I M Perfect lady

Tag: truths

  • I write so I can listen.

    In the Little White church on Finlandia’s campus a poet spoke, his words didn’t rhyme but instead they took us on mini tours into the complex moments on his personal journey. (Randy Freisinger)

    He described his style as narrative and was introduced as an accessible poet, and it didn’t seem it required nothing of us.

    All we had to do was sit back and listen to his tales of youthful freedoms turning naiveté into knowing or be an eavesdropper watching life speed out of control, to the silent wisdom of aging it’s secret never told, into viewing prejudice from where we were grown.

    These wonderful narratives were well written and easy to follow and I guess accessible, but what he didn’t tell us is that we would either feel an affinity with his desire to know or the screaming fear of not wanting to go where he’s been.

    It is one thing to be a silent observer into another’s life, but do you have the courage to openly and loudly explore your own?

    Can you tell a narrative of your life, the troubled spots and not just give us details of the sunny days?

    Will you give to me the places that brought you to your knees and then how you managed to stand back up?

    How deep does your narrative go?

    How much of yourself do you know?

    I felt affirmed as I listened to him.

    I understood that writing doesn’t rhyme in my narrative either, it has its own unique style and it’s own individual way of speaking to me. I write and I listen, I ask and am told.

    I have an intimate relationship with writing and I believe that it trusts me as well, that I will write what needs to be written and I will tell my tale no matter how uncomfortable or scared I am, I will put words to paper and my truths will be known.

    Writing has been my most honest friend; it has given me the courage to face what I didn’t want to face, to speak the unspeakable and to know more than I needed to know.

    It is the oddest thing; it brings me where I don’t want to go yet I am eager to arrive. It tells me things I don’t want to hear yet I am an eager listener.

    I left that little church once again knowing that I am a writer, that I have a narrative to tell.

    I write so I can listen.

  • I am Way beyond Okay!

    I often wondered if my clarity was clear enough, if my love was loving enough, if my wisdom was wise enough, if I had healed enough to be in a relationship where I didn’t contaminate the other with my old dysfunctional love.

    And in the past few days, I have been given the opportunity to see and feel the affects of who I am and where I was and how much I have changed.

    The greatest gift I have to offer my daughter who was abused by this man, is to see her bathed in a sea of Innocence so bright it hurts your eyes.

    We had a visit her and I last night, and she tried very hard to get me to see her in a new light, a dimmer light, a dark, guilty blaming shaming light, I simply could not go there.

    I tried. I listened and I followed the trail she walked, I looked around and there was no shame, blame or guilt that I could see.

    We even tried role reversal where I could be her and she could be me, and still nothing changed within me, instead she even appeared more innocent.

    She asked if I would speak to “the Man” and I said I wasn’t really interested, I only cared to speak to her.

    She wanted me to see how she carried half of the weight of this encounter, I just couldn’t reach that same percentage, damn, she always came up short.

    I tried.

    I tried to see her as clear as possible and I tried to see her through her own eyes, and still I came up short.

    The scales were simply unbalanced.

    He was married, she was not.
    He had children, she did not.
    He has experience with relationships with the opposite sex, she did not.
    He was her boss and her elder, she was not.

    So we then tried to see if they matched equally in what they each brought to this new friendship.

    She brought a past reputation of killing one chicken when she was near 5 years old when she accidentally dropped a water container on a little chick and he died. And she had written a letter of apology to her father stating her truth and how sorry she was.

    She also had stolen a cookie and ate it. A cookie that was for a bake sale, she took and didn’t pay for it. This had her crying uncontrollably on the top bunk she still sleeps on. Those were the two blackest marks on her reputation that we could find.

    She said she wasn’t perfect, that she has other things she has done. I said great, give me what you have so we can balance this scale.

    I asked if she had a husband I didn’t know about.
    Nope, none.

    I asked if she had a few kids off to the side somewhere, and nope that wasn’t true.

    I asked if she had experience with men that I was unaware of, and nope she had none.

    We searched her and I for things to put on the scale to make it more even, so she could carry equal weight, for this to not be so lopsided, and nothing could we drag up besides one dead chick and a stolen cookie.

    It just seemed incredible that one young lady of 20 years old had so little to add.

    I told her I would give her a few points for each.

