Life or something like it...

Tonight Anne and I returned a few movies to the video store. Driving down the streets of Stilly windows down, good music on the radio, my foot up on the dash, head leaned back. Just enjoying the almost full moon and wind in my unbrushed curly hair, it was heaven. Its moments like that I live for. Its pure contentment, the world disappears around me and I am left to enjoy the peace. There has always been something beautiful in simplicity. It’s crazy how many of those moments I experience. I know I write about the sunrise a lot, but it’s another moment of just solid contentment. I could name dozen or so, and it is this, in these moments that I feel God more than any other. When the world ceases to be around me, the cares, worries, stresses, and junk of daily life just dissipate and all that is left is the moment. I feel empty tonight, and its good. To finally hit the point of utter release, and finally have all the air cleared with everything in my life. I just feel like everything is starting to finally pick up. The valley is slowly and steadily turning into a mountain. The darkness is giving into the brilliance of the sun up ahead. I’m optimistic about life, finally. It amazes me to read my personal journal from only 5 months ago. I was a mess, in the simplest terms. A summer full of unconditional love, facing some demons, and having an inner battle with my moral fiber, I’ve come out on top. It seems that the one thing I’ve been really missing in the puzzle has come somersaulting back in my life, through a friend. It’s weird to be reminded of something as obvious as God. It’s more insane to find that the pieces fall together with a little help from the maker of the pieces. For a while I’ve been trying to tell my story, perhaps to myself maybe, or perhaps just to let the old musty past finally air out. The words have been hard, if not completely silent, and I’m still struggling with how to tell it, so for my sake I will write the words as they come and stop obsessing over it. I will warn anyone reading this at this point, you may not want to know the things I’m going to tell, and I ask for no sympathy, I am like anyone else facing something incredible, nothing more. I am who I am because of where I came from. My mom as I’ve written before was troubled. She was looking for life in all the wrong places, and took me along with her. From my birth to her death my life was a wild roller coaster of mostly hellacious events. From her addiction to drugs, alcohol, and men I had to grow up much to fast. My world was a whirlwind of survival. At times I ate ice cubes and sugar for food, because she bought liquor first. I’ve lived all over the US, all between the ages of 1 to 11, some of the places people envy, like Hawaii. From one abusive relationship to another my mom kept looking for someone to save her. I personally have faced the physical and emotional abuse relatively well. I have some physical and emotional walls because of it, but deal with it pretty well. It’s the dark dreams of things that happened to me that I cannot face. It’s the stress induced fear and paranoia that bother me now. This summer I saw the man who hurt me the worst. I’ll call him John, the man who took the abuse somewhere else, somewhere worse than a drunken beating. I have for years doubted things that happened to me, believing that they were no more than realistic nightmares. When I saw him in Wal-Mart on some idle Saturday this summer, I realized my dreams were not just scary fiction, but raving mad reality. I know he saw me too; there was a mild recognition on his face that he knew who I was. I quickly left the store, pounding heart, sweaty palms, and purchases in arms. I got into the car and went to the only truly safe place I’ve ever known, home. My grandfather even at 82 is the strongest man in the world to me. My fearless protector, my guardian angel, and in his presence my mind and heart tell me Satan himself would run with fear. He loves me unabashedly, for all the things I am and am not. He doesn’t know all the sorted details of my childhood, although with 12 years in the police force, and two children both adopted from abusive homes behind his belt, I’m sure he sees the things in me that point them out. He knows, and for that I love him more than ever. I saw this vile man again at wal-mart, with his mother. This man who I fear still today, this man who turns me into a broken terrified child. I ran, I know I looked like I was insane, but I was. I was pushing the cart so fast it made noises of protest, but I still felt trapped. I couldn’t get home fast enough. I hid from the world for a few weeks, and couldn’t sleep, because he waited there. I won’t pretend to be a strong person; indeed I’m anything but. Sometimes I think that I will get counseling, but the idea of ripping open old wounds, of knowing without a doubt that I was sexually abused, to remember and relive it, is to large a mountain to climb. To fully understand it I’ve been told would help me overcome it. I don’t believe I’m really ready to fully know it all. It is odd and perhaps a blessing from God the people who come into my life at the right time. I will not explain the situation to explicitly to protect the privacy of my beloved friend, but right before one of my worst attacks of nightmares, social anxiety, and emotional breakdown she came strolling into my life. She saw it in me even before I could say anything, because she experienced it. She understands completely why I hide away from men and relationships, and has if nothing else showed me the Lords hand in helping to slowly but surely overcoming it all. I see her changing as she tackles step by small step the things that hurt her as a child, a relationship with God prominent in the process of healing. “Meg, when you are ready, God will start the process of facing it…let his love take care of you till then.” It isn’t easy, but slowly I’m tackling it, it’s a long ride, but it’s my ride. I just have to allow myself to believe in the end it was worth it to trudge through a little mud to find a place of peace. I’m anything but a poster child for what a relationship with God should look like, just as I’m anything but perfect, yet I believe that all of it happened to me for a reason, and it is because of this belief that I keep on. That closet with all the skeletons doesn’t have me running so fast anymore, and someday I’m going to open the door and clean it out. Until then its one day at a time.