Who Am I Now That Everything Is Gone
The wind is hollowing outside. I feel like a tree in the Fall that has lost all of its leaves and stands naked and cold, preparing for Winter. The snow and cold will be here soon in Upstate New York and I'm grateful I'm not being made homeless again. For the time being I'm okay, but my circumstances financially are not good. The last three years were a series of traumas, shocks and downright destruction of just about everything I had. Which was pretty substantial for this little welfare girl who dreamed of being an Artist.
I sit writing from a small room in my mom's garage. I feel like a fugitive—abandoned, forsaken, left to die. My entire life and what I knew swept away like the natural disasters I have seen on TV. People talk of everything gone after fire, flood or other natural disasters. In my case, it wasn't a natural disaster, but a planned, organized demolition—devastating nonetheless. I read Thoreau and check out YouTube videos of tiny houses. I'm trying to become more of a minimalist even though I had already been living a pretty simple life before. Some days this all works and other days I feel like I'm in hell wondering what happened. How did I get here? What fork in the road did I fail to see? When I had done so much right, how did I take such a horrible turn and get so lost along the way–what had happened to my life? How did so much darkness get in?
I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself. The last three years have taken their toll. I feel I have aged twenty years in three. I know that was the whole point. So many pieces of the puzzle coming together. A nightmare you wake up from and try to remember—only in this case it was all real. I haven't worked out in so long. I miss running, being fit and eating healthy. I miss cooking. I miss my beloved dog. I have lost so much that all day I'm reminded of what is gone now. It's extremely painful. Just when all my hard work came together it was brutally destroyed. Just when it was time to enjoy all the success, I was told that it was not going to go that way. In a sinister manner that would become routine, I learned that nothing was what it seemed.
The words don't flow as easy and I haven't really been writing. I miss my writing. I miss my art, my painting, my books. I miss the "me" that I was, but mostly I have been trying to survive. Nothing was what it seemed–I know that now. In some ways I have survived the worst of it and in others I have had to let go of so much that I float along some days wondering when I can put something together again. I keep waiting for parts of my life to fit again. The pieces use to fit like a nice puzzle I had worked on for so long, but so many pieces are missing, damaged or outright destroyed that I know I need a whole new one.
Reading about death of the ego I try to remind myself I'm not my things, my job or so many of the other things I lost. This is easier said than done. It takes practice. I had one dark night of the soul about twenty years ago. When these recent events all happened I had so many I lost count. Days and nights when so much had been ripped apart I felt there was no "me." Who was I now?
The shifting roles I easily played worked for so long that I forgot about them. Kinda like driving when most times you don't have to think about it until there is that one day something or someone crosses your path and you stop quick. Jolted awake by the mechanics of your foot on the brake and how you maneuvered the car to avoid a collision, you run through what you did. Going over it in your mind. Reminding yourself of how you drive and what you did before you stopped unexpectedly, especially if you have to call your insurance company.
So many of those roles have been either destroyed or let go of. The emptiness threatens to consume me some days and yet other days the expansion of something new gives me some hope. The limitless space beyond the many facets of who I was. The severing of all that can no longer be. There was so much that had to go after it was all destroyed. The process of cleaning up after a natural disaster comes to mind or the woods after fire has swept through. The charred remains have to be picked up, but what is natural can be left alone with the hope of new growth. Burning it all down allows something new to take its place. I have to remember how to do that. Been awhile since I practiced putting things together. The tedious tasks you have to do when being a beginner rather than being good at something. The thing with success is that after awhile things work and they flow. You no longer have to think about them all the time. I have to remember I can do that again. To remove the lies and keep the successes. So much had to be sorted. It was why shock had become my friend for most of the three years. It saved my life in ways. Like the ones on your car. Absorbing the impact so you don't have to. I thought it awful looking back that I would remember some things and not others and wonder why. It made navigating my Divorce a nightmare, which was done on purpose. Like making me homeless and taking my car. After awhile I could only surrender to faith. The shock worked on its own at times. It wrapped me in its embrace in ways that I'm still sorting out. It kept me alive.
The charred remains eventually were removed. The darkness transformed. The light allowed in. There were so many places it was not allowed. The thing with abuse is that things seem normal until you're out of it. It's like being on the lake when you can see nothing but fog. You're sure where things are until you realize how wrong you were. Sometimes it can be a disaster. You hit rocks in a shallow part thinking you were cruising along in a deeper one. You become stranded having to be towed in. Things need to be repaired. You have to remember different routes now. You have to trace your steps. How did you get there? How did you get so far away from cruising and end up stranded on the rocks. How was it that so many people told you that you weren't in danger at all. People you trusted and looked up too. The lessons come swift and brutal. You think of the sayings that seemed silly when times were good, but hit you like a hammer now that you're so far down it seems impossible to get up. "You know who your friends are when things are bad," they say. You can also learn how many enemies you have, which is not something that is really talked about. Who wants to admit that?
