There are times, even total days, when that numbness is hated but begged for. To not feel completely is a terror to me, I dig to the surface to feel the sharpness, the clean burn...for me, this is where truth of what happened lives and I want that. I need it. I trust that feeling. Not the grey, enclosing numbness.
But when something is too much to absorb, to comprehend, to control...then I will beg whatever powers there are for the blessing of that numbing, blinding cushion of darkest grey. Just to stop the soul scream and give my spirit a moment of peace from the endless pacing and searching for the way out of the maze of confusion and...everything.
Healing, eventually, happens...in layers. If you want it, if you're willing to open up that wound and let it heal from the deepest places. That hurts. It's necessary, if you want to go ahead and move forward in life, but it hurts. Nobody can do it for you, Nobody else can make it better. They can be there with you, hear you, encourage you, kick your ass, forgive you when you go off on them, dry your eyes...they can hold you. Those all help, to have a person, maybe 2, who know you well enough to sit beside you while you travel through hell. But it's all on you to actually get there.
I learned alot during the years of forgiving my father and becoming whole again. I learned more when my mother died. I learned so much when my older girl disappeared and in that year after...all those lessons helped me when my marriage ended.
If you've been here before, then you know what that was like for me. Well, you have an idea. That numbness saved me, while it cursed and tormented me, for that first year. Letting go of needing an apology was a pretty big step for me as well. And it's important for everyone to get to.
Feeling healed and at peace, to the point of being able to accept him telling me that he still considers me a best friend, was a real triumph for me. To openly accept these things, arms/head/heart wide open, took a lot of work.I even survived a deeply sad heartbreak last year, largely using lessons learned from my divorce. So why am I here with this?
Two days ago I received the apology that I never expected, never asked for, had learned to not need, or even want.
It hurts. I can't get my head around it.
God, it hurts.
It's the last cleansing of such a deep sadness. The final reopen and scraping of the wound. How do I know that it's the final? I know. I can see the thing. The numbness, it wants to flood the area, desperately, to shut it down, to stop it from being touched...but I won't let it this time. This time, no begging for it. I have to get this finished, to put it past, to move ahead. There are lovely things ahead of me, I can't have this on me right now. It's taken so much from me, while giving so much to me, that I just can't...
A flame coming toward you, nearer to your body, to a channel opened and running the length of your self...the flame must come. It will run the wound, cleansing with it's fire, sharp, searing...searching.
And you let it come. Hold your arm to it, welcome it. Feel the pain burning through, but relax your body and soul into it, let it sweep you into the current and through the parts of you it needs to reach. Find someone to let you experience it, but to be there with you. Please, find someone.
Who would have thought that an admittance of a terrible mistake and an apology would cause pain?
My father apologized, many times over. When it was clear that mum and I were moving he broke his promise to never try and force me to spend time alone with him, pleading and cajoling me to go with him for a ride, giving his word that I would be okay. I remember that part of that day so clearly, sitting on the edge of the truck seat, holding the unlocked door handle in one hand, ready to leave no matter where we were, sitting on the other hand, holding it tightly against my body so that he couldn't grab my arm...i remember shaking and counting slowly to stay calm, focusing on the shoulder of the road, watching what was passing by, but one eye on him peripherally always. It made him angry if I acted scared. I understand that, it made him feel bad about things going on. Anyway, I wasn't going to go into this. I'll leave it here, though. My reason for saying anything was that he started to talk to me.
He apologized. He told me how sorry he was, he told me that he knew that he had been awful, caused me pain, made me afraid of someone who was supposed to protect me. I remember that I was becoming angry as he talked. Angry. I was so angry that I remember shaking with the emotion.
He knew. That damn bastard knew all that shit was wrong and he did it anyway.
I know that it was more complicated than that, we're talking about a badly damaged person here, but at the time, my immediate reaction was not compassion...it was anger. He talked some more, things that I don't remember, and then he reached towards me. We were on a freeway, downhill into the Palo Alto area, having made a massive looping run from where I lived with mum. I don't know how long we had been gone, time diminishes in those situations. I jerked away from him, and he jumped backwards and stared at me. I had no idea what was going to happen next...I knew that look. It was always there, before another took over, the moment when you could see a small child in his eyes. Sometimes, in the car, he'd threaten to run into a retaining wall, off a ledge, etc. Sometimes he'd pull over. Sometimes he'd just throw a few hits sideways, and that was my preference of the choices. I remember wondering, for a moment, if I should jump out, wishing I could see what was out the door at the moment,but I didn't dare take my eyes off of him, or if I should provoke the punches and get it done, when he did something I'd only seen one other time, when his father died(let me say here, my grandfather had his stuff and his odd ways, but he was a kind and gentle man who married someone who was not)...
he began to cry.
He sobbed. He kept driving, and after a bit he started to talk again. I can hear it still...
"Teresa, I want for you know that not all men are like me. There are men who are good, who won't hurt you. I know you hate me. You should. I hate myself. But please don't hate all men because of me. Please tell me that you will let someone be kind to you some day."
My father apologized a few more times in his life. He begged me for absolution, which I couldn't give him. I was able, over the years, to tell him that I'd forgiven what I was able to, at that point, and each time it was a deeper point of ability. It took years. When he was dying, in the delerium of his condition, he flipped rapidly between verbal rape and begging for forgiveness. At that point I could ignore his words, that's all they were. He was so lost to himself, so afraid of death and judgement. And I felt a great flood of compassion for this man. Even more so when I had to give the directive to let him be removed from the life support he demanded be kept at all cost for as long as life on earth continued. The doctor was kind, he understood. We talked for a moment, and then I gave the word. He said, "Mark this as time of death".
Someday I'll deal with the emotions surrounding that one.
I kept his ashes for a year, slowly becoming comfortable in his presence, of a sort, relaxing in my home and in my skin with him around. That year marking I got up early, not intending to do what the day brought, but as I walked past "him" to start breakfast for the family and tend the farm and gardens, a feeling came over me and I stopped. Throwing feed at the animals, leaving a note, I took his rosewood box in a deep blue velvet bag and drove to the beach, to a favorite secluded spot among the rocks. The tide was in mid drop and I thought it'd be safe enough at that point to not have a boat. I waded out as far as I could, holding the box above the water and then I let him go.
Why bring it up?
Those apologies were easier to take.
I'm not certain why. I'm sure not going to find the answer in my head, I know that. It's in my body somewhere, I can feel it moving, rolling to the surface. I want to talk with someone about it, someone strong with a different perspective. I don't want someone to ask me how I feel. I want someone to let me rail if I need to, who won't be afraid of what they see. Is there anyone in this world who would go there, who would be willing to not leave me in the moment if it gets ugly...I don't feel anger, that's all gone. Deep sorrow. And there are elements of my dad's thing in there, but only as a back tone. I don't want someone to tell me how to look at it, to analyze. I know how to look at it, once I can. I'm not unhealthy in this, my learned lessons haven't left me. I guess I'm doing an ok job of holding it away from sight, so that's a good thing.
That's my week.
Moving onward ~ I'll figure it out.
*and for the record, I've never had a problem seperating my father's stuff from other men in my life...it's never taken the joy and enjoyment from lovely parts of life away, not in the least. I only mention that because I hear so often that it ruins things for women in their relationships, but I have always maintained that choices to forgive, heal and move beyond can be made. I just can't subscribe to a victim's state...that gives away my power over myself and...no.*
How you been?
Oasis
Wonderwall
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