    And now lets look at what He brought.

    She said we didn’t need to do that.

    We didn’t.

    What is so strikingly stunning is in this case, there literally is a girl with the past of one accidentally killed chick and one ‘stolen’ cookie standing up against a man who cheated on his wife, who single handedly change her from a chicken killing thief to being seen by our little community into a soiled dove.

    A dove whose wings were clipped before she even had a chance to use them.

    Her Lilly white reputation is laying on the ground in a dirty mess; she simply did not have the experience to match this man.

    Nothing in her past prepared her for this.

    She unwittingly followed where he led.

    It is an unknown as to what would have happened if the wife didn’t find the text he sent to my daughter, asking her if she could talk.
    How far would he have gone?
    How far would she have followed?

    I am so grateful it was stopped when it was.

    That now, added to the list of chicken killing cookie thief, we have a girl who listened to a married man.

    She listened with compassion, with kindness, with trust, while going against what her inside told her.

    And when it was discovered that they were caught, she literally faced the wife, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, woman-to-girl, and said how sorry she was, how she felt, and owned up to her part.

    What more could a mother ask for?

    She faced in truth and felt the weight of her actions and admitted her part, fully owing that and more.

    Being so forthright, so bold to stand in the truth makes her a very poor ‘other woman’.

    In her innocence, she felt that by meeting them with openness and admitting her part, that perhaps, they would give her the same courtesy, it was denied.

    She didn’t get back once again, what she gave to them.

    Instead the wife threw the first ball to smear her reputation, the first glob of mud landed within the hour of my daughter leaving her home.

    Ugly accusations were posted on her facebook wall.

    No matter how kind, how loving, how remorseful, how sorry, how caring, how trusting she is, they fail to see it, and instead of just the husband soiling her, now the wife has joined his team.

    My little girl wanted me to speak to him…oh honey, I have nothing to say to him.

    Silence is the only kindness I can offer.

    My ears are for her.
    My eyes for her.
    My hand for her.

    All I have to give is for her.

    There is no part of me that is interested in what he has to say, what he wants to show me…nothing.

    I will stand with innocence.
    I will walk with my daughter, head held high while they lob dirt upon us, while they label us, and shout unkind things behind our backs, I will continue to walk forward.

    I have no time to give for the reasons they are doing these unkind things, it matters not.

    The only thing that matters in all of this is her.

    Oh, the easy job I have, to be with her innocence.
    How wonderful it is to sit with her and share this spot.

    It matters not rats ass, what ‘others’ say about her, no one can change my mind, weaken my stance, shake my firm ground, I know who my daughter is.

    She is a chicken killing, cookie stealing girl who listened and followed a married man as he walked her down the trail away from her innocent self.

    She has two choices to pick from, a life with him or one without.

    We can’t make the choices for her, all we can do is sit back and let her decide, which home, his or ours makes her feel her brightest.

    Which man in her life, her father or this man make her feel special and loved?

    Which woman, his wife or I, honor her truth?

    The choice seems simple on my side, but I understand how you can get flipped upside down and backwards in abuse.

    So, I am here to be her clarity as my wise brother suggested I do.

    I will listen as she struggles in finding her balance again.

    She knows what she lost inside, she knows she has work to do to get it back, and she has the perfect environment to do this.

    I no longer question my clarity, my wisdom or my love.

    I am way beyond okay!

  • Supporting only what exists.

    Yesterday I was left with the line, “believing in something that doesn’t exist,” and it showed me the other person in the lie.

    We tend to blame the liars, but fail to point out the person who is holding it up, who is believing it, and in doing so denying the truth as well.

    I can now see the liar and the lie holder and the lie.

    It takes more than one to lie.

    The lie is a cover-up to a truth that came in that will shatter the relationship.

    Usually the one bringing in the lie is the one that has damaged the relationship.

    The one holding up the lie wants the relationship more than the truth so she will willingly carry what ever needs to be carried in order to save a relationship.

    Isn’t it funny how we become lie carriers, how we carry the lie further for the sake of a relationship.

    She is the disaster team coming in and saving the day. Little does she know all she is saving is the lie.

    All her work from that day forward is to maintain the lie.

    Her main focus is to keep the lie alive, hence believing in something that doesn’t exist.

