I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Merry Christmas.

    “When we can accept all of life’s contradictions, when we can completely flow between the banks of pleasure and pain, experiencing them both while getting stuck in neither, then we are free.”

            Deepak Chopra

     

    It is truly amazing the wild ride Christmas Day can bring you on.  From the sweetness of our children and their appreciation, to the smiles and jokes in finding the perfect gift for each other, to strawberry crepes made by your daughter, to your son forever changing out Christmas Music for Rap, from waiting for relatives to arrive, and then onto the sleepiness after a big ham dinner, to the awkward silence between little seen relatives. 

     

    And as space opens up, and as a few members exit, the party finds its way back to rolling along, until the last guest leaves and you lay content on the couch, home restored to its natural harmony, giggles and familiarity restored, what a ride it has been, a mixture of all the senses, emotions and even energies, a reality blasted day.

     

    I also noticed how I changed between people, like they truly can make you respond differently bringing to surface different aspects of your self.

     

    I noticed the inner peace and comfort that I feel around my husband and kids, and how I become more silent and watchful around ‘distant’ relatives, not willing to share myself, but rising instead to social niceties, or not even to that. 

     

    I watched the ‘relatives’ resort to news and the weather, a common ground where strangers eagerly seek, yet made odd for history stands behind fully loaded, emotions near surface you can almost hear them bubbling.

     

    Christmas seems to make you spend time with people you don’t seek out all year long, for a multitude of reasons, an estrangement that grew little by little, or years of disappointment left unexpressed or voiced, you are now made to share a few hours or minutes.

     

    For the Spirit of Christmas, we pretend. 

     

    Is this odd to anyone but me? 

     

    That we feel ‘forced’ to invite and be with family that we are no longer comfortable with, where for the rest of the year we stand back from, we now invite them in.

     

    I am astounded, that on the most special of days, we drag in the most uncomfortable people we know, to spend time with, to be uncomfortable in our own homes!

     

    Is that the meaning of Christmas?

     

    As the day ended, and the natural state of being returned, in the peaceful knowing I survived another uncomfortable afternoon, barely scarred, the phone rings.

     

    My daughter answers, ‘it is for mom,’ she says.  As I pick up, I am too tired to wonder who it can possibly be.

     

    I spend more than a few uncomfortable minutes with my brother, he rambling about on hockey, hunting, and the various trips he made up here, to his job, his family, his birthday, to his Christmas.  My silence and unnatural forced response didn’t put him at ease.

     

    This conversation we have repeated countless times.

    Another holiday tradition I didn’t break off this year, but it was different on my side.

     

    I sat with the emptiness between us, unable or willing to fill it up with junk.

     

    Emptiness meeting emptiness, a vacant spot where sister and brother used to stand.

     

    The call ends, as it started, uncomfortable.

     

    Back to the couch, my husband, the tree lights, the girls banter, my life.

     

    Merry Christmas.

     

     

  • You’ll See.

    Below are the lyrics from a song on Susan Boyle's CD "I Dreamed a Dream."

     

     

    You'll See
     
    You think that I can't live without your love
    You'll see
    You think that I can't go on another day
    You think that I have nothing
    without you by my side
    You'll see
    Somehow, someday.
     
    You think that I can never laugh again.
    You'll see
    You think that you destroyed my faith in love
    you think after all you've done
    I'll never find my way back home
    you'll see
    somehow, someday.
     
    All by myself
    I don't need anyone at all
    I know I'll survive
    I know I'll stay alive
    All on my own
    I don't need anyone this time
    It will be mine.
     
    No one can take that from me
    You'll see
    You think that you are strong but you are weak

    You'll see
    It takes more strength to cry admit defeat
    I have truth on my side
    You only have deceit
    you'll see, somehow, someday
     
    All by myself
    I don't need anyone at all
    I know I’ll survive
    I know I'll stay alive
    I'll stand on my own
    I won't need anyone this time
    I will be mine
    No one can't take this from me
    You'll see
    You'll see
    You'll see

  • I accept.

