When you have a painful history you are often tempted to avoid anything that reminds you of your past… to throw it all away and to vehemently deny your past. I am tempted all the time to just think of the future and shove thoughts of my past aside and pretend they did not change me drastically. When something comes up that takes me back in time – a smell, a song, a taste – I cringe away from those encounters. Today I embraced my past. I was 20 years old and invincible again. I put on my dark wash jeans, black tank top, black eye-liner and drove down the road with the windows down and the radio so loud I could feel the base line in my chest. I sang along to the songs and let my hand trail out the window catching the wind in my open palm. I went alone to the movies and had a great time. I recaptured a lost piece of myself and had so much fun and felt so free…free and not afraid. I don’t have many days like that – and this one was certainly special. I know every day is different and what gives me hope is thinking there are more days like today in my future… and knowing that I can take pieces of my past and bring them with me – I don’t have to abandon all of me back there. I don’t have to leave those parts of me behind. I feel invincible today… invincible and wild and something approaching healthy.
Tag Archive: therapy
I was cleaning some weeds out of my flower bed when the storm blew in… first the darkening sky, then the wind that felt so good against my flushed skin… covered in sweat from the effort and humidity… then the storm crashed over me… it was like the opening of a faucet… no gentle rain, this… this was angry, stinging, fat drops of rain that were punishing as they hit. I refused to be swayed and defiantly knelt in the now-mud, pulling weeds and trying to resist the temptation to shake my fist angrily at the sky in some clichéd move. Soon, soaked to the skin and nearly blinded by the water running over my face I gave in… driven in by the lightning and thunder popping all around me. I almost dared the storm to strike me… feeling angry and spoiling for a fight – not that a fight against nature is one I am likely to win… Still…. the storm darkened sky did not disappoint – nor did the wet leaves in the soft after-storm light… Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them… storm-weary and muttering at the sky.
Some days I just don’t know how to keep from being distracted by all the little things… How do I focus on the big picture? How do I block out all the noise and all the things that try for my attention? How do I de-clutter my thoughts? Some days I feel hopeless… just hopeless. I walk around most days feeling pretty ok but days like today life feels like it is crumbling around me. I think sometimes I allow myself to be sucked into the little details so I don’t have to realize how broken and afraid I feel.
This has been an emotional and triumphant week for me. I never imagined that I would be in this particular place. On Wednesday I was asked to be a guest speaker for a small group. I was asked to simply share my story and was told that many of the women attending would benefit from this. I spoke to a group of women (and 2 men) and told them my story. I told them about this life, this pain, this fear and this healing. It was terrifying to speak to strangers so openly…to lay my heart open to them and trust that they would handle it with loving-kindness. The response was over-whelming. I was so moved by their compassion… and so much more… they seemed so genuinely touched by my words… they were moved to share their own stories and we hugged and cried and prayed together. These wonderful people opened their homes, lives and hearts to me and trusted me with their truth. There are no words for how powerful and moving it was. On Sunday we stopped half-way home and visited my aunt and uncle – the first family I have had contact with in over two years. I was able to open up to them and to share my heart with them as well… and they received me without rejection or criticism. After so many years of silence I am finding my voice and I feel like a new woman. I am not saying that I am suddenly healed after years of abuse, fear, anger etc… but I feel a new strength… This week brought so many surprises… so much hope… and for the first time in a long time I feel that my recovery WILL one day be complete. I know life is a journey and I have far yet to go, but I know I will be ok… I am no longer focused on surviving my life… I am finding ways to live my life and to help others do the same.
After years of self-abuse (cutting, drinking, drugs etc) I finally found the strength to cry out for help – that is what has gotten me to where I am today… I could not have made it this far without help and I would not have received help until I got brave enough to ask for it… I nearly waited too late to ask someone to take the knife out of my hand.
I am finally seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel… and though I still have the occasional flash back, it no longer cripples me nor does it define me. My past is a part of what made me the woman I am today but it is not all that I am. I know it does not have to consume me. I have battled my way through terror, pain, frantic desperation and humiliation but I am here. I am alive… possibly for the first time in my life I am not just existing…. I am LIVING.
