It was less than a year & the excitement for my new life had fizzled away almost completely. I tried desperately to live "normally" within myself, to ignore the tug & pull of chaos that came from with in me. I had this inability to sail the calm waters life often offered to me, instead I actually chose to make my owns waves. My decisions were radical and always irrational. I did not think anything through in a rational sense, patiently waiting for the answers to come to me was never an option that I recognized. I had become a master manipulator of my own mind.
My mind became my prison, keeping me bombarded with the echo of my ego ranting on about the past, making plans for the future, excuses for my behavior, and abusing me whenever life became too quiet to keep me occupied & distracted. I truly believe during this time in my life I invented "creative chaos" in reality so I did not have to listen to the life my mind was constructing. Believe me it is a hard concept to twist yourself around, but it was a coping mechanism I had developed to survive the dark places of my mind. Now if I had understood this then as deeply as I do now, I would not have a story to tell. I would have gone to a miracle shrink and lived happily ever after, maybe anyway, but life just doesn't always work out so easily.
Now I understand that I had many opportunities to ask for help, but in my own mind I was surviving & I saw myself as successful. I had developed classic personality traits that I had always despised about my mother; control and manipulation. I had not yet mastered these traits with in the world that surrounded me but I had already been using them on myself. I felt triumphant because I had left to start this new wonderful life, I was not an addict of any kind, & my child seemed healthy to me, of course the only comparison I had was my own childhood, so there was no convincing me that I needed help. I felt healthy, of course during this time in my life I was not acknowledging that I did not know what healthy was.
As you can imagine, in the midst of all this chaos, my daughter stood barely visual with in the fog. I was almost an empty shell of a mother, tending to my daughter's needs physically but hardly nurturing her emotionally. I had checked out, but my body was still there.
There were times within the chaos that I believe I must have been aware of my unwavering need for a rational change here and there, like a piece of myself was strong enough to keep me from completely drowning. I found a life line in pursuing a better life for me and my daughter, as my marriage crumbled & less then a year after we left California I enlisted in the US Army. I had enlisted in May of 1996 & had only left home in February. The worst part of enlisting for me was the delayed entry program. I had far too many months to fill with chaos, I was scheduled to leave in October.
During that short time I had hardly remained in contact with my family. Every call I had with my mother was filled with disappointment, it had become a game of who could make the other feel the most pain. My mother continued to spiral into her drug addiction, and I had become to aware of it for her to continue lying to me the way she did when I was only a child. This would begin a run of many years where I severed contact with my mother completely.
I would fill the waiting months with even more self destructive behavior. I did not love myself enough to focus on the new development of possibilities, instead I gave myself away again and again. Looking for love in all the wrong places, and giving my ego even more ammo to abuse me with. This shame would prove to be the most paralyzing to me in the years ahead. It was like a cat and mouse game, the more I abused myself in regards to giving myself away, well the more I gave myself away. I have never been able to rationalize this behavior, not even today, it is something I just had to learn to forgive myself for & let it go. I think it is one of those chapters in life's little journey that either a woman understands and can relate too, or one that she can not fathom in any sense. I have become the woman who can not fathom it. But I know I was a woman who once searched for it, seeking those few minutes when you felt powerful because someone longed for you in ways that even you could not even long for yourself. Just like all unauthentic power, it would quickly dissolve into despair and desperation leaving me alone once again to face the demons that I had now begun to feed. During this time I would like to say I could not look at myself in the mirror, but that would not be true. I could stand completely confident staring at my reflection because I chose what I wanted to see, lying to myself was becoming very easy for me.
It is quite ironic that I joined the service. Already poised to battle the world for a more meaningful purpose, I was about to be trained to fight for my country. A soldier of my youth being trained to become a soldier for my country. This would prove to be one of the best decisions for the future, but would leave scars and bruises for a daughter who was in need of a devoted mother. The short time I trained in basic, was a very long time for my daughter to be without her mother.
(More to come...)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
& The Journey Begins~Chapter 2
There I stood at 19 years old w/my one in a half year old daughter on my hip giddy with happiness, as my husband, at the time, packed us up in our Green Volkswagen Jetta. I mention the kind of car we had because things were so very important to me then, status helped me feel like I was successful. I had things my family never had or just simply could not hold onto. My ego was on it's high horse and I let my family know all about it. I was going to be different, I was not like them & I was hell bent on proving it through every step of my life.
This man, my husband, whom I had betrayed more times than any one should ever begin to accept, & I was completely oblivious to how that betrayal was a reflection of how I treated myself, was the driver on the road to our destination of a new beginning. As if there is a place to find happiness, I was determined to reach it if it killed me. This new beginning was a mirror of the creative void filling I would manage to almost master along my journey into adulthood. Desperately trying to heal wounds with bandages that did not belong or that wore away leaving me raw and bruised once again.