    As I sit here on Christmas Eve, I am filled with such gratitude and peace.

     

    What a great view to see life inside out, to see life from my perspective.  I lived so long living for someone else; it is truly the most powerful thing to live life from your inner view!

     

    I get to be me, which is great, for who else could I be?

     

    What a great gift to give yourself, the gift of being you.

    Free to be yourself, always.

     

    The freedom that fills my inner world leaves me breathless.  I get to be me experiencing and responding to life as me!

     

    Eckhart Tolle suggested we face life in one of three ways.  With enjoyment, enthusiasm or acceptance.

     

    This makes life much simpler to do, especially if you are able to just wait for the present moment to arrive, open it with either enjoyment, enthusiasm or simply accept what is.

     

    How simple to not have the desire to change anything that arrives, come beggar or thief, I accept you.

     

    Homeless or rich, I accept this of you.

    Hurting or hurtful, I accept this of you.

    Loving or unloving, I accept this of you.

     

    What I love most is I know the difference, I see the opposites and I can respond in kind.

     

    Some of life I greet with joy, some with sorrow, but I greet each as they come.  I duck from nothing anymore, I accept.

     

    Perhaps all the presents under the tree are symbols to remind us that the present is all there is! 

     

    This present of now! 

     

    I accept!

     

     

     

  • I love myself enough.

    I remember hearing that family issues get magnified during the Holidays. 

     

    Yesterday it seemed to be a full frontal attack, between phone messages, facebook messages, cards and letters; I was caught off guard, again.

     

    Their cards and letters seem to come with a force of entry.

     

    They leave me feeling so misunderstood, once more an odd duck.

     

    What they see as my conditions, are merely conditions or affects of becoming functional after years of being dysfunctional.

     

    It isn’t like I am asking them to chose, but function is asking that of them, wholeness is asking that of them, and they are simply not willing to answer the call.

     

    From their point of view it seems that I made up some silly rules that are very personal and self-serving and designed to shut them out.

     

    It is my experience when recovering from dysfunctional upbringing; you can’t bring the same dysfunctional people and relationships into a new you.  You have to set up boundaries and limitations.

     

    You wouldn’t start a second marriage doing the same wrong things from the first, hopefully you have learned from your mistakes.  Made changes within and require more for yourself.

     

    My so-called conditions of leaving behind dysfunctional family members are seen, as I do so not love them ‘unconditionally’!

     

    What does unconditional mean in a relationship?

     

    What do they mean when they love without conditions or limitations on what the other can do to them?

     

    They do not see that they leave themselves wide open for continual abuse, because they do not place limitations on what can or cannot be done to them.

     

    I do now have conditions and limitations on what can and will be done to me; I am self-empowered now to do that. 

     

    My voice is loud and clear and I can now see and decide who I want to spend time with and who I don’t.

     

    Perhaps it is felt very conditional when you are the one I have placed boundaries against, that is how it should feel.  It is a protection for me.

     

    What I want most is for my siblings to see that they too have the rights for placing conditions on how others treat them. 

     

    It is a great act of Self Love.

     

    Unconditional is the get of jail free card for all abusers and ones who support abuse. 

     

    It leaves the victim feeling they have no rights to put up boundaries.  An open target, once again, vulnerable and hopeless.

     

    What you call my conditions, are the ways I stop abuse happening to me. 

     

    I love that I have the option of being with you or not.

     

    I love that I now am able to have limitations on what others can do to me.

     

    I love my self enough.

     

  • Her Wish Is Granted.

    While sorting envelopes on Saturday (my Birthday) in my hand lay another card from my mother, it lay there heavy; the weight I felt was that she continues to want something from me.

     

    I didn’t open it until on my way home, although the envelope was addressed for my whole family, inside the handwritten scrawl was just for me.

     

    “"Miss sharing life with you.  Five years have been wasted, let's not waste anymore.  Forgive my many failings as a mother and be friends.  May 2010 bring comfort love and a peaceful heart.
    Love always and forever, Mom."

    She feels she can label my last five years as wasted, perhaps for her, they were.