I spent the day driving along A1A visiting Little Talbot Island, Big Talbot Island, Amelia Island and Fort Clinch State Park. I thought I would share some of my photos from my trip.
Fences along the dunes… I love these falling down fences, so beautiful despite their weakness.
I love the vibrant colors and textures I always find along the beach.
I love watching the sand-pipers pick their way along the beach… and I think the footprints they leave behind are so cute.
I love the way the light turns golden as the sun prepares to set…
I love this old bronze cross in St Augustine… It is beautiful and I love the way it shines in the sun.
Taken at Savannah Lock and Dam Park… I took this picture to capture the way I feel… stained, tainted, broken, polluted…but still strong – and worthy of redemption. Somehow strong and beautiful in spite of the damage.
I am struggling today. I feel lost in my own mind and I fear I may go mad if I do not connect with someone. I need desperately to get outside of my own head. It feels dangerous and crowded in here. I do anything, everything to distract myself, to be ok – but none of it is working today. I had this idea in my mind that I would go out to eat after work and sit and sip a nice coffee while I read and was totally at peace with myself and my surroundings… I would get lost in the moment and allow myself to relax in a public setting. I would dine alone with relish at the space – all the room for my own thoughts and ideas and creative urges… I brought along my journal and was READY. I was prepared for great inspiration and deep connecting to my heart. What I actually did was drive between 3 different restaurants in a fit of indecision for about half an hour before deciding to eat at a place I’ve never heard of just because it was getting late and I was verging on panic. So I parked and went inside. It was quiet, only a hand-full of other diners – that is, until I got there. Apparently the dinner rush came right behind me and the place transformed from a quiet haven to a bustling noisy nerve-jangling room full of voices and smells of food and bodies. Now, I know the place was not as full as my mind was making it out to be – but in my anxiety-filled state of mind it felt like a crowd pressing upon me… so no peace. I ate fast and got out of there. Next I figured I could at least go to the nearest coffee shop and pull up a chair and be politely ignored while I read or journal. I arrived at Starbucks (not exactly what I had in mind but I’m still learning my way around this town) and ordered with confidence and sat at a tall table in the tiny coffee shop. I read a chapter of my book (although, in retrospect, I cannot tell you what I read) and sipped my mocha. I made myself read slowly and to sip my drink with apparent relish… but I was not fooling myself. My heart raced, my palms were sweaty and I was hyper aware of every person in the room and through the corner of my eye kept tabs on the people around me. Will I ever get beyond this need to look over my shoulder? Will I ever not feel his eyes on me? Will I ever stop listening for his footsteps coming up behind me? Will I ever forget the feel of his rough hands, stubbled chin…the smell of his after-shave? Will I ever purge myself of this man? Will I ever be able to stay in the moment without escaping into the nearest distraction? Will I ever feel at home in my own skin again? Will I ever stop feeling like a disappointment, a failure? Will his voice ever leave my ears? What ifs plague me. What if he haunts me my entire life. What if I never get better? What if … what if …
Yesterday was a day filled with Wild Goodness (a phrase I stole from my husband.) First, let me explain what Wild Goodness means to me, without getting too “preachy”. Wild Goodness is the way I interpret the manifestation of God’s unfailing love for me. My heart is soothed by the natural world…by thunder-storms, by seeing animals in the wild, by flowers blooming, by shapes in clouds, by the surprise of a passionate kiss… by things that are beautiful and wild and possibly even dangerous. I feel wooed by God in unlikely ways… I feel His love for me in lightening (even though the thunder makes me jump every-single-time!) I feel it in butterflies, in sweat on my brow when I am pulling weeds, in the arms of my passionate husband, in orgasms, in the throbbing pulsing beats of my favorite hard rock songs, in the thrill of danger when you happen upon a snake or wild animal, in the wind on my skin… you catch my drift…
My day begins with squirrels.
These guys were playing outside my office.
