I M Perfect lady

"The gift of the Habit of Forgiveness is that it reverses our tendency to allow the sins of the offender to eclipse the freedom and power of the wounded. In the end, Forgiveness is less about the offender than it is about healing and liberating those who have been hurt. Focusing with so much passion on the person who is in the wrong becomes an excuse to not move forward."  Ed Bacon, 8 Habits of Love- Open your heart, Open your Mind.

The death of my father has brought back front and center the vast differences between my siblings and I…shining a spotlight on my weird choices and the absence of obligations etc.  

My odd choices are reflective of my liberation and freedom from the party line.  I am no longer shackled to the hard held rules of family obligations.

Those obligations disintegrated…when my father laid down the father role and engaged in sexual activities with me.  I just wasn't aware of them until I was 46 years old. When I discovered the abuse, I did a complete 360, and I no longer felt obligated to act like a daughter.

This one choice has put me at complete odds with the family. 

I am no longer treating my parents as parents and I their daughter.

The change began with them, not with me.  I didn't start this dance, they did.  The moment my father abused and my mother looked away….the daughter relationship shattered.  

With a mind empty of memories, but a body in fear, I went along believing that something was wrong with me.  Only to find out at 46, that both of them betrayed the child love and trust, and that I wasn't born with fear and not love inside, it was due to my experiences with them.

It happened very quickly that I turned into myself and began to make choices based upon what was loving to me…after I knew who they were.  I was liberated from the abuse by the truth there was abuse.  There was abuse, not love.  There were lies that eroded the family that began with the parents. My body wasn't lying, they were.

 Forgiveness to me is "Accepting that the past cannot be any different." 

There is nothing, I as a daughter, can do to change what is.  

I didn't begin this mess, and I cannot change it…however, I can change how I live to lessen the impact abuse has upon my husband and children.

Had I not change and done a 360, I would not be where I am today.

I may be one of the minorities whose lives completely changed due to finding out abuse lived in our family home, and of that I am completely proud.

The journey to transform myself out of dysfunction is not an easy road…for I literally had to go against family members to change.

They will not encourage and clap as you make a choice that is the complete opposite of theirs.

But, the only way I can see abuse not dribbling unto the next generation is to do the opposite of what was done to you.

My mother looked away for reasons of her own.

I looked at the abuse done to me as well as my abusive behaviors to others…I looked at her denial and mine.  I looked and I looked and I chose actions that would lead me to a new exit.  

This wasn't done lightly and with no regard. This was the hardest thing I have ever done, but one of the most transformative for me and for my own family tree.

I have truly strived to not let the sins of the offenders, eclipse the freedom and power of me.  

I didn't know how I would act upon one of my parent's deaths… would I feel guilty for the years of estrangement, would regret push its way into my heart….what would I feel?  As an estranged member of my family, how would my family act towards me, when once again, I make choices that are not theirs?  

Oddly, each time I stand alone with what is true for me, I gain strength of knowing who I am.  I feel the power of being an individual and the separation from being tightly bound.

In the past ALL my choices were based upon the happiness, comfort, approval of others….now there is just me.

For, if you are not at peace inside, if your choices don't sit well inside of you….then nothing others can do will bring you peace.  Peace, Love and Joy are all inside jobs.

My total freedom to do what I feel is right for me, shows complete forgiveness…for I have the power to be free.  

The opposite of abuse… has to be freedom!

This is a scene I pass each day on my mail route.  Nature standing naked in all its glory.  In nature I find common ground…I learn that being truthfully me…makes me who I am.  Whether it matches what others want from me or not, it is all I can be.

I like a tree find that it is impossible to change my truth, my past, my history…all I can do is act today what will grow a new tomorrow…change the legacy.