     

    In the past five years, I have come a million miles and have experienced and felt a million sorrows, dealt with a multitude of feelings and relationships, found my self wounded and then began little by little restructuring my life to support a healthier, happier and balanced person, I would never for a second consider my last five years a waste.

     

    To so flippantly toss aside my last five years spent sorting out a mess she helped create, as wasted, is so typical of her. 

     

    If my actions are not supporting her, they indeed are seen as wasteful.

     

    She then goes on and wants me to forgive her failings as a mother and let’s be friends. 

     

    She seems to recognize her failed attempts at being a mom and now wants to try for friendship.

     

    Isn’t that like asking an abusive spouse instead of getting a divorce, ‘let’s be friends’.

     

    To let all the hurt fall down in a pile of forgiveness and start once again, same people, same faulty behavior but a new role, let’s call this one friendship or insanity! 

     

    That is simply and totally insane, if she failed me as a mother, how in the hell can she be my friend?

     

    I for one understand and have felt each and every failure and am neither willing nor able to begin again with this woman.

     

    If you have a yard with a biting dog inside, will it help to move the dog to a new yard?

     

    So I will fail again, waste more years of her life, and not get back into a new relationship with her.

     

    I failed as a daughter of hers.

    I failed as a supporter of hers.

     

    When I fail her, I support me.

     

    “May 2010 bring comfort love and a peaceful heart” what she fails to know is I have that away from her, her wish is granted.

     

  • The Present

    “Joy is not about feeling good; it is about feeling everything.”    Michael Brown

     

    Do you realize how much there is to feel in one day, the way we ebb and flow into various states of feeling, and we are not in control of when or how this happens.

     

    From enjoying the quietness, the ticking of the clock, the tree lights, the warm tea, to the hot shower, feelings of contentment and peace. 

     

    And get geared up for a day of mail, to stepping out in the cold and feeling, let’s get started so we can be done, eager but not real enthused.

     

    Feeling the heaviness of the volume of mail knowing it will challenge your energy and concentration.

     

    To see once again her handwriting and feeling ‘what now’ again, a feeling of foreboding arises, ghosts forever sneaking into the present moment, jolting you out of work, and it lingers unaddressed.

     

    Then spotting two packages to hand deliver to a brother’s house; I feel the sense of entering into a hostile space, feelings of fear of confrontation and defense, which quickly changes to relief when the help comes and those packages disappear from my pile.

     

    As my car slips and slides and others race by I feel the precariousness of safety slipping away. Nervous feelings keep me alert and on defense.

     

    Frustrated feelings surface as I am unable to reach the boxes easily, the bulk of the warm jacket makes movement difficult, and these movements are repeated all day.

     

    Then I deliver a package and I see the visible happiness and gratitude, I feel I am of service, needed.

     

    When I am barely escaping the ditch and getting stuck I feel tension feeling every movement of the car trying to stay in the ruts and the relief to get out of their driveway and back on plowed roads.

    To open a mailbox and find a “Mail Lady” present, chocolates and I feel so appreciated.

     

    To arrive home to Happy Birthday being shouted, and them waiting eagerly with presents, smiles and excitement I am filled with warm love and gratitude.  It isn’t the presents but their presence, I feel.

     

    Feelings of hunger that slip away as we share our dinner, feelings of comfort and relaxing in his presence, to feelings of not being alone, to feelings of our many years together, the ups and downs and how we continue to want to be together, feelings upon feelings upon feelings.

     

    I am thinking our life is made up of feelings connected to feelings.  We are always feeling something or maybe trying not to feel.

     

    If we simply allow all feelings to arrive, to feel This and This and then That and This, we will be alive and aware and living in this moment again and again.

     

    It just never stays the same.  It seems I am not in one spot long enough to get comfortable and the next one comes along.

     

    And it is always a surprise or unexpected, moments of warmth that invade the chest area that work their way up to the throat, sometimes to deliver tears and kinds words, or ask favors, just be with each feeling that comes along.

