I think what is preventing my regular writing currently is being in awe. Yes that word hits the nail I believe. Often, just to make really sure, I’ll look up a definition to see if it fully captures what I’m trying to convey. So let’s do that.
Awe: A feeling of reverential respect filled with fear or wonder.
Yep, nailed it.
Not only have I found, but I am also creating my forever family. In so many ways it’s off the beaten path that I can’t even register or recognize how special, and often my mind tries to tell me it’s inferior to something else, and it will all come crashing to a halt. Like a huge “just kidding” moment. Back to what you know was always your lot.
And when I stand outside and look at how hard it is for me to feel this good and great life is real, I now have compassion for myself. It really was that bad. I didn’t make it up. I really do have C-PTSD, it isn’t me being dramatic. I shake with fear at times, and yet I keep going.
Now I badly want to figure out how to put into words how I achieved these transformations. So others can know this level of healing is possible. So others can know the way they express emotions and the timing of them isn’t something wrong with them, it came out of deep surviving. Living in emotional wastelands barren and devoid of their most essential needs.
And not having a narrative or understanding about this makes it all that more confusing.
Last night we witnessed my wife’s brother’s wedding. It was exquisite. I’m almost human during those events now. I still feel eerily somewhere else inside and hoping no one will notice. The place I go is to wondering if I belong among the people who belong. And my beautiful wife sees me and never calls me out, she just invites me back to earth with her warmth and smile. I am able to ground and my thoughts don’t need to go to the foreign nature and the sadness that I’ll never have a father daughter dance, or a mother daughter anything.
I do sit at events like this and wonder what it might have been like if I had parents, even a parent. If I didn’t grow up in an emotional war zone. Someone who loves you so much they are moved to tears watching you take this momentous step in your life. So many of my tears are still frozen. I wait carefully to decide how to feel, which is something prior to this point I faulted myself for. Awareness can also be a sword.
I think of a time I felt so much that I cried like that. When I got hugged by my hero, Elizabeth Gilbert. When she read a few words I wrote. I dream of her reading my story and seeing me, and yet she already has.
Another time I cried that way is when I married my wife. When she cries I cry, and I never could do that very well before. I felt it, but it all stayed choked up inside. What I realize now is I have to be safe enough to feel anything. And no one should ever have to be emotionally harmed to that degree. Ever.
But since life can be rough and hurt people can hurt people the second best thing is that we can heal. This is where my passion lies. I will sit with you while you uncover your truths, while you hurt, and while you heal. It heals me too.
The fact I am strong and capable on the outside and can be so put together and yet I carry an immense lack of safety every single day that I was wired with. I can do all the work in the world and yet my mind will still travel to terrible scenarios so I can keep myself safe.
Safety isn’t a logical process it’s actually an emotional one. It can seem like you would be safe, but inside can tell you you aren’t. And that battle is exhausting. To try and live like the humans do.
Where do I belong at a human wedding and at all the other special human events. Will I be able to dance with my children at their weddings with a feeling of belonging and safety? Or will I be somewhere else in my head. In my own painful past.
I fight for presence and I am thawing and I am healing. So I can feel every ounce of life in real time. And most of all so my kids can feel how I love them. At the deepest part of my wounding I could never feel the presence of a parent. There it is. And so my deepest darkest fear (that’s actually a very real one) is that they won’t feel mine. And I know how often they don’t. I am almost always some place else.
But what I have found now and what I want them to know is that I’m finding my way back to them. I’m doing the undoable. Breaking my very wiring. I am forgiving myself for what I can’t control and what came before me. And that breaks my heart open enough to learn connection. But it’s raw and shaking and takes all the energy I have each time. Then I must rest.
I burn myself up and out and then rest in this battle for presence. It isn’t logical it is emotional. And if you’ve been in a war zone as long as I have you would understand. And if you read my book someday you’ll understand too.
I just have to get safe enough, and I have to prioritize my family connections with the humans and that takes all of my energy and then some, because I wasn’t wired this way.
I’m just standing here most of the time in awe this is my life. And this awe is still and quiet. It doesn’t spill over with all the emotion that churns inside, because I still need to make sure I’m safe before an emotion comes naturally to the surface. And it should never have needed to be this way. A child should be loved and protected and ENJOYED!
And I intend to enjoy mine and the safety I create for other children, bringing my own healing full circle. So stay tuned as we get registered to foster care, Courtney goes to school, and we breathe some life into our many dreams, and as I play with the humans.