The Me Behind the Shadow

I have no idea if this post will be post-able.  I just want the chance to write and to feel and to let myself feel me. I've been hiding from myself, trying to pretend that I'm fine, that I've figured myself out, and that's okay - sometimes we just have to sit with our feelings.  Bulimia numbs the feeling too, but only temporarily, and it makes so much else worse, so that's not really the answer either.  I'd like to be wandering through some deserted forest, and most evenings when I could have, I've found myself numbing myself with laughter and stories.  A temporary insulation from the rawness of my life, as raw and crumbling as any other life around me.

I still haven't changed the clock on my computer.  Right now, sometime at night, it reads 7:21am.  I can't bring myself to believe, entirely, that I'm not there, that I'm still hurting because I'm here.  But is that really why I am hurting?  No!  I'm hurting because I felt for so long like I was responsible for the chaos in our lives... our life.  Maybe I was.  Maybe I was too big, too something.  But I couldn't control that and I know it.  That's not it.  Just that I couldn't fix it after, find out sooner.  That I believed lies like some still do.  I want to fix it!  I want to be the one to make it all work...

And I can't be that person.  I can only build my own bridges, meditate on my God myself, find my own story.

Always trying to be wonderful.  Always trying to be the me that is who I think I'm supposed to be.

It HURTS, friends, it HURTS SO MUCH.  Feeling hurts.  And sometimes I just can't bear it.  I just can't deal with everything and how much it overtakes me.  Like the real me trying feel everything I've ever held inside, and that's an awful lot.  Oh inside, come out and let me feel again.

Maybe if I just allow myself to feel on the outside, I can show the real me for everyday, and not try to pretend my life.

To take away the shadow...

After

Being here has been a whirlwind of trying to find my land feet again after a long and wonderful time aboard a beautiful ship called Switzerland.  In some ways it has made dealing with all the lovely ED things more difficult, for the pain of leaving was excruciating.  I'm here for my parents and I can't tell you how lovely it is to be with them, but tearing myself from my roots once again felt like uprooting an old tree: wrong.

B/Ps have been getting smaller at least, even if not less frequent.  It's a start.  I've resisted some.  I've managed to hold back where I didn't think I could.  I've been met with love, when all I felt was anger.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

Anger at myself, and anything that made me do what I do.  Anger about everything that hasn't been as it should.  Anger that I've hurt those around me.  Anger that this monster has caused me to lie and deceive.  Anger that I'm not perfect.

And then joy that I'm not perfect.

And then yet another flood of tears.  Because I know I'm loved, both vertically and horizontally.  Because I both was born and was raised in beautiful places that sing the majesty of the One who made them.  Because I'm so ready to be done with this battle.  Because I'm still fighting.

Because I've been given so much.

I will never be the same.

2 days strong.  Fear diminishing.  Urges slightly less intense.

Having such a hard time processing the last 7 weeks.  In some odd ways it feels as though it never happened.  And in so many other ways, I feel like I'm not even here.  When I begin to interact with the culture of my childhood, I find myself realizing the changed person I am, and I know I can never go back.

I will never not know what I know now about my birth.  I will never not have the relationships I (re)established.  I will never not have felt the depth of surety when I stood where I will live.  I will never not have had the experiences I did, learned the me that hides beneath the shell, bared my soul for the people I did.

I will never be the same.

But as I enfold the little lives I've had the privilege to be a part of, seeing signs of their own growing - gaps in smiles, longer legs, learned pleases and thank yous escaping small lips - I realize that my heart will always be a little bit broken.  And that has beauty too.

I can't undo the good and bad in my life.  I can't force the future to be a certain way.  But I can take steps to uncover the plans that I've made, and to see where they will lead - where, thus, God will guide.

I've pushed down so may boundaries, barriers, and walls, not necessarily to cross those lines now that they are not high, but to be able to see over them, so I might live a life full of more light.

Pressing forward.

On "No" and Perfection

I wasn't planning to write at this moment, but I feel I must.  Here in the middle of a country that is tugging at my heartstrings - or at least where people I love dearly will stay as I leave, I wonder what all this time has taught me.

It's taught me that I can say no.  No to injustice, to being taken advantage of, to burdens that are not mine.  I can say no even to myself.  For 5 years I have kept a 'mini-journal' where I wrote just a couple lines every night to remember that day.  I did it faithfully every day, and somehow the last two weeks, I just couldn't.  Didn't.  Chose not to be a slave any longer even to my own tradition.  I may pick it up again, but I won't be held by what I must or must not do to be perfect or good.

It's ironic, really, for even as I say that I remember myself just a couple hours ago, knowing full well I was strong enough to resist the (somewhat weakened) b/p urge, but still finding myself climbing the stairs to my place of secrecy.  I didn't say no.  

But at least I acknowledged that I could.

I learned also that I don't have to always know.  I can sit back, allow awe to fill my face, and say "No way!  I really didn't know that!"  Or even admit to my own seemingly embarrassing error, smile, and learn from it.

I don't have to feel responsible for things over which I have no control, apologizing for the big and small to gain love or affection.  If love and affection come my way, they are gifts to be treasured, not prizes to be earned.  And I must take people as they are, with their bad days and good, their affectionate moments and the times when they need space.

Maybe I just needed to see that I'm just me, learning and living, unique and precious like everyone else.