be kind to one person and then completely evil to another. And, that often we don't see the evil until they turn on us.

So is this person good as my husband's experience - or a not so good person -like I feel he is?

It leaves me to believe we can be good and evil - it all depends upon our perception and our experiences - and how others see and experience us.

"A common saying is "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," which means beauty doesn't exist on its own but is created by observers. That famous quote can help you remember that a beholder is someone who sees or otherwise experiences things, becoming aware of them. To be a beholder, you have to pay attention."

 

I like the fact that beholders have to pay attention.

I am a beholder - now.  

It cost me too much to not pay attention.

 

So goodness is in the eye of the beholder - but does that mean they are good?

It could also mean the beholder isn't paying close attention.

 

I feel that many people don't really want to be a beholder, they instead have a lazy relationship with reality and feel they are kinder if they see only good in others.

 

This part can really get my mind going.

What is kindness?

I believe kindness is often misdiagnosed.

Kindness -"Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward ..."

 

Many times when folks are asking us to be kind, what they really are asking is for us to be beholders that overlook the poor actions of others.

 

Be kind, you don't know what battles the person is dealing with.  Withhold your judgment...  

 

I am not sure that is what kindness does.

To me, kindness stands and faces the truth.

If a person is doing bad - acting poorly, and if they were someone I was close to - it seems like it would be more kind to pay attention.  Kindness to me faces reality no matter what reality is revealing.

 

The lesson from this writing for me - is that I am a beholder that pays attention.  I see the wrongdoings of others and that directs my interactions - or distance based on what I see.

Even hear.

 

I trust my friends, if they tell me a person was mean or treated them poorly - that person is someone I want distance from.  If someone treated my child poorly, I will act like that was done to me - and keep my distance.  I don't know if this is normal or healthy. 

I just can't pretend to pretend to pretend - that I don't have information about their character. I am just not good at fake friendships. Nor do I want to be close to or spend time with someone I know who can hurt others.

 

Just interesting about being a beholder.  I am a beholder who pays attention to the actions of others - and move accordingly.

 

This piece reminded me how the beholders see one person- each see something different.

 

There are beholders who will never see clearly - if they don't want to know the truth.

I am learning life is all about what you perceive. 

 

Branch of the Family Tree

Family has been on my mind lately.  Perhaps it is family reunions, family trips - and now Father's Day.  

There are two opposing threads that are tangled in my mind.

Family and Estrangement.

They don't coexist together. Like water and oil they don't mix - yet they roll around in my mind.  The desire and longing - with the opposing feelings of wanting distance.

 

I can't think of family - without thinking of me being on the outside. And how the family circle continues to turn - appearing unscathed.

 

I almost feel like I was unaware of the path I was taking and what it really really really meant.  That standing up and against sexual abuse within the family meant - being on the outside - losing family members. 

I don't believe I would have ever dreamed this was possible. I would lose family.

 

What else I hadn't counted on - was that most of my family would respond differently than I.

 

I would never have dreamed - we'd all face the same reality and walk completely different with it - based on how we were raised - I would have thought we'd respond the same. 

Just as we sorta lived the same. 

And, for the most part they did respond the same - except me.

 

There is one brother who is an anomaly - he walked for awhile on my path and then turned around and headed back.  This is partly what stirs my mind and thoughts.

Who was he all along?

Who was I talking to?

What was and are his truths.

How can he fit in both camps - when there is no common denominator between these two paths?

An outlier among outliers.

 

It is so interesting during crisis, we see parts of our families characters in a whole new light.  We perhaps get to know them for the first time.

 

Until we are put the test - our whole character is not revealed. I met myself for the first time - it broke my denial and showed me who was - and more it challenged me to dare stare at reality and than act accordingly.

 

It appeared to me - the choices were clear - stand with abuse or stand against it.  And I believe they stood with family or against family.  Which is different - they separated the abuse from the family.

I could not do that.  I wasn't able to separate my father from his abusive behaviors.

To me, each person came with their actions before their title - mom, dad, sibling.

