Little Big Town ~ Better Man
Starting over is never easy, but here I am again!
I want to thank all my kind subscribers for reading me, staying with me through all the ups and downs, and now contributing to my earnings! I'm so very grateful for all ur support! I miss my writing here so much, the last couple of months have been particularly hard, but I hope to continue.
Winter is always very difficult outside, and this one was no different. I made the final journey out of all the darkness of all the "Dark Nights of the Soul," with all the grief I had to process, along with the excruciating losses. It's been one of the hardest things I have ever done. I can only say, as so many eloquent writers before me—it was "Grace," that brought me this far. My goal is to aspire to all those writers who have helped me on this journey. Their writing held me, comforted me, and made me laugh when I thought I would die from grief; expiring dead away from so much pain that I thought I would never overcome it.
Plumbing the depths of old wounds, old traumas, and old memories is never easy. Doing it homeless is even more of a hell. Questions of survival, which I had long thought gone reared their ugly heads. Demons that stalked me in the middle of the night. I would be sobbing so hard that after a while tears just wouldn't even flow. There is no release you just sit with the pain. Fear that I thought would kill me; not only the real physical fear of being a woman outside but also old fears that I had believed I had overcome from my abusive childhood. Core fears of survival, what it means to be home, and knowing that I can survive. I had spent my entire marriage buying, collecting, and making things to be safe, but knowing today I never really felt safe deep inside myself. Recovery is not often a straight path, but cycles sometimes around and around each time taking you deeper.
My first Winter outside was extremely difficult, I came out of it with very few survival items than I had collected at my Lakehome, but having a sense that a deep part of me was finally healing. I did it! I had survived what I believed would have killed me as a child. I had carried this fear, this demon stalking me all my life, right up until that first Winter despite all the things I had collected over the years. I had bought a generator, made all sorts of DIY things relating to emergencies, stocked wood, and learned skills, but the core part of me was always nervous, and frightened—believed I could not survive! I had no real idea!
How can a person have so many things to keep them safe, and yet be so afraid all the time? It was a deep, old fear. A deep old trauma I had yet to face. It started so young, so devastating, and yet it operated so silently until it burst forward in my 50s when I was first put on the street. How could I not know my fear was so old, so deep, when I had so many things that I thought would keep me safe? I came to learn, that my little thoughts as a child to protect me had imprisoned me even though that had helped me survive all these years! I had married a man who contributed to this fear, but I had also brought my own baggage to the marriage, which we all do. Marriage is also among other things a crucible.
Layers of childhood abuse that in many ways I had overcome and been successful, but the deep core of my being held this trauma I was to learn had to be confronted and integrated. You can buy all the things to keep yourself safe; including marrying thinking you have a man that will protect you, and yet have no real such protection. It's not really something that someone else gives you, I knew that but had thought I didn't have to go back and reexamine my childhood for answers. I had of course, "Moved on!" I had put all those painful years behind me and for the most part, had done very well, but deep inside this fear of survival had always been there, stalking me, preying on my fears, at times in a very real physical way, and at others my own sense of no matter how safe I thought I had my life set up, I was afraid as I had always been.
This fear was instilled as a child and operated quietly, and silently, and could have killed me. Survival is a core part of us all. It goes very deep to when we are lovingly welcomed into this world or in my case not. Starting off on such shaky grounds can wreak havoc, but in my case, I had no idea. All my things to keep me safe were a good thing, but I had work to do with my core beliefs about what felt safe in a deep way despite surrounding myself with all my survival items including; a home, husband, money, career, etc. I have much less than I did, but my core finally feels a sense of safety within myself. Others can love us and contribute to us feeling a sense of safety, a healthy relationship does that, but we also need to feel and believe this within ourselves and I found I never really did.
I want to explore these issues more. I find it interesting moving forward from a marriage that seemed from the outside to be safe and yet was nothing of the sort despite all my accomplishments, material things, and the idea that men help to provide this safety. I had in fact married someone doing the exact opposite in the same way my childhood was. It felt the same and today I know why, because I married someone similar to how I had been treated growing up. We often marry someone similar, someone who will help us learn the lessons we need to. To help us on our journey even though the lessons can be extremely painful.
I took a cab recently and the driver asked the usual small talk, but it was a little too intrusive. If I was married, how long, etc. I gave him the answers, but I felt exposed and thought I needed a new way of talking about these private things that I know now I don't need to share with everyone who questions me. I needed a new elevator speech if you will, liking it to the way we give a synopsis about our work history and careers. You end up so often sharing your story when you're a victim that when you move into recovery you need to update your new boundaries and story. I remember my Grandmother being adamant about certain topics, certain hurts, and certain memories, that she refused to discuss. I had at times questioned why. I understand today, that talking about painful things doesn't always solve things like I believed as a young person.
There are things we can of course change and need to, things need to be let go of, especially old trauma, hurt, and losses, but there is the pain of opening old wounds because someone wants to talk about them for their own interest and not understanding that there are things that when talked about brings up too much that has been dealt with, but serves no purpose other than the other person's interest or deception to hurt you. There is pain that doesn't go away connected to such things; as death, loss, and heartache that we learn to live with and go on with our lives. It's not to say there is anything wrong just that we don't need to open old wounds just because. My "Gram," taught me so much and today I understand my young self wanting to talk to her all the time, but knowing today some things are better just left alone—they are too painful to just make small talk about or feel like you have to be interrogated by someone else's intrusion into your innermost memories. Some things are just private, they need no explanation to anyone! Often the hurt is just too much to as they say continually rehash.
I'm starting this new chapter in my life today. The same cabbie wanted to know about me "meeting someone again," people always want a happy ending and it often includes another person. I think again of my grandmother and her being content despite numerous offers even to the end of her life to be with someone else. She would often when my Mother pressed her, say, typical of her generation, that it was too much work! She would laugh, wave her hand, and say she was content in her life at that point not to have all the cooking, cleaning, and sacrificing her generation did and in her case could not have the land she so rightfully owned and deserved. I understand today all the work despite coming of age when women can own land and have more options, but I too have been left with so little by a system still denying women's agency. To risk my freedom, well-being, or safety at my age is a very real concern in exchange for sex—love is a whole other blog post...LOL
So, dear readers, I thought of Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City, sitting at her window writing. I have a little desk and someplace safe now and will begin again, but the sex part will have to wait, if ever because I'm loving my newfound freedom, and sense of internal safety, and learning to navigate my life again on my terms instead of someone else's. That's not to say I don't think about it, especially because so often people want you to be paired and will ask, but I'm content today and grateful for this new chapter in my life.
"Must be hard to throw all those years away?” the cabbie went on. “No,” I said, matter-factly, liking my new sense of not needing to rant about all the awful things. "I don't regret what I did, learned, or what we accomplished together." I had hoped he would have been a better man like the Country song by Little Big Town, "Better Man," says, but that's on him, not me!
I hope you all are well, and enjoying good sex with someone you love. As for me, I will be channeling Carrie at my window with my cute, little wooden desk, getting my writing back up to speed, and hoping for some new people and activities in my life. I'm thinking of some Yoga classes and of course continuing with my recovery, moving forward with my life once again, and knowing that you just never know about love and how things will go.
Namaste Dear Readers
🖤
Rhonda
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