I was leaving the only place I had ever known as home. The mother that sickened me, sitting on the curb playing with my daughter was everything I did not want to be. In my eyes, she was everything I hadn't become. It is amazing that the most destructive lies are the ones we tell ourselves. That one lie was only the beginning of a mass of lies I would continue to feed myself in the years ahead, but it in itself was the one that almost destroyed me. Now do not get me wrong, I am not here to paint a picture that my mom was the worst and up most horrible thing that had ever happened to me. She was the not the orchestrator of every ounce of damage in my life, she certainly could not be responsible for the decisions I made in the future. To give a true understanding of where I was and where I am now, I have to create for readers the images that filled my mind. At that moment in my life she was my enemy & I was not going to be destroyed. It was me against her! "The survivor" was a mechanism I had created to cope with the victim I had manifested within myself, & one day would become one of the worst & most imprisoning traits of my personality to this day.
If there was a cartoon drawn of the day I packed up and left my childhood behind, you could probably see the chain that tied me to it being drug behind the trunk of our car. The same chain my mother carried through her own life, threatened to remain attached to me. You could not have convinced me of that, not for one minute. I was high on life, my voids temporarily filled with the latest distraction of this new and exciting life I was beginning. The road ahead would take us to Connecticut, oh yes this Cali girl headed straight to a place that would slowly suck the life from the center of my being. Not enough sun and far too much snow for a girl who loved the beach, far more than she loved her mother or herself.
(More to come...)
This man, my husband, whom I had betrayed more times than any one should ever begin to accept, & I was completely oblivious to how that betrayal was a reflection of how I treated myself, was the driver on the road to our destination of a new beginning. As if there is a place to find happiness, I was determined to reach it if it killed me. This new beginning was a mirror of the creative void filling I would manage to almost master along my journey into adulthood. Desperately trying to heal wounds with bandages that did not belong or that wore away leaving me raw and bruised once again.
I was leaving the only place I had ever known as home. The mother that sickened me, sitting on the curb playing with my daughter was everything I did not want to be. In my eyes, she was everything I hadn't become. It is amazing that the most destructive lies are the ones we tell ourselves. That one lie was only the beginning of a mass of lies I would continue to feed myself in the years ahead, but it in itself was the one that almost destroyed me. Now do not get me wrong, I am not here to paint a picture that my mom was the worst and up most horrible thing that had ever happened to me. She was the not the orchestrator of every ounce of damage in my life, she certainly could not be responsible for the decisions I made in the future. To give a true understanding of where I was and where I am now, I have to create for readers the images that filled my mind. At that moment in my life she was my enemy & I was not going to be destroyed. It was me against her! "The survivor" was a mechanism I had created to cope with the victim I had manifested within myself, & one day would become one of the worst & most imprisoning traits of my personality to this day.
If there was a cartoon drawn of the day I packed up and left my childhood behind, you could probably see the chain that tied me to it being drug behind the trunk of our car. The same chain my mother carried through her own life, threatened to remain attached to me. You could not have convinced me of that, not for one minute. I was high on life, my voids temporarily filled with the latest distraction of this new and exciting life I was beginning. The road ahead would take us to Connecticut, oh yes this Cali girl headed straight to a place that would slowly suck the life from the center of my being. Not enough sun and far too much snow for a girl who loved the beach, far more than she loved her mother or herself.
(More to come...)
An Adventure Begins~Chapter 1
I find myself here, in this moment of scared sharing, because I made a promise to myself in the beginning of my healing process that if I had heard the same thing in my life many times over that I would consider it very important. I do believe that God, The Divine, & The Source sends us messages through people in our lives, earth bond angels found in friends, family, & even strangers. Many times I have been told to write about my life, my journey, and my awakenings.
Today I am making a promise to myself to explore this suggestion in numerous dimensions. I can not begin to know where to start or what details to share, but I do know I will not begin at the first horrible thought of my childhood, creating a time line of endured torture that will rock you to the core or reflect on every small, silly detail to prove to the world I was a victim of pain. Everyone has a right to acknowledge their pains, and own their wounds. Pain is not measured in the dynamics of evidence that makes it real to the rest of the world, if you feel pain than it is your reality. Living this pain, harvesting the cause, and cultivating the healing process is an individual journey. One path will not work for everyone. What may come easily to one person, may be a struggle for another.
The truth is, my childhood was not a picture of utter horror. I do not believe that we have to bring a reader into those moments where the pain is raw and seeping to prove that some how a story is worth telling. I realize now that memories can be misleading, almost completely distorted by the emotion tied into them. There are factors that change the perception of these moments stored deeply in the ego mind. I find it very fascinating the way a memory can change from one day to the next depending on what side of yourself relives it. The child within me tends to remember details and emotion that my wiser adult side can no longer feel or relate to.
One of my greatest discoveries through this ongoing journey of healing has been that my ego mind was & still can be tied to the child of my youth, and my spirit speaks only from a position of understanding, wisdom, acceptance, & love. I still struggle with muting my abusive ego and only tapping into the infinite well of positivity & love that lies within my spirit. My story can no longer be told through the eyes of the child in me because the pain is not as raw as it once was. The emotions tied to the memories have changed as my age brings me closer to wisdom and understanding.