 

It appears I was affected differently by the realization my father was a pedophile - I chose to stand against abuse. Even when family was entangled.  I see it as it is more important - not less. 

I am grateful I am on this path - it just comes with strange and complex musings.

 

 

In estrangement we have family that are strangers.

We have memories with strangers.

Family is a thing of the past.

 

I have a family on my branch of the tree - but the feelings of being part of where I came from now seems foreign to me - it has been so long.

My memories of family are tainted by my denial and the abuse.  It isn't even a normal family.  But, I felt that I belonged. I was part of - there was a connection.

Perhaps another mind game. For in the end the strength of my relationships were very weak. Broken with ease.

That too is shocking - in how quickly my family relationships crumbled - without a fight.

They'd say I didn't fight.

I'd say they didn't fight.

It was like our relationship was a tiny string not worth fighting for.

 

So as we sit at the eve of Father's Day - I have nothing when I search for father feelings. It was like I thought I had a dad, but it was just a mask hiding what was really beneath.

There are no holidays for masks.

 

It is almost as if, all I got left with was a pile of masks. 

Family relationships now appear fake - no substance to them, nothing worth fighting for.

I know there is a little girl inside of me - wishing it was different.

Wishing for the masks - yet knowing they are not real.

 

Estrangement is an odd place to live in. You long for what is not there. What was never there. 

 

What I also know, is that grief of losing your family origin - isn't made up for with having your own family.  It is a loss.  And in my case a huge loss - there are 14 of us plus parents.   And the extended families that flow from each - and each again.  The older I get the bigger the family grows - more strangers called family.

 

Yet sitting here. I am grateful.

I am at peace.

While my mind chews - and spins.  Not as often as before - but it does come back.  Again when family holidays present themselves.  We all automatically go to our family, our dad.... back to the complicated mess.

 

I can turn and refocus. And celebrate the real men who are fathers. Who love, care, an protect their child. Men worth celebrating and honoring.

If you have/had a loving father - I wonder how that feels in your heart?

To look back fondly on your history....

 

It is like I am afloat - looking toward the future - the past was too fake to keep.

I am grateful to witness my husband as a kind loving dad and grandpa.

My son-in-law a kind and loving dad.

It isn't the same as looking back longingly over years worth of history of loving a dad - 

But I can celebrate fathers on my branch of the family tree 

 

Our Family Legacy.

 

I didn't fully understand the trauma response, until I witnessed the opposite of it.  

When I was a mother of young children, I didn't even have this language or the awareness that what I was doing had a name. And more, that it was possible to course correct.

 

Actually I didn't even know I was traumatized by having been sexually abused - and this crippled me to responding in healthy ways.

When a child of mine was out of control - I would rise higher. Speak louder - okay yell. 

I fought to gain control by becoming bigger, louder, more violent than the out of control child. Fighting fire with a larger fire.

 

This wasn't unusual behavior - I had witnessed my mother's rages - or her stone cold silences - both trauma responses.

Mothering with trauma responding - leaves a child without the loving kindness of a mother.

 

This is where the lack of love and warmness enters into my relationship with my mother.

She wasn't capable of giving loving responses.

 

And I mirrored her.

 

It wasn't until I broke free of my denial and addressed and dealt with my childhood wounds and mothered myself with loving responses - could I then feel and give love to my children.

 

The difference between a loving response and a trauma response is like breathing and not breathing. 

 

One the child feels seen and heard - and safe.  

 

I am not even sure I can correctly articulate the feelings of the opposite - even though I lived it as a child and also handed it out as a mother.

 

You don't know what you don't know.

 

I was unaware that I was unloving.

 

I know this sounds insane.

 

It wasn't until I loved myself - could I love my child - and know what love is.

 

I loved my wounded self.

This alone trumped the trauma response.

 

Or maybe it ended it.

 

Maybe you can't have a trauma response IF you love yourself.

 

I witnessed my daughter respond as a loving mom - not with the trauma response.