Death is everywhere. It's that time of the year. October is a time of falling away to make room for new growth next year. The reality I thought was true almost killed me. I didn't know it wasn't the truth. There were so many lies. I trusted and believed so much that wasn't true. The deception by so many people I cared about became a nightmare I woke up from. Their deceit creating so many illusions. So much that had to be sorted and discarded. So much I believed about myself and others had to go. I knew something awful lurked in the shadows, but as much as I looked I could not find answers. Dead-ends. Labyrinthine mazes of lies and wickedness now all coming to light. All had to be looked at, processed and let go of or saved and put away differently. I still have to process so many memories that in retrospect never made sense, but now with the truth do.
My feet are cold. I have a couple pair of cheap sneakers left. I had a decent amount of shoes, but now they are all gone along with my clothes. I have a couple pair of jeans, a few tops and a couple jackets. I had been embracing minimalism, but this was unreal. I have no work clothes, no office attire from my twenty years working in various offices. How can I apply to professional jobs with no clothes. One of the many simple questions that seem unimportant, but loom large as you realize that you survived the worst, but aren't sure how to navigate what lies ahead. Without my car, which was also deceitfully taken, the chances of a decent job here are slim. I need a decent job and health insurance. I had started a business at home that was earning money, but that along with so many other things now is gone. The sabotage was part of an elaborate con that went on for years. My entire marriage a lie. I'm told it's grandiose to think I'm still professional. That I'm officially crazy and should just be committed. After fourteen arrests, ten evictions, jail and forced into a psych ward, all in the last three years, it's a given to certain people that my life is over. It does feel that way at times believe me, but these are the same ones who made this all up to begin with and have been engaged in this horrible deception for twenty years.
I remember the sunny day on the lake when we decided to get married. It wasn't a romantic proposal, but we were on the lake and it was beautiful. I loved the outdoors and looking back it was used to lure me into thinking we had so much in common, but now know we never did. In love, I thought of how we were compatible. Playing a con, he was running the numbers of our soon to be financial situation. I agreed it prudent at the time, but realize to my horror now the emphasis on money at the expense of anything else was there from the start. It would take me years to sort it all out. How it was all so carefully put together. There was no love, just an easy mark. I was often so excited to earn a decent living from my Art that I failed to see how I could be a victim. I carried the mind of a poor person throughout my marriage. I rarely spent money or made sure I was paid first. I gave and gave—then gave some more. As the success piled up, I failed to enjoy it. I was still that welfare kid who had to prove herself and was told continually that I never would.
My shabby life today is proof they say. Knowing they were behind the deception to begin with. How do you prove anything when all is taken. How do you prove you're good at something if you cannot show proof. The things we take for granted that help define who we are. My portfolios are all gone. I can no longer show prospective clients what I can do. My business destroyed on purpose. I think of Christ when Satan asked him for proof. I try to remember that spiritual truths are stored in heaven where they cannot be reduced to mold and rot or the theft of those hell bent on making sure you have no "proof."
The shame that I worked on as a young adult and left behind threatens to overwhelm me now at midlife. Bringing back memories of being a poor girl in a small town. The bullying, taunts and threats. All those years of work, love, sacrifice. To know today my marriage was all a big con right from the start. It all makes sense now. It all falls into place. So many things did not make sense then, but do now. So many strange conversations that left me hurt or wondering why things were so difficult. Why did everyone I know seem in on something and yet if I questioned them I was told I was "too sensitive" or "your making something out of nothing." I had been right to question it all along and they were all in on it. I'm reminded of Rosemary's Baby this Halloween and yes, they really can be all in on it. After twenty years I know they all were! It made it all so awful all the years I looked for validation, proof and some kind of truth and was only given the lies. Being called crazy for knowing the truth continues, but once we make the dark conscious the lies lose their power. A small town is just that–small!
Down the rabbit hole Alice was not to return, but she did. It's taken me a long time too, but I have answers. FairyTales are grim for a reason. Those that say otherwise just distort the truth. We do slay dragons, fight tyrants and get lost on our way. We confront spells and curses, potions and monsters. We are called witches and crazy. We stumble on towards the light stronger. Letting go of the illusions that threatened to keep us captive even if we are physically. As they fall away we remain who we are. When everything is gone we are still ourselves only more so. No matter how ugly, horrible or destroyed it seems we are, there is the larger "I." There is more to me. Who Am I? I'm not me anymore, but I'm also much more. Everything is gone, but there is much that remains. Michelangelo, I believe said it best when asked how he created David. He said he takes away all that is not David.
