Endings and Beginnings

     I have a new nickname. Over the course of the last 15 months I've acquired it. My best friend refers to me as “Candide”. Candide is the main character in a novella by Voltaire. Candide is told by his mentor Pangloss that we live in the “best of all possible worlds” and that “all is for the best”. Yet, through the course of Candide's life, he finds these sentiment's hard to believe at times. He seems to suffer trials and heartaches unknown to most men, yet presses onward.

     The beginning of a new year always leads me to reflect back over my life. I've lived 36 years. Yet, as I gaze back over them, even I find it hard to believe that so many lives could have been lived within this one.

I am the drug addict that spent 6 years of her life drowning her pain and heartache in a deadened state so as not to feel.

I am the survivor of molestation, going through the years fighting the feeling that something must have been wrong with me for that to have happened.

I am the survivor of rape, having lost my virginity to such and drowning myself in self-condemnation.

I am the young girl that was out of state on vacation when her best friend died, lost in a world before text messaging and smart phones could alert her.

I am the girl that sat in the next room as her beloved friend fatally shot himself, so certain that life in that moment summarized what his entire existence would be.

I am the pregnant girl that watched as her best friends child was laid to rest, an innocent soul taken by grotesque abuse and murder.

I am the wife who was beaten and abused at the hands of the man that gave her children, knowing that her escape would more then likely end in her death.

I am the single mother of two, stricken with health issues and handed a death sentence, wondering how it could all fall apart just as it was starting to come together for the first time.

I am the mother and wife that gazed upon her children, some claimed not by birth, and wondered how she would ever meet their special needs.

I am the woman who thought she'd finally picked up the pieces and started over, only to learn her husband was using illegal drugs and having an affair.

I am the single mother of three that had to begin new, yet again, with an empty bank account and a child in the hospital.

I am the mother that held her children as they cried over their beloved pet and therapy dog having been viciously murdered by trespassing hunters.

I am the woman that shuddered to learn her diseases had come back and her prognosis was worst then the first time.

I am the woman that is fighting to keep her children in their home and struggling to hold it all together in the wake of insurmountable odds.

     I am distinctly and uniquely ME. I may never understand why one life could be filled with such despair and heartache. I may never know how one body can endure so much, when another seems to break at the slightest pain.

     I no longer seek answers. I no longer demand of God the reasons. I do not seek to know what further disasters may besiege me. I do not care to know when my end may come.

     Instead, I seek to look ever onward, pressing forward to the prize that will come to all men at the end of this world. I know that there will be a time in the end, when all wrongs will be made right. When their will be no more tears, no more pain. When death will be a distant past memory, and sunlight and warmth will fill all of my days.

     I look forward, knowing that the only condemnation I live in is that of my own making. Content to know there is a love and forgiveness that has always been mine. Peaceful in holding an acceptance of self that no man can take from me.

     I am more then I could ever hope or dream to be, simply because each of us were created to be just that. I am more then my dreams, my self judgments, my critical inflection.

     I do not embody the abuse that has been inflicted upon my body, my heart, my soul, my mind and my spirit. Sheltered deep within me is the core of my soul upon which no man has ever embarked and only His light can touch.

     I have felt comfort in my cocoon of transformation and yearn to feel the sun upon my emerging wings. I seek to soar above and feel the breeze ripple across my body.

     For with each ending there is a new beginning. A million lives wrapped into one lifetime. A hundred old souls gathered in the midst of one body.

     My life is what I make it. My days are in my perspective.

I am ME, and that is all I ever have needed to be.

Violence Unsilenced

A small part of my story will be told at Violence UnSilenced. Although I've spoke often to others, and at public speaking events, about my story, there is something different about it being in print. Permanent. For all to see. 

It wasn't easy deciding which moment to take out of my life to share. There are so many.....to many that I could have chosen. Yet, after months of writing and rewriting, this particular instance came to my mind. For me it signifies how different the world is for someone being abused. How the important things aren't so important, how the insignificant suddenly has great weight.

Survivors of abuse leave the abusive situation with a warped view of the world. They've learned survival skills in a setting that is the farthest from how God intended it to be. The world has become a very dark and scary place. A place where those that professed love destroyed all hope. A place where trust equals pain and heartache. A place where shadows lurk and it doesn't take much to rip off the scabs that have only started to heal. A place where your scars shine bright within you, yet no one else notices or cares.

Please, take a moment to go to Violence UnSilenced. Read not only my post, but those of the other survivors of violence. Show your support to them as they are reaching out to share their stories with others. We don't share our stories for pity.....we share our stories so that you might be able to help your sister, your daughter, your son, your friend.  We all know someone who has or is being abused. It's up to you to become aware of the signs and reach out to that person. You could make the difference......you could save a life.