And so it begins…

Morning pages… here we go… it’s a grey day today… it hasn’t been gray in a while. It’s kind of nice. I can feel that I am finally starting to feel rested after these two days of sleeping in and letting myself to whatever I feel like doing. I think my body is thanking me for giving it this time and attention. This gentleness. It has wanted it for a long time. I sometimes wonder how tied this artist way journey is going to be with the final steps of my healing process. Whatever it ends up being is fine. The last two days have been hard. When the fireworks went off on the waterfront it was so beautiful and at the same time I realized how angry I am at the government. So much money spent on this display of patriotism when we have killed so many people. I couldn’t help thinking of the sounds of fireworks going off everywhere and it being like the sound of bombs and how for some people that sound means death and destruction. I sat in the dark with just the fireworks in the distance. Feeling sad and helpless. Feeling like what can we do. Wishing that this display was in celebration of the end of the war. Wishing that something about the world would change for the better. I don’t even listen to the news . I don’t listen to npr . I never watch them on tv. I barely read them on the internet. All I read are the art section articles and sometimes things that friends send me. I am trying not to give in to the general despair and the general sense of hopelessness but it’s hard. I am feeling more rested but I am not out of the pit yet. I can feel it. I can feel that it would take so little to take me back into the burn out mode that I was in after Sunday. It was pretty crazy.
Yesterday was pretty crazy. It seems like one week between therapy sessions is like a year. So many emotions. So many things I go through in between each session. I started having a yeast infection and I beat it I think. I attacked it with lots of cranberry juice. Acidophillus and the like. I was glad it went away. I think I might have a mild candida infection. In time I’ll do a detox program of some sort. A cleanse. I don’t think I want to do the 21 day lemonade fast. Too much sugar in the maple syrup I think . but it would be nice to do something. Maybe after landmark. Blah blah blah. It all feels like blah blah trying to fill three pages with words just for the sake of getting words out.
But I know it will be like everything. Some days are good. Some days are bad. Some days you just do it. It’s how it is. i’ve been feeling shifts and last night I remembered as I was falling asleep a feeling I used to have when I was with my ex husband. I remembered how throughout the day, I would feel these sort of dips. Inside me. Like emotional dips I guess. I think , now that I look back on it, that it was me, fighting against depression. I remember always looking and thinking about the one thing that would make me happy . small things. And small things would keep me going. And the dip sometimes. Would come. At random times. I would feel everything kind of go black and darker and it’s almost like the tape of my life would slow down and everything would drop. That was my way of coping with the abuse I think. I wasn’t even aware of how it had created a map for me . But of course it had.
Also , j and I made love last night and my body felt free. Like it hasn’t in a long time or ever. I mean it’s hard to compare lovemaking and orgasms because they are always so different but afterwards, we were laying there… and the room seemed large. The world seemed opened. I felt that my body was of the size that it should be. Not too heavy , not too light. I felt like it was just me and j and our life and that we were in control of it. And of course we have always been. And I didn’t know the difference before this moment. But I felt like whoever, whatever was watching me before was gone. Maybe it was me, maybe it was my father… I am not sure. It was very strange.
It was like I had been watched all these years and I never knew anyone was watching until they stopped watching. I am sure that only makes sense to me. We’ll see if Jeanette thinks it makes sense… heh. But it makes sense to me . in a mysterious way. In a way that everyday I discover new layers of how the abuse has affected and shaped my life. And I think I am close to knowing all the ways and all the layers but I know the battle never ends. I know some of the triggers will always be there and it’s how I negociate them that will make a difference. Also my relationship with my father in the future worries me. And though he is miles away , it worries me. Because that too is shifting and I can’t say for sure that I know how. But it is. because whether he is a good person now and whether I have decided that the person who did this to me is a different person from who he is now, it still happened and there is a level of me that doesn’t want him to have a hand in anything I do. The calling him has to be up to me. The more he asks me to call , the less I do. And that’s just how it is. and though it’s not really fair to who he is now, and though he has definitely paid his debt by being with mom and the 10 years of hell she put him through, in a way, life did what it did. And everything happens for a reason. I wish it hadn’t been with mom being so ill. But who knows if she knew and if she got ill from that. From not admitting to herself , or he, or …I … .that she knew.. that she suspected, that she knew something was way off.