     

    Even feelings that arise that I seem to instinctively want to reject arrive anyway, I feel and explore my response. 

     

    I simply have to feel them, pay attention to them and then act in a way that seems fitting for the feeling.

     

    Love that, “seems fitting for the feeling”. 

     

    Joy, I guess is finding the perfect fit!

     

    It isn’t asking us to change the feeling, but instead to feel everything, feel it, accept it, let it come into your space, for it seems always to be the uninvited guest, the present.

     

     

  • In Charge Of Me!

    What a great realization that their mess is their mess, their enlightenment is their enlightenment, their life is theirs, to put into prospective what is rightfully my own.

     

    Imagine living with a bunch of lives within you, to be so connected that their poor choice feels like your poor choice!

     

    Last night I read again from The Presence Process and the following paragraphs caught my attention.

     

    “We can discover the identity of the negative emotion beneath the charge that we are carrying by stopping habits and/or addictions.  The emotions that consequently erupt will reveal the nature and the intensity of the negative emotional charge that unconsciously drives our self-medicating behavior.  All addictions are self-medication, and all are passed on through vibrational, emotional, mental and physical imprinting.  Effectively decreasing our negative emotional charge is the only causative treatment for addiction that has any real and lasting effect.  The outer physical self-medicating habit is an effect of an inner emotional condition, so quitting our self-medicating behaviors without releasing the attached charge accomplishes nothing real.  It is ineffectual.  All that will occur is that our self-medication will be transferred from one behavior pattern to another.

     

    The extent of the negative emotional charge is what separates a person who is “in charge” of his or her life from a person who is “carrying a charge” through his or her life.  When a person enters our sphere of awareness, it is not immediately apparent whether they are in charge or carrying a charge.  However, observing their behaviors over a period of time will tell all.  Everyone who is carrying a substantial negative emotional charge will exhibit physical, mental and emotional drama sooner or later.  It will manifest automatically in their outer life experiences.  They will also have to lace their life with self-medication behaviors; they will have to establish their means of sedation and control through habits and addictions.  Society’s acceptance of alcohol and cigarettes enables us to self-medicate openly without feeling awkward about our inability to integrate our uncomfortable inner emotional condition.”

                    Michael Brown

     

    I way love how we either are In Charge or Carrying a Charge.

     

    It is my experience that I felt that it was me that ignited the charge, that I was able to send fireworks flying upon a word or deed I did.

     

    Instead it is my understanding that we walk around fully loaded, or fully in charge.

     

    It is amazing that self-medications are to keep the charge from exploding and going off, and what we need most is to get to the bottom of the charge.

     

    To explore the stockpile of explosives we are carrying around, to see what unexpressed or unfelt emotions are riding shotgun in our lives.

     

    This is so freeing to me that the explosive charge is not mine to explore in others, the only place I can have lasting peace is to express and feel all that I stored within me.

     

    I love how the more in charge you are, the less of a charge you carry.

     

    You know how it is when you feel that someone has buttons to push everywhere, that it seems you are in front of a live wire, or an explosive device but are not sure what will send it flying, now I know that it isn’t so much what I say, but what kind of inner charge they are ignoring.

     

    He gave examples of this inner fire.

    “In the heat of the moment.”

    “Hot under the collar”

    “Going to blow my top”

    “Letting off steam”

    “Losing my cool”

    “I’m in hot water now.”

     

    Isn’t it amazing how we say such wise things, but really don’t understand the totality of what we are saying!

     

    To be in charge, to face our lives without the past voltage of negative energies is a huge accomplishment, and I feel it takes going into the fire of past hurts, pains and discomforts to take the charge out of them.

     

    To express our feelings which we were unable to do back then, we get to go back and drag them up, and be with them awhile, to finally lay them to rest.

     

    Until all that is left is an empty bullet shell, an incident we fully expressed.

     

    If we don’t, we are like hidden land mines and others pay the price, our shrapnel flies everywhere injuring everyone in its wake, when they happen to say or do the wrong thing that sets us off.

     

    This gives me such comfort to know I am not in charge of your charge; I am only in charge of me!