It was the opposite way from my old mothering ways.  I recognized her kindness - and how kind it was for her child.

 

This.

This is the legacy I was striving to change.

 

It wasn't easy for her - she is my child - she didn't experience this as a child.  

She was breaking the cycle.

What a great gift she is giving her small child. 

 

My ultimate hope was that I could end the cycle of abuse - by changing my own responses so many years ago.  That if I could do different - then generations after me - would be spared.

 

Choosing love to respond isn't always easy.  Often it is the harder choice.  The one that takes most effort and requires hard work.  

 

Whether trauma responds or love responds - both will have consequences - but only one will have positive influences upon the child.

 

Trauma responses wound a child.

 

I knew that my behaviors, my awareness - and even my denial and trauma responses - critically affected my children.  Once I became aware - and broke free of denial - all my choices were made with them in mind.

 

Once I saw - I couldn't unsee.

 

Each decision I made either would influence my legacy positively or negatively.  The generations behind me would reap what I sowed.

 

Seeing my daughter mother differently - shows the pattern changing.

It both was both exhilarating and sorrowful.

Knowing she had to also change the pattern in her world.

 

Perhaps the pattern I set in place - was that it was possible.

My legacy is that we can change the patterns we were born into.

All my sorrows and pain of being estranged has not all been for naught.

Seeing the generation below me have awareness and mother with love - was my end game.

My heart weeps knowing what was possible for me - is possible for generations after.

There is nothing sweeter than seeing the patterns changing into loving kindness.

The difference for a child - is knowing love.

 

The trauma response will still arise in me - but I now also have the choice of a loving response.  And, it is typically the harder choice to take.

Loving requires doing what honors you and the other - and truth.

 

I am just so grateful we have both choices alive in our family legacy.

I Hold You in My Heart

I watched Michele Obama being interviewed about her latest book "The Light We Carry" with Oprah and they talked about Michele's friends.  The ones she calls her Kitchen Table.

 

The Kitchen Table has a relaxed image - one where we don't have to put on aires. We can be ourselves in this group.  In fact, we feel at home with them and our truth is honored.

 

These friends are found along our journey of life.  We carry them with us, as we grow, evolve and face some of life's darkest moments and celebrate with us our achievements and joys.

 

As I sit here today, I am reminded of the girls who have been with me.

Watched me grow and change and lead a life that some can't understand.

 

Not all my friends have continued on with me. Some found my table to hard to sit at - my truths too upsetting to their beliefs.  My voice spoke of things they need kept silent. 

 

There have been times in my life my table was crowded - and other times many empty chairs. 

 

I have a friend from my middle school days - we had years of silence and now we are reconnected.  We both had life experiences that changed us - and yet we still fit together. I treasure our friendship and how she holds so much of my history and embraces my new self.  A friendship that can hold changes feels good to me.

 

When my kids were little, another mom with young kids and I connected. She wasn't from the church I was in at the time. We felt at home with each other - we clicked.   When she moved away, we lost touch for awhile - and now when life throws us a curve ball - the other catches it. She gets me and has loved me unconditionally and I her.

 

I found a friend at one of my jobs who was the best thing that came from working there.  A sister friend is how she feels.  We can share our lives with each other and there is no shame or critical eye. Just an open space to sort out life.  We too had moments in life where our lives were busy and perhaps we didn't need the counseling space - and then other times we talked daily.

 

I have found friends during their time of need and I felt my history of loss would be helpful - and over time we have bonded deeply.  Sisters who have shared darkness and found hope. Sisters who travel down pathways each never saw coming. We have deep heart connections.  And, we walked each other towards the light - found hope in the hopeless and joy we didn't think possible. We have witnessed each others growth and success of thriving after heartache.

 

I love that some of my Kitchen Table friends have encouraged me to be an adventure girl- I have wonderful women who enjoy the outside. These ladies have grown me. I am different with a garage full of gear that I use in different seasons.  Some are badass and make me feel kinda badass myself. Being outside and challenging myself has helped my self-esteem.