Ok, ok…I know squirrels are often viewed as pests and rightly so, they can be very damaging…but let’s put all that aside for the moment and be purely emotional about them… no rational thinking allowed! Looking out of my office window I saw a mama squirrel carrying her baby in her mouth. It was astonishing considering the ‘baby’ squirrel was nearly as large as the mother. She was climbing the pillar of the building next door carrying her young one in her mouth. Their nest was apparently under the cap of the corner of the building’s aluminum roofing. Navigating the roof looked difficult…the pillars are rough and could be climbed with apparent ease – but getting to the nest required a clever jump onto a smooth surface with almost no purchase. The mother squirrel had perfected this maneuver but the baby hesitated and would not make the jump. The mother squirrel tried to carry the young one all the way but she could not do it – they both nearly fell…it was time to change tactics. The mother, with her young following closely on her tail, climbed the pillar, made the leap and went into the nest where she immediately poked her head back out waiting on the baby to follow. After it was apparent the infant was not following the mother climbed down to the ground (followed by her baby) where she fussed over him and groomed him and allowed him to groom her… I interpreted it as reassurance… then they tried again… this happened over and over and after each failed attempt there was the time spent on the ground – fussing over her young with deliberate affection and reassurance. Watching all of this… it reminded me of God’s patience for us. It made me think of how He shows us the way over and over again and each time we fail he comes back for us, tells us we are loved and forgives us…then show us the way all over again.
From squirrels to snakes…
This little guy tried so hard to be fierce…
After work I decided to go to Phinizy Swamp Park to hike, read, journal, take photos, to commune with nature…I spied some picnic tables when I arrived and gathered my books, journal and camera and headed that way. On my way over I spied a family – mother, father, 2 small blond boisterous boys and a large golden dog on a leash – all gathered around a spot on the ground making excited exclamations and gestures. I could not resist, so I went to see what the fuss was about. There on the ground, trying for all his worth to appear threatening, was a baby cotton-mouth. This was a beautiful snake, about 5-6 inches long and a perfect example of Wild Goodness. My photo hardly does him justice. I know many would not find such pleasure in this encounter but to me it was God whispering his love directly to my wild heart. The heart that has been broken, beaten, rejected, tossed aside… the part of my heart that feels dangerous and alone… I don’t know if you can understand, but I hope you can. After meeting the snake I sat in the shade at a picnic table and read for a while (Currently working through Life After Trauma – if you are a survivor I would strongly recommend this book) Ironically enough, I was spending time alone – while my current excercise in the book was about how trauma affects our ability to be alone and that is something worth reclaiming. Again, I felt love enter into my soul, as though the timing of this outing and the material I was reading were orchestrated. After I put away my things I took my trusty camera down a trail… the light by this time was beginning to take on a golden hue and the filtered light coming down to the forest floor turned my world a golden green, like a magical gateway. I felt like I was being drawn, invited, allured into the heart of my creator… and deeper into my own heart as well.
I turned a corner on the foot-path and happened upon a man with a large camera with a telephoto lens that I must admit a great deal of envy for… he was very still and silent … he was snapping photos of a very large river otter swimming up-stream. (sad to say I could not get a clear shot of him) I felt overwhelmed and grateful to witness such a beautiful creature. The other photographer hiked on and disappeared around another bend in the trail and I was alone at the river side. I felt overcome and grateful and happy. I sank to my knees by the bank of the river and bowed my head and just let the feeling of thankfulness wash over and through me. I let my guard down and allowed myself to feel deeply loved and humbled. I lost myself in the moment alone in the woods.