I was thinking last night that in a way, he cheated on her a second time and maybe he thought that taking it in the family , wasn’t like cheating. What kind of strange mind he has. How can one man be so together and nuts enough to do that. I have to be honest with myself and it is fucked up. And while we have a relationship , because I still want one and because that is the choice I made almost 10 years ago when the memories came back, it is still really fucked up and messed up. I think I’ve been telling myself all these years that it didn’t affect me. And then I told myself that it did affect me but that is wasn’t as bad as other people. And that we were special. That our family is a special case etc etc etc.
No . it was messed up and it messed me up and that’s just the truth. And while I don’t feel a need for revenge, I’ve had a lot of anger coming up because I never experienced very much of that. Yesterday , I was doing dishes , and a strange thing happened. I was rinsing a jar of peanut butter and the bottom of the jar , the rest of the peanut butter mixed with water sat in the sink and I looked at it and I almost started throwing up. it grossed me out. Really grossed me out . and I turned the water off and stopped doing dishes and I ran and grabbed my tennis racket and went into the room and started beating pillows with it really hard for like 10 minutes. I was making sounds too but I could tell that it was more like my inner child because the racket felt huge and heavy and beating made me very tired and then it took me into convulsive sobs and I just collapsed on the bed sobbing. I never have done anything like that before. I know that is something that people do to release anger. Use a baseball bat and beat on punching bags and thing. I saw it to a few days ago on the angela blog and maybe it entered my subconcious that it was ok to do that. Maybe because I gave myself a few days to feel everything and just go with whatever comes up.
I feel like such a cliché doing all these things and now I am writing it all down here, in this anonymous blog under a fake name. it’s weird. But if it’s what I need I ‘ll do it. Because it did feel good to do. And I can tell it’s going to feel good to put some of these things down . what’s strange about this artist way thing is that I wanted it to be a creative journey and it looks like at the same time it’s going to be a journey of putting things about the abuse down. But that’s okay. It’s all connected I guess. And that makes me sad in a way. It makes me sad that the abuse is still in the way . and maybe I won’t everyday write about just that. Let’s hope… because I am so tired right now. And I really need to take myself and do and think about other things. But at the same time when I sit down and write , that’s all that’s there so I need to just let it out. There can’t be years and years of writing about it right ? it’s not going to be forever. It’s like emotions if you let them out, eventually they change… eventually they turn into something else. What’s funny, is that even though this is anonymous and not even in my first language, I am still feeling paranoid that my father will find it and read it. And it’s not like he would do anything. He wouldn’t even know it was me. But I can feel that paranoia in me a little and I think that’s good to know. Because maybe that feeling of the being watched, was him . maybe in a way I’ve been feeling like he is constantly watching me. And that’s what has kept me from living my life. Every man looking at me is him. Every man I had sex with is him. Every man telling me what I need to be doing and how I look and every compliment and every look. That makes a lot of sense then that I’d be paralized and terrified in the world. And of course it’s not all the time but I think that shadow has definitely been there and that’s something I am going to be taking a close look at in therapy next. I talked to him a few days ago and he is on vacation for a while so I know there won’t be any calling me and maybe that’s why I allowed myself the rest… and though when he calls these days, it’s really out of love and caring, I think there is a part of me that has a hard time looking at it this way. There is a part of me that sees a stalker in that. And that’s only normal too. It’s only fair. I’ve done amazing in my forgiveness and I am still really happy that we have a relationship because I do think I deserve to have him in my life and he deserves to have me but I have to do what I do and I can’t be concerned about what he needs or wants. Because it has to be all about my healing and what I need when it comes to that relationship. I could have made much harsher choices and he needs to understand that. It’s hard to tell him that and not have it come as a threat though of course. And he never threatened me verbally. Not once. That’s not to say that what he did wasn’t extremely fucked up. it was. But he was not a violent man. He never has been. Even the abuse was not violent. It’s not to say it wasn’t destructive. Because anything on an 11 year old is violent. But there was no violence and that I am grateful for. I don’t know what I am trying to get at here. I am not sure what I am trying to figure out . but I know I am trying to free myself of an extra layer. Of something I discovered was still there and I am not sure what that is. I guess the abuser is still in my life. Maybe that’s what I need to understand and comprehend : that I ‘ve made the choice to keep the abuser in my life and to heal while that is happening.