     

  • Happy Birthday To Me!

    Michael Brown writes about joy;  “In ‘time’ we confuse joy with the outer changing experience of happiness, and we confuse creativity with the outer busy-ness of making or accumulating ‘stuff’.  Yet joy is not about feeling good; it’s about feeling everything.  Creativity is not about rearranging the content of the physical world to make life easier or more convenient for us; it is about embracing it all as the raw materials intended to assist us to realize our highest potential.”

     

    As I sit at the end of this day, on the eve of my 51st Birthday, I am feeling the sharp edge, the brutally clear view of never.

     

    My family will never be the family I strived to have, my love for them changes nothing, nor does taking it away.

     

    It seems love should have some power, some magic to transform ugliness to pretty images.

     

    The marbles in my hand turn to stone.

     

    Like backwards magic changing my inner desires into shattered dreams.

     

    In my throat I feel the thirst to save, turn to tears of knowing, it is not up to me.

     

    I guess I had grand pictures of us all being transformed into beautiful innocent children dancing in the field of pure potential, greater and more courageous for having walked through the ring of fire, tempered into courageous works of Art. 

     

    A family of misfits who had the courage to embrace and own their darkness until they shown with enlightened awareness, bright.

     

    No part of my body will hold on to hope, there is not a place to hold it. 

     

    I feel the ending in every part of my being, my stomach feels relief and opens softly in a sigh, and rest is at hand, finally. 

     

    The clench of responsibility seems to be dissolving and the restlessness of doing ‘something’ quiets.

     

    Even my arms are quiet, still and without tension.

     

    My mind and head feel less hard and intense no more searching for the right words to say, my head can be my own.

     

    It is like a huge parasite has left me alone, or the strings of the puppet fell free.

     

    One part of me feels the hollow container where a family should reside and the other side feels the breeze of freedom.

     

    My weary body is in repose, at last.

    My heart beats in sorrow and in relief, letting go and reaching to life being free.

     

    The separation feels complete….

    I feel like someone I have never met.

    My insides are new to me.

     

    How synchronistic that tomorrow is my birthday.

     

    Happy Birthday To Me!

     

  • You Can Walk Alone.

    I saw a glimpse of myself yesterday, a reluctant woman standing there, unable or even having the desire to walk away.

     

    The game is over, the race is completed, the field is empty, it is all over and I am still standing there like there is more to come. 

     

    Looking for more, unwilling to see the end of the parade or the final fireworks, hoping for something, waiting unfulfilled.

     

    Unfulfilled with reality and waiting upon its completion to serve me my expectations, I sit and I wait.

     

    Inside I am left with the feeling of being letdown, again, disappointed and sad and the feelings of profound loneliness and grief arise and the finality of never.

     

    If never arises then all hope has to die, if all hope dies then I have to own never.

     

    Never is such a barren place it reaches far beyond the stars, its hollow silent sounds echo inside of me.

     

    Never means the game is over.

     

    What happens if the game is over, finished, complete?

     

    It seems like in order to move on, I have to own that I did what I could and now it is fruitless to continue to sit waiting.

     

    At some point you have to know when to say when.

     

    This all goes back to my being responsible, for me being the one in charge, in control of saving or helping or doing something for my siblings. 

     

    Something, anything, but to get up and walk away!

     

    Even if I haven’t been in their presence for many years, it was my hope that they would read my words, and use them as a guide,

    that I was writing many signposts along this journey, for them.

     

    I wrote for myself sure, but one eye was always on how they too could use what I said as guide.

     

    I guess it gave me a sense I was still helping and being responsible, somehow I still needed that.

     

    Below is what I read last night in The Presence Process, and it seems to explain to me, me.