I will begin my story from 19 years of age, and I will share details of my years prior as I see it necessary to the overall adventure of my healing process. I want to make it clear that I have not arrived, and have found that healing is an ongoing process. Like a garden the journey needs to be harvested, cultivated, and nurtured. Like any garden some flowers will blossom and others will die, some will re-bloom next year and others will never return. It is a deep understanding of the life cycle; birth, death, and rebirth that brings true freedom. We must learn when to hold on and when to let go. Life is always changing, learning to be flexible takes practice & mastering this process takes courage.
I can only have faith that some how my gift of sacred sharing will touch some one's life. Deliver a little hope & inspiration to those who have some how become hopeless. The truth is life will always bring a little darkness, we have to create the light from within ourselves. There is a wonderful saying that you can bring light into the darkness, but you can not bring darkness into the light. A personal journey is so much like this, it is finding a light that sustains you even through the darkness. But it must come from within you, the place where God has given you his greatest gift. It is that piece of himself that he has shared within you offering you the opportunity to tap into that source anytime & anywhere.
My story is about tapping into that source & just how it saved my life. I will be frank at times, & I ask that no one take offense to anything I choose to share. Some times what has worked for some readers will be exactly what did not work for me & the other way around. There are times I will speak through the eyes of my youth, before wisdom and understanding. To share my story in truth, sometimes I will have to take a risk in sharing thoughts some may find revolting & offensive. I have always felt I can not share my story if I can not get real! I can be random, so I am hoping that I can stay on track & not lead the readers of this blog all over the map. Maybe somehow that is the truest reflection of my journey, random and all over the map. I hope I can express into words the adventure of self discovery & my journey into freedom. Enjoy!
Today I am making a promise to myself to explore this suggestion in numerous dimensions. I can not begin to know where to start or what details to share, but I do know I will not begin at the first horrible thought of my childhood, creating a time line of endured torture that will rock you to the core or reflect on every small, silly detail to prove to the world I was a victim of pain. Everyone has a right to acknowledge their pains, and own their wounds. Pain is not measured in the dynamics of evidence that makes it real to the rest of the world, if you feel pain than it is your reality. Living this pain, harvesting the cause, and cultivating the healing process is an individual journey. One path will not work for everyone. What may come easily to one person, may be a struggle for another.
The truth is, my childhood was not a picture of utter horror. I do not believe that we have to bring a reader into those moments where the pain is raw and seeping to prove that some how a story is worth telling. I realize now that memories can be misleading, almost completely distorted by the emotion tied into them. There are factors that change the perception of these moments stored deeply in the ego mind. I find it very fascinating the way a memory can change from one day to the next depending on what side of yourself relives it. The child within me tends to remember details and emotion that my wiser adult side can no longer feel or relate to.
One of my greatest discoveries through this ongoing journey of healing has been that my ego mind was & still can be tied to the child of my youth, and my spirit speaks only from a position of understanding, wisdom, acceptance, & love. I still struggle with muting my abusive ego and only tapping into the infinite well of positivity & love that lies within my spirit. My story can no longer be told through the eyes of the child in me because the pain is not as raw as it once was. The emotions tied to the memories have changed as my age brings me closer to wisdom and understanding.
I will begin my story from 19 years of age, and I will share details of my years prior as I see it necessary to the overall adventure of my healing process. I want to make it clear that I have not arrived, and have found that healing is an ongoing process. Like a garden the journey needs to be harvested, cultivated, and nurtured. Like any garden some flowers will blossom and others will die, some will re-bloom next year and others will never return. It is a deep understanding of the life cycle; birth, death, and rebirth that brings true freedom. We must learn when to hold on and when to let go. Life is always changing, learning to be flexible takes practice & mastering this process takes courage.
I can only have faith that some how my gift of sacred sharing will touch some one's life. Deliver a little hope & inspiration to those who have some how become hopeless. The truth is life will always bring a little darkness, we have to create the light from within ourselves. There is a wonderful saying that you can bring light into the darkness, but you can not bring darkness into the light. A personal journey is so much like this, it is finding a light that sustains you even through the darkness. But it must come from within you, the place where God has given you his greatest gift. It is that piece of himself that he has shared within you offering you the opportunity to tap into that source anytime & anywhere.
My story is about tapping into that source & just how it saved my life. I will be frank at times, & I ask that no one take offense to anything I choose to share. Some times what has worked for some readers will be exactly what did not work for me & the other way around. There are times I will speak through the eyes of my youth, before wisdom and understanding. To share my story in truth, sometimes I will have to take a risk in sharing thoughts some may find revolting & offensive. I have always felt I can not share my story if I can not get real! I can be random, so I am hoping that I can stay on track & not lead the readers of this blog all over the map. Maybe somehow that is the truest reflection of my journey, random and all over the map. I hope I can express into words the adventure of self discovery & my journey into freedom. Enjoy!
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