However, there is an even larger cycle in our lives that has become apparent. Peter shared with me a few days ago his realization that we have come to the end of a 21 year cycle, 3 seven-year chapters, which began when I made the choice to wake up from my slumber and go into recovery work to heal. This choice changed life utterly for many people.
It was in 1988 when I was 23 years old and Peter and I were about to be married that we were living with his parents at their property in Suwannee GA. At that time, I became very depressed and wondered why. It turns out that being in the immersion of Peter’s family invited my old family dynamics to come forward within me. (Folks that read my writing know that I am an abuse survivor, sexual, emotional, and physical primarily.) I made a choice to enter therapy to discover why I did not want to be on the earth any longer. It was a hard decision to confront my beliefs about myself and my biological family at that time, and to turn them upside down and look them over critically to see if they were indeed true. I’m grateful that I had the strength and insight to choose this path many years before I had my own children. The desire to break the cycles of abuse and to NOT pass on the illness that was passed on to me was a primary motivator. However, in the end, it was a decision to honor myself, no matter what hell may come as a result.
Hell did come…when I confronted my father by certified mail, he did not respond at all; nine years later, I called him to have a truth-telling at the top of the mountain because I realized I was stronger and more courageous than he was. He couldn’t hurt me any more. When I told my mother, she slurred her words in her usual drunken stupor, and accused me of “always being warped”, despite my reputation for having the best memory in the family. After that lesson, I chose not to speak with her unless it was in the early part of the day before she started drinking. My sister hoped it was “all a misunderstanding”, and shared with my brother the hope that our family could reunite and be happy together despite the years of affairs, drunkenness, unhappiness and divorce, the definition of sheer insanity to me. It was a rough time for me, the lone truth-teller. I have been blamed, called names, been seen as “making conflict for conflict’s sake”, and otherwise rejected. Subject to the projections of my biological family, I had no one except my helping professionals and my beloved husband to feel truly safe with.
Over these 21 years of reclaiming my life, my mind, my body, my spirit and my center, I have gotten clearer and clearer that I am not to blame. The mantles of shame and projection have become more obvious as others’ issues rather than mine. I have been less willing to take them on, less willing to carry the burden of other people’s unconsciousness. The more I have reclaimed myself, the stronger my voice has become, and the more I have attracted others, women in particular, who share or find strength and solace in my story. It is one of the obvious tenets of an abusive family to keep the secrets….to not tell, to not share the story, to keep it under wraps of darkness. But the only way the cycle can stop is if we talk about it, regardless of the threats or entreaties to cease. No, mom, I won’t be quiet….I won’t stop talking.
There is goodness in this…some sweetness after all the years of pain to hear another woman say “Thank you for telling your story, because it gave me permission to tell mine.” Whatever wisdom I offer has been hard won.
Now, something has happened in these last months within me…some immense shift of knowing, an awareness of my strength, a vision of a light within me like a beacon….it is getting stronger, and I feel I am finally beginning to become what I was meant to become. What I offer to the world, what I am meant to express, how I am to walk in a way that is in integrity with my soul and spirit…it is coming forward at an ever faster pace. After all the years in the mud and darkness of putting my pieces back together, suddenly it is time to be Whole. The process has been nothing short of remarkable, and is speeding up each day, it seems. It appears to be coinciding with our departure of our quiet sanctuary into a larger world, as well as the outer world’s intense changes as if there is a larger knowing coming to fruition as well. The work that our family has done these 11 years will be needed in the world. And the work I have done these last 21 years will also be needed in the world. When we arrive in Tallahassee, I have a sense that we will need to hit the ground running.
(As a result, I will be creating a new blog attached to my professional website. My professional writing website as well as services for clients will also be evolving. Keep an eye out…my sabbatical is over!)
The pendulum has swung…the years of intense devotion to our inner life have been rich and fed our souls; we have drunk at the wellspring of our spirits and been filled to the brim with goodness and wisdom. New outer life, new expressions, new invitations, new opportunities. Now it is time to balance the years of inward motion with expression in the outer world, to take what we have learned and live our lives.