     

    “Many of us in this world appear to be helpful, but when it comes to the necessary ability of knowing how to nurture ourselves, we discover that we are at a loss.  We also realize that we tend to feel a deep sense of guilt whenever we attempt to do anything real and loving for ourselves.  This is because it is only our unconscious sense of helplessness and neediness that drives us to sacrifice ourselves in the name of helping others. The behavior of running around and trying to help everyone to our own detriment is always fueled by the reflection we see of our own helpless plight mirrored in the world around us.  We cannot give away what we do not have, so only when we have learned how to truly nurture and unconditionally love ourselves do we develop the propensity for authentic service. Unless we consciously step into present moment and own our life, our ability to be truly of assistance in this world will remain shallow and ineffectual.”

     

    How sad that I was trying to nurture and care for them, while sacrificing myself.

     

    How sad that I was given the task at such a small age to take care of and nurture so many lost children, while being a lost child myself.

    One lost child taking care of so many other hurting lost children.

     

    It seems that I am forever falling short of the mark, and that all my nurturing and caring is for naught.

     

    Suffering children everywhere.

     

    Unless and until I can nurture myself, guide myself and find my innocence, I will be unable to nurture another.

     

    Mostly what I tried to do was both.  I was unable to let the hurting children hurt while I walked away to heal my own wounds.

     

    And sadly, not one of the hurting children are asking for me to help them, or to nurture them, lead, guide, teach, talk, speak, or be with any one of them.

     

    I had taken it upon myself to view them as hurting as I am hurting, view them as suffering as I am suffering, see them through my pain.

    Perhaps even take on their pain as mine.

     

    To stop the pain, the discomfort and the knowing that there is no mother coming, no father taking care, I will stand in front of and protect them from knowing and feeling.

     

    Feeling so alone, hopeless, helpless and uncared for.

     

    Yet this whole blog has been about the failure of our parents to parent, the affects of being abused, the pain and confusion of growing up in a home so twisted.

     

    Maybe the guilt comes from letting down that façade I tried to build for them, by now revealing what is.

     

    Somehow inside of me, I felt like I was the buffer of it all, that I could hold some of the pain back, and take on the burden by lessening their load, while my own load wobbled carelessly in the balance.

     

    I somehow feel like a failure not being able to present them with a family.  Like somehow I failed to give them what they needed the most, and in the end I let us all down.

     

    I had built up an inside expectation perhaps, that if I could save but one child, it would all be worth it, I just never knew I was only saving myself.

     

    It seems so selfish and so wrong to simply save yourself.

     

    To make moves to take your self away from abuse, while leaving the rest behind.

     

    My mind has a hard time seeing the difference between the cold mother and me.

     

    Yet inside I feel that my little girl is in a better place today, and that I have nurtured her and have guided her as a parent who

    loves unconditionally.

     

    I have loved her broken and twisted state, and have been with her as she stumbled forward without a map to follow, unsteady and unsure.

     

    I have watched her walk on and away from the only love and family she ever knew, to rebuild and grow.

     

    She did not walk alone.  One brother set out on the same path, together leaning upon each other, they moved forward, leaving behind many, two broken souls on a journey to becoming whole.

     

    I had said this Blog is the longest good-bye, and perhaps it is.  I couldn’t just walk away uncaring, I had to leave words, even if they are just for me.  The book I wished I had.

     

    Good-Bye is final, I could not carry you then and now, I leave you where I first picked you up, broken and twisted.  I am sorry, I have to put you down so you can walk alone. 

     

  • To What End?

    Between going back in my blog and reading Martha Beck’s book, “Leaving the Saints,” I see how it always falls into just two sides.

     

    It seems very cut and dried, just two people and their view of the same exact event, failing to agree. 

     

    What if the event is between father and daughter in abuse?

     

    Martha Beck met with her 90-year-old father after a ten-year estrangement and shares this.

     

    “Well, see, Dad,” I say carefully, “I find your reaction to the scar thing kind of strange.”  I notice his eyes widening a little, perhaps because I’m openly disagreeing with him, perhaps because I called him dad.  This suddenly feels right.  It feels like rebellion.  It’s the harshest, most disrespectful word I’ve ever deliberately said to him.

     

    “If one of my daughter’s turned up with a lot of weird scars,” I go on, enjoying the giddy reckless feeling of saying what I actually think, “I wouldn’t just blame the Evil One, and drop the subject.  I would want to know what happened to her.”