    I can see how my mother began this game and then eventually include us, how we too learned it was more important to have relationships than seeing truth in behaviors.

    We too believed in something that didn’t exist.

    What is so tragic to me is that we can live a lifetime lost in lies.

    That we will deny our feelings, what our bodies are saying, how we are feeling all to keep a lie alive.

    Six years ago I felt that my pretend to pretend button broke, that I lost the ability to go along with the lies, that something changed, I could not knowingly support lies.

    What is so odd is that when you are born into a family of pretenders, pretending is a way of life, we rarely if ever speak our truth or we have to do so on the side and in hiding.

    Speaking about them behind their backs, saying the truths secretly.

    I am not sure where social niceties begin and lying starts, but the lines get kind of fuzzy.

    I heard Oprah speak to a man on stage stating, “go ahead speak your truth it will open the door for others to do the same.”

    Isn’t it odd that we rarely see someone stand exposing their truths, but rather we live outwardly pretending a life based on lies?

    This double life is what screws with people’s heads and the cause of much disease.

    My body feels so at peace now and when it isn’t I look at what I am lying about.

    What am I pretending?

    Where am I outside of reality?

    Am I the liar or am I believing in a lie.

    Getting my life back from the pretend world hasn’t been easy, I lost a lot of pretend relationships that I loved and supported, but in doing so I began a new relationship with myself.

    Supporting only what exists.

  • Choices we make.

    What I want to know is do we all have the same choices and the same mechanism that selects them?

    Is it possible that some of us have choices while others do not?

    What makes some of us change our choices and others continue selecting the same ones over and over like ordering the same thing from the menu of life?

    Is there a moment in time when all the choices we have been selecting seem distasteful and we then meander to another part of the menu?

    What happens to us inside that creates the desire for something new?

    Something changes inside of us, something happens to the mechanism that chooses.

    Looking back with 20/20 vision, I can see how a new truth landed inside of me, demolishing my old choice maker.

    All my old choices seemed useless, inauthentic and utterly distasteful.

    Those choices created an illusion that deflected reality.
    In order to walk hand in hand with the truth of reality I had to change all my choices.

    So, was it that choices were limited before or was the truth limited?

    Was my mechanism broken or designed to create illusion?

    Is it possible that we choose based upon our level of awareness, that the choices are always there, we just are unaware?

    All I can know is that my choices are just as limited now, for I feel akin to sticking with my truths, to being authentic with my feelings, to aligning myself with reality.

    My old options are still available but I have lost the taste for them.

    Guess at the end of the day we all make choices based upon what we know, what we feel and our own inner truths.

    It isn’t that the choices are limited; it is that we limit our choices.

    And each of our lives is reflected of the choices we make.

  • Cover Your Truth.

    The phrase, “The Elephant in the Room” what does that really mean and how is it used properly?

    Have we been taught to not speak about things that are there, due to the reaction they bring?

    What are Elephants in a room?
    What is that?

    Is it a truth that is too much to bear?

    It seems to me that IF all know the Elephant is there and will not speak of it; we are all playing a game called, ‘lets pretend’.

    And ironically, it isn’t the Elephant we are pretending about but ourselves.

    A silent unspoken agreement that states, I will pretend to like you when I know you do things I don’t agree with, if you pretend to like me for pretending to like you.

    It seems to me that allowing an Elephant/truth to sit unspoken about is to pretend to pretend to pretend that there is a common ground that slipped away with the truth.

    And in order to maintain this false relationship, the Elephant/truth must not be mentioned, we skip around the mountain, and reach the summit of social niceties.

    We then form a new relationship that requires us to not go near the Elephant or truth.

    So what are we really preserving by being so courteous?

    Isn’t it just an old relationship minus the new and changing truths?

    This Elephant in the room that no one speaks about or entertains, to me is just dancing in denial with another.

    Being in a relationship that dishonors both.

    If truth isn’t allowed into a relationship, then I have no interest there.

    I am almost positive that the Elephant that arrived in the room with my father is he is a pedophile. If many adults in my youth had spoken of this Elephant, perhaps a few little girls would have been saved.

    It isn’t so much about the Elephant, but the ones who sit silently and allow it to be there.