The wind is hollowing outside. I feel like a tree in the Fall that has lost all of its leaves and stands naked and cold, preparing for Winter. The snow and cold will be here soon in Upstate New York and I'm grateful I'm not being made homeless again. For the time being I'm okay, but my circumstances financially are not good. The last three years were a series of traumas, shocks and downright destruction of just about everything I had. Which was pretty substantial for this little welfare girl who dreamed of being an Artist.
I sit writing from a small room in my mom's garage. I feel like a fugitive—abandoned, forsaken, left to die. My entire life and what I knew swept away like the natural disasters I have seen on TV. People talk of everything gone after fire, flood or other natural disasters. In my case, it wasn't a natural disaster, but a planned, organized demolition—devastating nonetheless. I read Thoreau and check out YouTube videos of tiny houses. I'm trying to become more of a minimalist even though I had already been living a pretty simple life before. Some days this all works and other days I feel like I'm in hell wondering what happened. How did I get here? What fork in the road did I fail to see? When I had done so much right, how did I take such a horrible turn and get so lost along the way–what had happened to my life? How did so much darkness get in?
I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself. The last three years have taken their toll. I feel I have aged twenty years in three. I know that was the whole point. So many pieces of the puzzle coming together. A nightmare you wake up from and try to remember—only in this case it was all real. I haven't worked out in so long. I miss running, being fit and eating healthy. I miss cooking. I miss my beloved dog. I have lost so much that all day I'm reminded of what is gone now. It's extremely painful. Just when all my hard work came together it was brutally destroyed. Just when it was time to enjoy all the success, I was told that it was not going to go that way. In a sinister manner that would become routine, I learned that nothing was what it seemed.
The words don't flow as easy and I haven't really been writing. I miss my writing. I miss my art, my painting, my books. I miss the "me" that I was, but mostly I have been trying to survive. Nothing was what it seemed–I know that now. In some ways I have survived the worst of it and in others I have had to let go of so much that I float along some days wondering when I can put something together again. I keep waiting for parts of my life to fit again. The pieces use to fit like a nice puzzle I had worked on for so long, but so many pieces are missing, damaged or outright destroyed that I know I need a whole new one.
Reading about death of the ego I try to remind myself I'm not my things, my job or so many of the other things I lost. This is easier said than done. It takes practice. I had one dark night of the soul about twenty years ago. When these recent events all happened I had so many I lost count. Days and nights when so much had been ripped apart I felt there was no "me." Who was I now?
The shifting roles I easily played worked for so long that I forgot about them. Kinda like driving when most times you don't have to think about it until there is that one day something or someone crosses your path and you stop quick. Jolted awake by the mechanics of your foot on the brake and how you maneuvered the car to avoid a collision, you run through what you did. Going over it in your mind. Reminding yourself of how you drive and what you did before you stopped unexpectedly, especially if you have to call your insurance company.
So many of those roles have been either destroyed or let go of. The emptiness threatens to consume me some days and yet other days the expansion of something new gives me some hope. The limitless space beyond the many facets of who I was. The severing of all that can no longer be. There was so much that had to go after it was all destroyed. The process of cleaning up after a natural disaster comes to mind or the woods after fire has swept through. The charred remains have to be picked up, but what is natural can be left alone with the hope of new growth. Burning it all down allows something new to take its place. I have to remember how to do that. Been awhile since I practiced putting things together. The tedious tasks you have to do when being a beginner rather than being good at something. The thing with success is that after awhile things work and they flow. You no longer have to think about them all the time. I have to remember I can do that again. To remove the lies and keep the successes. So much had to be sorted. It was why shock had become my friend for most of the three years. It saved my life in ways. Like the ones on your car. Absorbing the impact so you don't have to. I thought it awful looking back that I would remember some things and not others and wonder why. It made navigating my Divorce a nightmare, which was done on purpose. Like making me homeless and taking my car. After awhile I could only surrender to faith. The shock worked on its own at times. It wrapped me in its embrace in ways that I'm still sorting out. It kept me alive.
The charred remains eventually were removed. The darkness transformed. The light allowed in. There were so many places it was not allowed. The thing with abuse is that things seem normal until you're out of it. It's like being on the lake when you can see nothing but fog. You're sure where things are until you realize how wrong you were. Sometimes it can be a disaster. You hit rocks in a shallow part thinking you were cruising along in a deeper one. You become stranded having to be towed in. Things need to be repaired. You have to remember different routes now. You have to trace your steps. How did you get there? How did you get so far away from cruising and end up stranded on the rocks. How was it that so many people told you that you weren't in danger at all. People you trusted and looked up too. The lessons come swift and brutal. You think of the sayings that seemed silly when times were good, but hit you like a hammer now that you're so far down it seems impossible to get up. "You know who your friends are when things are bad," they say. You can also learn how many enemies you have, which is not something that is really talked about. Who wants to admit that?
