The Reflection

I am moving. I have boxes. I am packing. I've started with my books. I love my books. Top shelf of the bookcase in my bedroom contains journals. I pop a few into the box and decide to peek into the next one I pull from the shelf. Knowing this to be a mistake, I do it anyway. Afterall, mistakes are the best teachers, aren't they?

This is a journal from 1992. I pause to think about life at that time. Phoebe would be a year and a half old and Hilary would be four. Just precious babies. It quickly becomes apparent to me that this journal is one smack dab in the middle of my Recovery. I need to sit down. I am compelled. I look at the word Recovery and realise that it has so many meanings, so many nuances. This journal delves into the depths of my tortured psyche, mangled by sexual atrocities and multiple layers of neglect and abuse throughout my childhood. Raw and heartwrenching, the magnitude of my suffering is palpable. And I remember as if in a bad dream the anguish of flashbacks that knocked me on my ass day in and day out, wracking any sleep with nightmares that I just couldn't seem to wake up from. But....but, even as I type these words, I am so very well aware of the FACT that all of this is Memory, History, Past. And I revel in that knowledge. Within this jouranl, outlined in terms of permission to feel, permission to grieve, permission to be, is a roadway paved to this time, this NOW that I am living. THEN, this seemed like a fantasy. Self Attunement; Self Love, Self Esteem, Self Assurance, Self Care...SELF, seemed an impossible dream of maybe someday.

As I dipped into my memories of remembering, The Reflection of my wants and desires for my life, the heart and soul that I wasn't really completely sure were in me, have come to fruition. And I feel honored by this journey that I just had to take to get from there to here. Goddamnit! It was so hard! Hard in ways unimagineable to have survived...not only the core abuse from childhood, but going through it to heal from it. I was always so worried, fearful, doubting, troubled, paralyzed, ineffective, weakened, broken, decimated, afraid of absolutley everything every moment of every day. It was like being turned inside out with all the shards of ambiguity ripping and tearing at the conflict of my soul; a soul that glowed hot and true, sure of success, sure of survival, sure of thriving. To go from abject self-loathing to respect and self love only took twenty years! What's that in one life time of many life times?

Grieving Me

Death of my hopes

Death of my dreams

I am grieving me

Lost insight

Born in distress

Needing release

Love's lost in memory timed

Twisted configuration

Tilt your head for a better angle

Squint your eyes

Maybe you'll see the semblance

of one once wise

Death of my heart

Fractured beyond recognition

Torn fragments of confetti slices float before me

Death of my dreams

Floating away

Never to be retrieved

I am grieving me

This is where I once stood

In the middle of dying dreams

Hopeless hoping

Broken hearted dissociation

Grieving me...

4.25.03