    Elephants don’t disappear, don’t change, aren’t healed or treated in silence, nope, instead they continue to live out their sickness in full living color, while many courteously look on, being much to kind to speak of such ills about another person, to kind, to much into the social niceties, preserving a family, saving a father, sparing a brother, keeping sweet, that which isn’t.

    An Elephant in the room is showing you what is wrong and you will either see it and respond or look away.

    Pretending there is no Elephant is denial.

    And denial doesn’t heal, cure, erase, etc to the Elephant, it says much more about you than them.

    They are being their true selves; you are not willing to see it.

    You want to preserve a relationship of old, like good memories, and not willing to be present with who they are today, for it will crack, shatter, and explode the person you need them to be.

    At some point in time, it will be harder and harder to be in a room with an Elephant, it will simply cost you too much.

    My silence is not for sale, it cannot be used to cover your truth.

  • Inconvenient Truth

    Just finished reading “Sickened” by Julie Gregory, her story of living with a mother who needed her sick, Munchausen By Proxy.

     

    It is amazing that her mother could convince her she was sick, and to ‘act’ sick, and how her mother’s state depended upon her behavior.  And how she never knew this wasn’t her real self, that this was a self that her mother needed.

     

    She writes, “Truth is whatever your mind believes.  And beliefs are erected by those who raise us.  If someone shapes your mind into a distortion, you have to find something that can give you a straight answer.”

     

    She tried to tell her dad about the abuse, but he didn’t fully grasp the immense totality of it all…she goes on to say.

     

    “After that day with Dad, I knew that nobody could give me straight answers but me.  I used mirrors to step back and forth between trips out into the real world, trips back into the swirling black hole of my family, trips to new adventures outside the bubble, seeing how long I could walk away from the mirror before the old thoughts submerged the fresh ones.  Sometimes I’d only get to the kitchen or down a few steps of the porch.  Sometimes, I could make it a half-day before I’d have to rush back to see myself…

     

    With my freshly wired instincts, I inch farther and farther out of my incubator.  I stay longer in the real world and run back with less frenzy when waves begin crashing.  When I do slip under, I whip out a pen and write myself back to the surface, using whatever material I can snatch to capture the barrage; bar napkins, toilet paper, airline barf bags, my bare leg.  I scribble my thoughts; tweak them with words from my new vocabulary.  It talk myself out of paranoia and coax myself from ledges. I fill volumes of journal books with these moments; packed with crowed text, both sides scribbled and stuffed with snippets of paper smeary inked paper towels, feverishly written.

     

    My life now in triplicate: One life in the mirror, one in the world, and one balancing the two as oceans which must wax and wane in tandem until one replaces the other.” Julie Gregory

     

    She is right that your life is lived in triplicate until you can finally live fully in your truth.

     

    How you find yourself in a very awkward stance, knowing your past is incorrect, but not fully knowing what is, and then being the one to resurrect a you that you have never known.  How you have to go against all who stood with you in the secret.

     

    She writes about her younger brother.  “His memory, as mine once did, as opted for the starrier picture.  It was just last year, when Danny was twenty-four, that the only thing he wanted for Christmas was a tape of Mom’s singing, one of the few good things strained from our life with her.

     

    He still needs a mom and dad.  His psyche has draped sharp edges of detail in a thick drop cloth as he keeps his past at bay with workaholism and asthma attacks that coincide with Mom’s random phone calls to him…”

     

    It is like a curtain that shields the truth, a blind area where the parents are concerned, something that stops the truth from penetrating their worlds and upending their apple cart of loving parents, or at least ones that ‘tried their best’.

     

    To me it is facing the inconvenient truth.

     

     

     

     

  • That is not buried.

    “If you were to die today, who would be buried? The person you are or the person you are trying to become?”

     

    This question was asked to me by my sister.

     

    My response was, “me”.

     

    When I went back to get it for this blog, I re-read it and it is even more profound.

     

    I am not trying to become someone, but rather I am trying to undo the parts of me that are not true.

     

    I am becoming more and more myself and less and less false.

     

    If I were to die today I would die knowing that I was working like hell up against the fury and discontent of family and friends, to become me.

     

    Just me.  Not trying to be someone else, just me.

     

    I lived for 46 years in lies, both inside and out.