 

I have artist friends who are great cheerleaders and sounding blocks. Some have been with me from my very early years.  Sharing your art is sharing your soul.  These are brave vulnerable souls.  

 

I look back at some of the friends I had from the church - wistfully.  We shared the common belief system - and were comrades of sorts - with similar foes.  I have lost some that still hurt my heart - our common ground slipped away.

 

At one time, I thought wrongly - that I didn't need new friends - that I was too old to start making new ones.  

 

What a mistake that would have been.  I continue to meet women who I click with and we are in the early stages of friendship.  We can't know where we go, what we do and how long we share our lives together.

The best part about my kitchen table - we can laugh, cry and be silly. We can share our hopes, our dreams and our deepest fears. We can work out life's difficult questions and debate our differences.  

The differences in my friends help me to see life from so many aspects. Views I couldn't have reached on my own.

 

Being away from my family of origin left me with quite a hole.  These friendship over the past few decades have filled so much emptiness. They opened their arms and hearts to me.

 

One of my oldest friends recently told me that families are not as advertised.

I sat with that awhile and found she was on to something.

 

Friendships and who sits at the Kitchen Table with us is so much different. We decide who is worthy of our time and truths - who come in carrying the fullness of who they are.

My Kitchen Table is much more welcoming as I age - or maybe because I am religionless - but I love the beauty of uniqueness - I love strength of character; I love characters!  

My Kitchen Table has empty chairs and is ever expanding in size - I look forward to the new ones I have yet to meet.

And my kitchen door works both ways. I do understand how some had to leave and more could do so in the future. I part in peace.  I know we lasted our season and reason. Not all are meant to be life long friends.

 

I love my Kitchen Table friends for being who they are, and for making me a better Me. My heart is full when I think of you all.

I hold you in my heart.

Dance Party!

What you don't know.

Yesterday a woman who had great influence in my life turned 90.  I did not celebrate.

This woman began programming me as a young child.

Both in religious ways and codependent dysfunctional ways.

She created the daughter she needed and I dutifully followed her lead.

 

As a child I looked up to her and I believed she was a woman of substance and had high morals and good values. I believed she stood against things that were wrong.

 

I grew up to imitate her.

 

Looking back on it now - I was her - in that my life was dictated by a strict religion and my body was owned by the church. My mind was controlled by its programming and my spirit or soul lived silently in the shadows.

 

Nineteen years ago I woke up to a reality that was nothing like our minds believed.

She wasn't of woman of substance of high morals and values and neither was I.

 

Reality was her husband was a pedophile and had abused me and many others. She knew and forgave him of his sins.

My reality held a father who abused me.

My reality was my mother lacked morals and values - she didn't stand up for the child.

 

Somehow reality leaked into my mind - while hers remained untouched.

 

This break in my mind caused us to be on opposite sides. I never found a spot where we could stand and see somewhat eye to eye.  Her mental mind and my open one had nothing in common.

 

Her remaining in the program or mental mind a few steps removed from reality - allowed me to see who I had been  - how it is to be in denial.

I had someone to look at to see how mental my mind was.

Once I knew my mind couldn't be trusted, I began challenging it on every level.

And reality became my new religion. I trusted what was.

 

There was a space between my mental mind and me.

That space grew each time I challenged the mind and found it lacking truth and matching reality.

 

Unless you have been brainwashed and then regained your faculties, you will not understand.

 

The contrasts between living a life as a member of strict religious cult and being free- is quite vast. There are no common denominators. No space where we could share overlapping realities.

 

She had a husband.

I had a pedophile.

 

She had a religion with morals and values.

I had a religion who blessed pedophiles of their sins.

 

She lived as a programmed mind.

I was working to free myself from mine.

 

I began making new choices and trying to rectify the past. More, doing today what I wasn't able to do as a child. Standing up and against abuse.

Regardless who I had to stand up against. 

And making choices with different consequences.

Losing much of what I had - in order to give my children a chance at a different legacy.

 

Nineteen years ago was our last conversation in person. The last time I was in a face to face conversation. 

