ResilientWoman's Journal

This is the month I fall apart, behaving in ways that are not good socially or strategically.  This is the time of year I had my miscarriage in 1999.  The time of year when many atrocities were committed against me as a child.

I got therapy, I read books, I did group, I struggled, I learned from experiences tragic and, eventually, I moved forward, at first a little and then by great leaps and bounds.  Not because I had healed but because survival demanded it and I wanted to live.

The damage is still there crying out on occasion to be dealt with gently and thoroughly.  I don't know how I have kept moving forward or how I go on so isolated from the resources that are needed.  March was rough, too.  It is also rough every year.  I remember being homeless and breaking apart in front of my then 2 1/2 yo daughter and a case worker in March 2008.  I was a wreck and couldn't hide my pain that day.  My kid was not damaged by the event.  My case worker was shook up pretty badly though...she's alright now, she had never seen someone who survived what I did have a flashback.  I've managed to only leak a little, not vomit the poison I was raised with onto my kid.  Vomit after all belongs in another receptacle.

Staying grounded in compassion for myself and my daughter keeps me in the loving, nurturing space I want to be in with her and with myself.  Tonight I'm up too late, I had a very difficult day.  My daughter is loved and tells me I'm the best mommy in the world but I want to be better than I am, fearlessly, shamelessly facing my strengths, under utilized and my weaknesses neglected.

I want to be successful in my life in a way that will empower her to succeed with her goals.  Some years it is a dance of taking 99 steps forward and 98 steps back but I'm still ahead, at least a little.  I crave more.  I want to leave abject poverty behind.  I wouldn't prostitute myself emotionally or spiritually to my father when he was alive for money for college or for his approval.  I wouldn't be complicit in helping him to destroy me or others once I got to be 9 years old and understood his intentions.  I do not want to cooperate with the damage he left behind.  So this is my prayer to the universe tonight...

Dear Mother-God,

I need a break, I need some things to go my way for awhile.  I need to find a way to keep my phone and my Cable/Internet turned on.  I need to hold it together long enough to make it easier to survive.  I need helpers, I cannot thrive apart from society and community.  I need a break, I need some physical changes in my daily life.  I need to be reminded of the goodness that is in me and growing and not just all the ways I fail each day.  I need a break from the tapes left in me by my mother, four generations of "perfection is never good enough".

I need love expressed in the flesh to me just because I exist.  I need friends who get me.  I need not to be so damn alone on this planet.  I have been alone for 43 years and I'm done with that, I am ready to be loved.  I am ready to be nurtured and not only be the nurturer.  I am ready to be provided for and not always be the provider.  I am ready to be held and not only be the port in someone else's storm.  I am ready for wings and I must fly.  I am not the caterpillar of my childhood trapped in the cocoon of dependency linked to age any longer.  I am a strong woman and a great mom and I accept that the metamorphosis means I'll be leaving the familiar behind.  Still I want my wings, it is time for me to fly.

Love,

RW