abuse

abuse: physical, and emotional. for years and years, decades, really, i believed that i had an easy childhoood. you know why? because my parents told me i did. my mom, i remember her saying "i may swat your butt every once in a while, but it's nothing like what my dad used to do to me."

i never had black eyes that i wore to school. i was never beaten until i bled. and because of this, because of comparison, and because of what i was told, i truly wanted to and DID believe FOR DECADES that i had a good childhood. but it was not just my butt that was swatted. and it was not just physical pain. it was words. and i will be honest: i do not remember all of the abusive words that were said, but i do have years of abusive relationships to prove that yes, i have been compensating for SOMETHING.

they used to scream at each other and throw things. coffee cups and other ceramic dishware. i remember one time, maybe five or six years old, finding my very favorite cup with unicorns and rainbows on it. i loved it and thought it was so precious because it was etched in gold. it was broken when i found it after a fight. i know my parents knew how much i loved that cup. i used it all the time. i think i had been hiding during that fight. i came out later and discovered it. i have never been able to forget how it felt. disappointment over something so simple, so replaceable, so impermanent. and yet so devastating.

my mom, she would beat me. she called it "swatting." but it was more like grabbing me and hitting me. it hurt. honestly, i don't know if i had bruises. i never ever thought to look. and i believed that i was bad, that i deserved this punishment, and that it was nothing like what COULD have happened, like what other parents did, like what her dad did to her.

i feel compasssion for my mom. i think that she witnessed and experienced way more physical, sexual, and emotional abuse than she will ever admit to. and probaby, yes, more abuse than i ever experienced, although i have replayed that same dynamic over and over again in relationships. i see my mom today, approaching 70, a woman of experience but also a child to reality and emotions. i love her but i also hate her. it took me 39 years to recognize that i was abused. she is becoming an old woman, now, but i am just barely beginning to discover how she has hurt me. 

i own my life. i own my decisions. i ran off to the pacific northwest, away from my family, to find the me, the beautiful me that i am today. i am so proud of this person. but this person is also discovering all that which has shaped her existence. this person is understanding why she is in so much pain. why her core beliefs that she established as a child to protect herself no longer work for her now that she is ready to be free. it's poetic, yes. but it's also very real. 

the things that happened to me as a child and as a young adult in my famliy seriously hurt me. as a result i made the decision to never marry. to never have children. and, yes, since i was very young, i have believed that i would die young. in my forties.

i am thirty-nine. i have had an amazing family of animals for nearly 20 years, but no marriage, no human family, and no children. i am at the end of my rope. in the last few years, i have experienced more death and loss and change than one could expect to experience in an average of half a lifespan. it gets harder and harder, day by day, and i just keep doing my best to hold on. 

i don't want to fulfill this contract. i want what i guess you could call a sequel to my life. i want to go on. past my own prophecy.  let the years of abuse drop off like 7 years of bad debt. because, i wil say, i have found a truth in my own journey. and my truth is that i never wanted to have children because i never wanted them to be hurt by me the way that i was hurt by my own mother. i never wanted to get married because i never wanted to be as unhappy as my parents were. and dying in my forties? easy. pick an age before it getss unbearable. childhood wisdom.

but, anyhow, here i am, now. just floating through cyberspace hoping that someone will acknowledge and validate my experience.

please. validate my experience.