 

I didn't see a woman there that inspired me.

There was no heart connection.

No warm feelings.

 

Even worse than empty.

She was a mental mind with a body.

 

Blind to reality.

Blind to me.

 

She can only see me when I am compliant with the program.

I know the strength of her mind and I fear its ruthlessness.

 

So what do I do on her birthday. 

A day others celebrate.

Mostly it reminds me of her - and all I lost.

These old family milestones - bring into my reality - the longings for family.

 

Being estranged complicates grief and even the normal family joys.

I am part of - yet apart from.

 

I have a history that is mostly lies.

My fondest memories are tarnished.

I long for the family my mental mind created.

Yet knowing it doesn't exist.

 

She's 90 now.

I didn't celebrate or acknowledge this day to her.

I wasn't even going to here on the blog.

Yet these thoughts and feelings bother me, until I write them out.

 

I am thinking this 90 milestone and the almost 20 years of estrangement has diminished my volume of hope.  

In my early years of being estranged and setting boundaries - a part of me believed that there was hope, that if I could leave the programmed mind, so too could others. 

 

The hope is barely a flicker now - just a spark that ignites for a bit.

 

While many take for granted the family that stands behind them - the familiar shared experiences and memories that create family.  I am very much aware of its absence.

 

This.

 

This is why so many others don't walk way from abusive families. The loneliness and heartache you feel - even if the families you love were all in your mind. They were family.

 

It does feel like a phantom arm - a part of me - that isn't there.

 

My healing and focus began with being authentic and truthful with myself and reality. I began from where I woke up.  Intensely looking at my life, my choices, what my voice was used for, who I stood with and why, or who I stood against and why, what were my morals and values, where they truthful, what is love, what is not love, what brings me joy, what do I feel, what do I not feel - an endless searching for answers.  Answers that became the new me.

The task seemed endless and overwhelming.

To take a mental mind and use it to challenge itself and make choices outside of the program.

 

And in doing so, you go against family.

 

She is 90 and I am 64 - her child.

The child who has nothing to do with her.

 

Not even on her 90th birthday.

 

Some will see me as the bad person here.

Some will celebrate her.

 

I stood by the truth of our estrangement and honored it by doing nothing.

Again.

 

 

This is our relationship now - Estranged - no connection between mother and child.

 

The feelings of being lovingly cared for by a parent feels alien.  

A feeling I have never felt.

 

You cannot celebrate what you don't know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Home

We had been to the Badlands when our kids were little. We both remember them climbing over these ball like formations. We never did see what we remembered. The new rules prohibit wandering off the trails.

There were a few small hikes/trails to see a better view.

We saw big horn sheep, mule deer, prairie dogs and buffalo here.

And more snow.

Enough snow to show some cool contrasts.

What a wonder nature is.

These trees are Juniper Trees.  The birds eat the berries and drop their seeds and are responsible for planting more trees in these canyons.

I LOVE the fragrance from these Juniper tree.  Arches National Park also had the Juniper trees.

My new favorite.

These are the berries.

I was happy going on all the short little hikes to look over the canyons.  

Most of the National parks had really nice trails.

I didn't notice these signs until my husband pointed them. Often I would go on the trail and he would read the signs - about the history etc.

I love that these guys were just enjoying the sun and relaxing in it.

Beauty in their ragged uniqueness.

And I loved these bare wild trees.  My husband thought they were dead. I hope they sprout leaves this summer. I have no idea what sorta trees they are - but they had character.

Mule deer not caring about the vehicles that drive slowly by.

 

This was our last spot of interest. After this there were many miles of fields - mostly free of snow. We didn't hit snow on the side of the road until Minneapolis.  And of course more trees the further north you go.

We did 5 national parks, a couple of state parks and 6 states.  Next time I will research the area we are heading to a little better.  Find out fun places of interests and see when they open.  

All in all we had a wonderful time and it was good to step out of "waiting for spring". 

We returned to Spring in full download.

While it is good to go, it is always wonderful to be back home.