     

    “Nothing happened.” My father’s voice carries a ring of absolute assurance, absolute finality, that has made him a safe haven for so many Mormons whose faith is getting a little wobbly. The debate is resolved, the balcony is closed, the fat lady has sung, the last dog is hung, that is all she wrote.

     

    This dead-certain tone is characteristic of many deeply religious folk, but Mormons are trained to use it about as thoroughly as any group of people I’ve ever known.  As soon as they can talk, Mormon toddlers are held up to microphones in church meetings, lisping to hundreds of onlookers the words their parents whisper in their ears; “I know the Church is true.  I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.  I know our president is God’s prophet on the earth.  I know these things without a shadow of doubt.”

     

    Mormons tend to know a whopping lot of stuff beyond a shadow of doubt.  I envy them.  My whole life is shadowed by doubt.  The only conviction I embrace is this; whatever I believe, I may be wrong.

     

    For a moment, looking at the stern pioneer conviction on my father’s handsome face, I’m so disoriented that I feel my brain twirling even faster – not in agreement but in familiar hopelessness, in the sickening conviction that no one will ever take my word over his.  Everything seems to slither right off the hard drive in my head.  “He’s right:” People underestimate the capacity for things to disappear.  At the moment, I can’t even remember the chain of events that took me out of Mormonism, that have made me “a hiss and a byword” not only to my father, not only to my family, but to an entire religion.

     

    Then I remember Miranda and Diane, just a few feet away and my vision seems to clear.  The whole thing comes back to me, the journey that has taken me out of religion and into faith.  I recall its horror and beauty, the enormity of things I have lost and the incalculable preciousness of the things I’ve gained.  I wouldn’t give up the journey, not a moment of it.  On the other hand, I have no desire to live it again.  If Santayana is right, this means I must be willing to remember the whole story.  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and force myself to go back to the beginning.

                 Martha Beck

    Her and I share a common story, being abused by our fathers and having to deal with religious overtones, is like attacking two sacred cows at once.

     

    The Dead-Certain Tone is how my mother speaks and her certainty is beyond the shadow of doubt and leaves no opening for another’s view. 

     

    My father said more than once, “I don’t remember” or “whatever they said I did.”  He never once brought forth remorsefully his own personal responsibility in the ‘event’ of child abuse.

     

    Yet as adult children of this ‘event’, what we want most is for there to be an agreement towards the ‘event’, not even so much as who is to blame, but that the actual ‘event’ really happened.

     

    She had scars, literally physical scars to her bottom from her ‘event’ and he still, at 90 years old says, “Nothing happened.”

     

    Neither side is willing to recant.

    To retreat, to surrender, you stand at an impasse.

     

    Can a relationship be found on the island of impasse?

    Is this where you are supposed to agree to disagree?

    To each respectfully bow to the others point of view?

     

    I feel huge amounts of angst in the frustration to face such a figure, to bare your wounds in a show and tell, and have them dismissed in a dead certain tone.

     

    A lone voice against loud chatter of canned responses, where it seems we are not even granted access to the man behind the tone, the woman behind the religious front, we stand outside and alone, shunned and our words falling on deaf ears, two sides so horribly off balanced.

     

    We finally have the courage and the words and we shakily stand, heart and soul in hand, pleading for them to see us.

     

    Our family stands Dead tone certain against us, like a cold front bringing in bone chilling truths.

     

    To feel the cold, to experience the dead certain tones spoken without compassion or empathy, freezes something within you, covers with ice, the coldness of their lack of response.

     

    Death to a relationship, dead it now stands.

     

    It wasn’t the ‘event’ that killed the relationship, but the cold dead tone after it.

     

    What I feel most from them is cold, bone chilling cold, remorseless, dead certain tones, that I am wrong.

     

    I feel the tiredness and hopelessness.

    I feel the artic blast towards me freezing me out of that family while they will state in dead certain tones I left!

     

    I left?! 

     

    I left and am now writing in a blog about it, but to what end?