After reading and rereading Anne Lamott’s most recent treasure: Dusk, Night, Dawn, I feel almost close to being able to fully and deeply breathe. Engaging with my ex, for the smallest thing, leaves me drained and triggered AF. His mere existence and our permanence of division, is something I never get to forget. Life is unecessarily complicated and uncomfortable for our children. These words by Anne Lamott, so perfectly express what it was like, in my family of origin and then in my marriage.
“Being or expecting to be fully seen along with seeing who the people in your family were, was ill advised. In fact the first rule of being the young child to unwell parents is to agree not to see what is going on.”
That gaslighty bullshit is toxic and the effects lasting. Ok, so I can only learn from the past AND still not change or forget it. Anne also references repentance: as to change directions so that we do not end up where we are heading. To change our minds in the deepest center of ourselves in a way that changes us and the course of our lives.
I think I can say with confidence that I do and have repented. My mind has been changed and open to recovery and retrieval of my spirit and truth. I hope to preserve my boys’ spirits and unique truths, or at the very least not diminish them. I am a work in progress. When I returned to this side of the country, I had unfounded hope for healing that could be possible. I was foolish. Hoping and trying was risky and difficult and right. My requests to do the work were punished, mocked and misrepresented.