     

    I lied each time I was silent and didn’t stand-up and against ideals and beliefs that I didn’t feel were right.

     

    I lied to others and myself, there was little of the real me in any relationship I had.  I was raised on lies, so I was more lies than reality.  I could only be what was put into me, lies.

     

    If I had died 5 ½ years ago, they would have buried a girl who had no idea of who she was, what brought her joy, what freedom meant, I would have died lost in dysfunction, a girl of lies.

     

    My life would have been all for naught.

     

    Today, if I were to die, I would die knowing who I am, what I stand for, my truths, my errors, my wounds, what heals me, what brings me peace, my passion.  I would die knowing me.

     

    I feel so blessed to know who I am, to know all the dark corners and the bright spaces, to have freedom and joy, peace and love, all within myself.

     

    I will die and they will bury me.  Not someone I am trying to be, for what I am trying to be, is Me.

     

    Yet that Me, is my Soul and Spirit….the only part that is not buried.

     

    IMG_3197

  • Our weakest link.

    I have known that I am different, that I am out there and even thought to be mental, and indeed I am thinking that they are quite right.

     

    When you see someone who is ‘mentally challenged’ ever notice how they don’t seem to pick up on the niceties of life, how subtleness seems to elude them, that they can’t help but blurt out things that are considered improper.

     

    I am one of them.

     

    Consider me mentally challenged.

     

    I recall trying to distract my children when they were young and they wanted to utter words that I considered inappropriate, truthful things that we thought best to keep quiet.

     

    Now the tables have turned and I notice them trying to distract me, or change the subject.

     

    I am not certain if they think my silence will stop the truth from shining through or if they are not ready and willing to hear that which I am saying or are they trying to protect those I am speaking of.

     

    It has been small things, not really important things, but nonetheless, funny to be on the end of being the one who is shushed.

     

    At times I do feel like the precocious child, the one who is curious and trying to put all the pieces together, the one forever asking ‘why’ or ‘how come’, never satisfied with the flimsy replies and the tidy brush offs.

     

    Brushing away reality and replacing it with this overlay of ‘grownup’ speak.

     

    Speak that has little to do with truthful actions and more into painting a perfect picture.

     

    I feel like I am always the one who spots the cat in the matrix, the one puzzle piece that doesn’t fit right. 

     

    If there is something out of place or not quite right it immediately falls out of my mouth.

     

    I am happy to fill you in on the wrongfulness, or discovery, but more and more I am finding that exposing this treasure is not what most want.

     

    Me uprooting faults is not a welcome thing.

    I recall reading that in India, they were taught to share with you things that were your weakness so you could become better, in the West it seems we help you cover them up.

     

    And in doing so, you remain weak.

     

    We are only as strong as our weakest link.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Will they walk on by, again.

    My brother and I began our blogs together on Easter Sunday, just a few months back.

     

    Immediately it grew into a space that became sacred.  It held our secrets, our truths and our fears with respect and dignity. 

     

    Our words lie here innocently, linked together, holding each other, intertwined together wrapping themselves with emotions of fear, love, triumph and failure, tangled with questions and mental thoughts, messy and unwinding until breaking free in understanding.

     

    I knew it wasn’t a locked place, or one that wasn’t open to anyone’s eyes, in fact I thought perhaps just one person could better understand themselves by reading about me, yet open means anyone can wander in.

     

    Yesterday my brother shares with me, he sent one of my sisters to his blog.  In his blog, and my blog is mentioned, so in fact he shared ‘our’ blogs with her.

     

    He opened the door of our sacred place, beckoning them inside to gaze about, into the rooms of our souls.

     

    Part of me welcomes them in, and a bigger part of me has me ducking in the back, hoping they come and leave quickly.

     

    My last encounter with this sister, was a four-page letter she wrote to me, dated February 19, 2007. 

     

    In the letter she accurately states that it had been 5 years since we seen each other and two since we had spoken.  We can now add another 2 ½ years to those numbers. 

     

    She is finally breaking her silence to pretty much tell me off.  “I was quiet long enough.  You have had many opportunities to inflict your pain on others and I HAVE HAD ENOUGH,” she writes.

     

    She sees me as the one inflicting pain.  Her screams come through the pages, the direct hits are slaps and her defense is for the rest of the family.