After I left the riverside I found a trail that was closed for repairs – so, naturally I took that path! It was a broken-down board walk going deeper into the silent woods and I loved the thrill of the aloneness and the (mostly imagined) danger. Now, I am not advocating risky behavior, so let me explain that the board walk was not up off the ground but built directly on top of the ground – so I was not in danger of falling or anything… This broken trail lead me to a lake that was surrounded by a picket fence. The lake was lush and filled with turtles and minnows. As I was walking around the lake I was feeling impatient…wanting the next thing… the next wildlife encounter, the next thrill…I was there surrounded by beauty and was seriously tempted to stop and scroll back through the photos of the snake I had already taken. It was at this moment that I felt like my creator was speaking to my heart… I felt like He was saying to me that this is a problem for me… I often see, hear, experience something wonderful…and I want to stop and stay in that moment. I think this is natural and occurs with many people. What I feel in my heart is that this is not what we are meant for. These wonderful things are not our destination – they are land-marks. There is nothing wrong with stopping to enjoy a landmark but it is not where you want to build your home. I too often want to stop or go back to the last blessing, the last break-through, the last revelation, to the last time I felt that I was on the “right” path. This is foolish thinking… What we are called to and what we are created for is the journey whose final destination is far better than any we can imagine and more beautiful than any landmark we may see along the way. I felt like God was calling me to His heart in a way that He designed just for me… that is the wonderful thing about the Lover of our Soul… He knows just how to romance you. How he next romanced me was through the sighting of a Monarch. 
I know that these are probably not the most beautiful butterflies in the whole of creation, but for some reason they are very special to me and I have fixated on them for years… I have seen photos and read about them but I had actually never seen one in the wild until this day. Even though it is a simple, small thing I cannot adequately express how happy it made me and how loved I felt witnessing this beautiful creature.
I walked on and came out of the woods into a flat land dotted with large ponds populated by several birds… I saw Snowy Egrets, Great Herons, Wood Ducks and water fowl that I could not identify… I watched Purple Martins swirl and dive and perform aerial acrobatics I would hardly thought possible – a beautiful aerial display! As I as walking along one of these ponds I heard some owls calling to each other in the distance… it was like listening to a conversation… I would hear one off to my left, then a reply very close to me (but out of sight) then another reply off to my left. Their cries were beautiful and melodious and a bit chilling.
By now the sun-light was all golden and the sky was turning pink and orange with the dying light. It was then that I saw the first of 3 alligators. 
He was swimming along and when he noticed me he first sank low in the water – since I did not want him to disappear – I knelt down by the water’s edge so I would not be taller than the grass growing at the bank. He seemed just as curious about me as I was about him… he swam up to the bank and stopped about 3 feet out and we just stared at each other for a few minutes. It was beautiful and again I felt that wild, dangerous love wash over me. The lessening light reminded me that I needed to head out and find my way to civilization again. In one of the last ponds I passed I had one more treat waiting for me… a large alligator was swimming lazily along and I again stopped and knelt and watched as this gator swam close to me too….about 2 feet away this time and we studied each other in the stillness of the growing shadows.
Since I was rapidly running out of light, I reluctantly got up and picked my way down the gravel path back to the woods where cardinals lead my way to the boardwalk. They were like brilliant red beacons landing in my path and guiding me home. I wish I could share every fine detail, every nuance of this day with you…I wish I could adequately describe to you the feeling of love that I allowed myself to be swept into on this day. I also wish I could hold onto this moment forever – but I am now aware that this is a landmark – not a home… so I will record this day for you and for myself and I will look forward with hope to the wonder that is in store for me.
I feel like I am about to go completely crazy. Have you ever wanted something…wished so hard for it you thought your heart would break? I feel that way right now. I am longing for healing, longing for freedom, longing for wholeness… longing so deeply that I can scarcely breathe. I want to run away – start a new life somewhere far away where no one knows my name, where my past will not haunt me. I want to feel safe in my own skin again. I want to dream and dare. I am tired of that anxious feeling…that bees buzzing in my chest feeling…that sense of impending doom that pervades my life. I know that every day is not this bad. I know that I am healing steadily every day. I know that my life is better today than it has ever been and I know the best is yet to come. But despite all of that – I still have days like this… days when I cannot calm down… days when I feel so fragile – like my feelings are barely beneath the surface and the least unkind work, look, gesture will bring me to tears. I hate days like this…I hate feeling so vulnerable around perfect strangers. Sanity feels elusive on days like this. Like it is draining like sand from an hour glass… and I am running out of time.
captivatingbitter 