First and foremost, I want to make an amusing observation. I've entered contests all over the blog world, and on a lot of them, they list the title of the last post you made on your blog. "Pom-poms are evil" was perhaps not the best title to introduce my blog to new readers, lol.
So, on to more palatable titles......
I'm at a crossroads in my life. My birthday is coming up, my son is starting Kindergarten, I'm DUE a crossroads. There has been some...unpleasantness I've been having to face this year, and I'm doing a lot of therapy, art journaling, thinking, reminiscing, etc.
I was going through my "treasure chest" last night. You have one too, right? Cards from your husband, invitations to friends' weddings, movie tickets, that kind of stuff. I happen to have an envelope full of my writing, some going back to middle school!
Anyway, some papers made me cry (my grandmother died,) some were fond memories (emails between me and my husband when we first started dating,) and others, well, they helped put some recent events in my life into perspective. And then.............. I found the MONSTER at the End of My Recollections. (Reference to a Grover book there, sort of. Sesame Street is on my mind for more than one reason right now.)
A back story to get to the current story: my first boyfriend, the serious kind, broke up with me when OJ was riding around in the White Bronco. (I wonder if he remembers that too?) I kinda "lost it," and ended up going to counseling a couple of times a week that summer. The end result, the BREAKTHROUGH I had right before heading back to college, was that my feelings of abandonment weren't about the boyfriend, they were about my brothers and my father, all 3 of whom had willingly exited my life the year before. WOW, I thought, it's a good thing I learned this NOW (16 years ago) so I can move on. This way it won't be an issue with my husband or children!
And then I got married. To a "man" (this is so cliche I can't even stand to admit it, you know what's coming, right?) A man EXACTLY like my father. We didn't last, I bet you're SHOCKED, right, didn't see that coming...... Ridiculous. But, I thought, I realize NOW what I did wrong, how to make sure it doesn't happen again.
And I can honestly say that my marriage now is to a wonderful man, a supportive and involved and loving human being who is so different from any man in my birth family. I mean, we have issues, we're normal people, neither of us thinks the other is perfect. But he is pretty much the exact opposite of my father and brothers. He'd never turn his back on me. I know this, he's shown me time and again.
And now you're all caught up. We're happily married, I've got the whole birthday/school thing happening, as well as the men in my family pulling out yet again.... And without warning, my old nemesis, the Monster named Abandonment walked in my subconscious. Suddenly I'm PUSHING everyone away from me. "They were gonna leave anyway," says the Monster. And there's all kinds of whispered lies he's been feeding me the last few weeks.
And I realized last night: DAMN IT, I thought I was OVER this! It's been 16 years! By this time, the Monster could get a driver's license or go to prison for life if he killed someone. I am absolutely FURIOUS at this fear showing up now--you have no idea how mad I was. Mad enough that I didn't want it to give the Monster any credit for appearing in my Art Journal. So, I picked up one of the other books I'd set aside to alter once mine was full. A Sesame Street book. With a horrible orange monster on the cover. With stories inside about kittens, girls with my name, and even a story about abandonment.
Can you believe it? I had to just sit there and laugh for a few minutes. I like to think it was a few minutes that God laughed with me, that Our Creator KNEW weeks ago that I'd be grabbing that book in particular to turn into a RAGE journal, and so He left all these signs for me so I would be able to have a good chuckle at a very low moment, and remind me that He does have me in the palm of His hand. That as bad as I feel and as bad as I have been acting, He still loves me, and He's given me a husband who does as well.
And if that wasn't enough.......just look what else He led me to:
Red Letter Words, and this in particular:
My eyes opened a little wider, and then, then Dear Reader, I saw this:
I cried. And began to heal once again.
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