     

    Granted this letter was written two and a half years ago, so time could have softened her stance against me, yet what I recall most of that letter was the volume of anger, the intense hatred towards me and the loving defense for my father and mother.

     

    This is why most children never speak of the crimes against them.  I became a bigger monster than he!

     

    In this letter she claims she is not in denial for she has my father in her home. (below is an excerpt)

     

      “I have dealt with his probation officer and counselor.  He resides in my home.  He leaves the yard 4 times a month; his name/picture and my address are on the offenders list for protection of ALL others.  My son knows the truth, and my husband knows the truth, as well as his family and my friends.  DO NOT EVER dare say that I am in denial.  I care for him DESPITE all the horrific offenses he has committed in his lifetime.  He will die with me and you NEVER have to see him again.  I chose to forgive for MY SAKE and yet you judge…….What accountability do you take as a daughter?  How come you didn’t know the truth?  Why as one of the oldest did you not protect us?  Why JUST blame mom?  Why when I told you all about my friend did you not tell me she was right?  Why would you want me to continue to be a victim all those years of carrying that pain?  Who are you to tell mom that everything she did/gave in her life was “nothing”?  Sister, if you can truthfully answer all of these questions than you and I would have something to talk about. 

    I am NOT blaming you for anything but the constant drive to tear our family down and apart.  I know that we are not perfect and that we ALL have dysfunctions and so do all other families.  What point are you making that we don’t already know?  Who are you to say what is right or wrong for others?  You have every right to disagree, but why the toxic/hateful approach?  You ACTUALLY believe that not acknowledging our family makes you a BIGGER person?

    If our brother is really suicidal and you are the CLOSEST person to him, why can’t you help him?  Why can’t you heal the wounds of others if you have the knowledge to do so?  Why are you so determined to persuade others of your rightness…….

     

    And so the letter goes.

     

    So how do I welcome her in?  Who is she today?  What changes have occurred in her life, is she the same? 

     

    I do know that she and my mother are still in a relationship, for my mother’s last return address came from her town. 

     

    Isn’t it odd that I just write about denial and in pops my sister?  She believes that loving, dealing and being with a pedophile is not denial.  She calls that love and forgiveness.

     

    It almost seems absurd to not see what she is doing wrong, yet it is near impossible.

     

    I am blamed for tearing down and apart our family, and for not protecting the children that came behind me.  I am to blame.

     

    I am to blame for it all.

     

    Isn’t it wild how easy it is to blame the wrong one.

     

    The child gets blame, shamed and guilt for all things.

     

    Did she write her father a letter blaming him for destroying the lives of many?  Did she write her mother a letter blaming her for being in denial?  Did she?

     

    Instead I felt like I was the whipping pole that all used for the cause of our families troubles.  I was the cause, the problem and the reason, just me.

     

    And now she will walk into the blog and read my view?  Will she see it as excuses, flimsy reasons, delusional mutterings, and mental ramblings of a crazy sister?

     

    The juxtaposition between the two of us is incredible.

    If I had to have someone from the ‘other side’ read my blog, it would be her. 

     

    Imagine that she feels victimized by me, that I have inflicted my pain on others.

     

    My pain literally did affect others, my pain did drive me to take the stand I took, my pain did lead me away from a family of my childhood, my pain was the impetus in all my actions! 

     

    My pain in my early years blinded me, and for that reason alone, I was unable to stop a monster.

     

    She blames me for no action in the past and then the actions of today.  There is no winning spot with her.

     

    She is the voice of that side, the anger of that side, she is the one who labeled what I felt from them.

     

    Their energy wasn’t warm, it wasn’t fuzzy and there was no sign of understanding, empathy or caring.

     

    If they can’t see me, they can’t see one other little girl who was molested by him.  Maybe their denial is in whether they can see the damaged girl.

     

    Will my blog open eyes, will it shatter the denial of me, what will the response be.

     

    I am almost flinching from the second blow to come, to feel once again the rage and hatred to me.  Will it hurt as much this time?  Will I be stronger and better equipped?  What will this stir up? 

     

    Maybe a greater part of me fears they will not read.

    They will not bother.  Will that hurt more?

    My soul lays open, will they walk on by, again.