This morning I had an intrusive thought. We got these crazy sharp and expensive cutco knives from a friend of the girls selling them. It’s a cute and funny memory. But one slip of one of those suckers and like butter your finger will be gone.
My kids like me, can be ultra sensitive about things. It’s a product of trauma and also innate. A double whammy if you will. Anyhow she understood me as laughing at her for the way she was cutting an apple and got angry, just a little compared to before family therapy. I knew if I said anything about how to cut differently I’d be met with an anger that shrivels my soul immediately and makes me want to run for cover.
The only threat present here is misunderstanding, and being misunderstood. It’s the biggest threat present in our family. And finally with a healthier clinician than in the past, the tangles are becoming a little bit undone.
I’ve been hungry to write, but also overwhelmed about gathering and organizing my thoughts. The story of my life. It will be on my headstone. Many years later of course which I now might actually be able to believe. Instead of the story about the shooting star lifespan, bright and gone as quickly as it came.
We all are most likely shooting stars in the scheme of things.
I’ve been having clarity and connection and moments which are all part of a natural ebb and a flow I never thought I’d have a part in. My triggers and coping mechanisms felt as if they swept me up and gave me little choice in the matter.
I know better now.
How to find the delicious sweet spot of acknowledgment of symptoms and experiences and also the compelling why driven reasons to keep moving forward.
You, my loved ones, will always be my why.
I am emotional and open and atoning.
“Everyone is the narcissist but you Christina” plays and re-plays, until I shake it clear of my head and remember the hurt that propels such statements and how deeply misunderstanding I was of myself, which invited energies that would misunderstand me.
I am too aware and too motivated for change to consistently employ such a defense mechanism. Do I have layers of protection that can emit projection and all the other beautiful aspects of control and hiding that that involves.? Absolutely I do.
I am committed to breaking generational curses. Yours, mine, and ours. It is my steadfast promise. I become steady, courageous, accepting, gentle, open, and loving.
It is possible.
I am de programming myself. Shaking off all of the abuse replaying, mine, as well as my transgressions. Enough internal secure ground laid to face the heat of the truth.
The truth has legs. All the things she said playing in my head. All the things I said and did. How outlandish and ridiculous I sounded when I was a walking, talking, coping mechanism. How sad the pain that can be inflicted.
And it’s not over unless life is. I will still make mistakes, and have misunderstandings. But I am here and I show up and I am sturdy and proud of the life I have lived, and the one I’m creating now.
I watched the Glass Castle the other night. Wow. Poignant. Devastating. Relevant. Just incredible.
I watched it through a lens of seeing my transgressions. The worst is the freeze. It’s worse than screwing up. Because I couldn’t be loving either. I admire the fucked up families that stay I always have. Would the children have been better off or not?!
I held back so much, held myself so carefully so I couldn’t be damaging from my damage until I better learned, that for a time I barely existed at all. I couldn’t be fun or playful and I now think rather than only how hard for them, how hard also that was for me. I couldn’t express. No wonder writing felt so important. I had to find some way.
Now I get the privilege of becoming who I’ve always been, and being able to feel it and be connected to it. I am awestruck at this possibility and genuinely compassionate as the suffering involved from my almost entire separation from myself and purely external functionality for enough years I could have become a pillar of stone.
Now I try not to look back lest I become a pillar of salt.
I want to enjoy being a pillar of stability and wisdom and love for my loved ones. It is my daily prayer and mission no longer impossible.
I can say unequivocally that my departure from my own was necessary. I’ve since stopped watching others grief process and wronging myself.
It’s been so exhausting weighing every movement I make, and anyone near me, for good or bad, right or wrong, safe or unsafe. It has been one of my greatest burdens and taken up so much space. But it has also made a conscientious and grateful human being who appreciates even a crumb.
I no longer desperately subsist on scrambling for them, but a little glimmer never hurt anyone. The words often rise. All that glitters is not gold. That memory is sharp, pungent. Control. It worked.
Life is a treasure. It no longer matters.
I was so tired of being misunderstood even before that began. All I needed was to be understanding of myself. I am that now. Soft when I can be, as often as I can be because that’s my preference.
I love Sundays. I love walks. I love reading. I love writing. I love learning. I love connecting. I love warm hearted open people, the ones who mean well and do things ultimately for the right reasons to the best of their ability, according to their awareness at the time.
I believe whole heartedly in no man left behind and I never have, they live on in my mind.
Love is not an emotion, it doesn’t behave as emotions do, it is steadfast promise. Karen McLaren. The language of emotions. It exists whether it is present and practiced or not. In memories, in moments. In the wonderful Brutiful trap that is the mind. The door is open you may come and go as you please.
I am at peace.
Oh and also I’ll be attending a getaway at Omega again finally. Haven’t been since 2015. Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell. Be still my heart. Their article why do we Thank our heroes was printed and given to as many clients as possible around that same time. The first time I saw Liz in person. Those are such intimate memories.
I have more I want to write but for now I broke the silent spell and that is enough for the moment.
All my love,
C