Death is everywhere. It's that time of the year. October is a time of falling away to make room for new growth next year. The reality I thought was true almost killed me. I didn't know it wasn't the truth. There were so many lies. I trusted and believed so much that wasn't true. The deception by so many people I cared about became a nightmare I woke up from. Their deceit creating so many illusions. So much that had to be sorted and discarded. So much I believed about myself and others had to go. I knew something awful lurked in the shadows, but as much as I looked I could not find answers. Dead-ends. Labyrinthine mazes of lies and wickedness now all coming to light. All had to be looked at, processed and let go of or saved and put away differently. I still have to process so many memories that in retrospect never made sense, but now with the truth do.
My feet are cold. I have a couple pair of cheap sneakers left. I had a decent amount of shoes, but now they are all gone along with my clothes. I have a couple pair of jeans, a few tops and a couple jackets. I had been embracing minimalism, but this was unreal. I have no work clothes, no office attire from my twenty years working in various offices. How can I apply to professional jobs with no clothes. One of the many simple questions that seem unimportant, but loom large as you realize that you survived the worst, but aren't sure how to navigate what lies ahead. Without my car, which was also deceitfully taken, the chances of a decent job here are slim. I need a decent job and health insurance. I had started a business at home that was earning money, but that along with so many other things now is gone. The sabotage was part of an elaborate con that went on for years. My entire marriage a lie. I'm told it's grandiose to think I'm still professional. That I'm officially crazy and should just be committed. After fourteen arrests, ten evictions, jail and forced into a psych ward, all in the last three years, it's a given to certain people that my life is over. It does feel that way at times believe me, but these are the same ones who made this all up to begin with and have been engaged in this horrible deception for twenty years.
I remember the sunny day on the lake when we decided to get married. It wasn't a romantic proposal, but we were on the lake and it was beautiful. I loved the outdoors and looking back it was used to lure me into thinking we had so much in common, but now know we never did. In love, I thought of how we were compatible. Playing a con, he was running the numbers of our soon to be financial situation. I agreed it prudent at the time, but realize to my horror now the emphasis on money at the expense of anything else was there from the start. It would take me years to sort it all out. How it was all so carefully put together. There was no love, just an easy mark. I was often so excited to earn a decent living from my Art that I failed to see how I could be a victim. I carried the mind of a poor person throughout my marriage. I rarely spent money or made sure I was paid first. I gave and gave—then gave some more. As the success piled up, I failed to enjoy it. I was still that welfare kid who had to prove herself and was told continually that I never would.
My shabby life today is proof they say. Knowing they were behind the deception to begin with. How do you prove anything when all is taken. How do you prove you're good at something if you cannot show proof. The things we take for granted that help define who we are. My portfolios are all gone. I can no longer show prospective clients what I can do. My business destroyed on purpose. I think of Christ when Satan asked him for proof. I try to remember that spiritual truths are stored in heaven where they cannot be reduced to mold and rot or the theft of those hell bent on making sure you have no "proof."
The shame that I worked on as a young adult and left behind threatens to overwhelm me now at midlife. Bringing back memories of being a poor girl in a small town. The bullying, taunts and threats. All those years of work, love, sacrifice. To know today my marriage was all a big con right from the start. It all makes sense now. It all falls into place. So many things did not make sense then, but do now. So many strange conversations that left me hurt or wondering why things were so difficult. Why did everyone I know seem in on something and yet if I questioned them I was told I was "too sensitive" or "your making something out of nothing." I had been right to question it all along and they were all in on it. I'm reminded of Rosemary's Baby this Halloween and yes, they really can be all in on it. After twenty years I know they all were! It made it all so awful all the years I looked for validation, proof and some kind of truth and was only given the lies. Being called crazy for knowing the truth continues, but once we make the dark conscious the lies lose their power. A small town is just that–small!
Down the rabbit hole Alice was not to return, but she did. It's taken me a long time too, but I have answers. FairyTales are grim for a reason. Those that say otherwise just distort the truth. We do slay dragons, fight tyrants and get lost on our way. We confront spells and curses, potions and monsters. We are called witches and crazy. We stumble on towards the light stronger. Letting go of the illusions that threatened to keep us captive even if we are physically. As they fall away we remain who we are. When everything is gone we are still ourselves only more so. No matter how ugly, horrible or destroyed it seems we are, there is the larger "I." There is more to me. Who Am I? I'm not me anymore, but I'm also much more. Everything is gone, but there is much that remains. Michelangelo, I believe said it best when asked how he created David. He said he takes away all that is not David.
Rosemary's Baby | 50th Anniversary Edition
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