killing me softly

I want so much to write. There is so much bouncing around my heart, my mind, my soul, screaming to be heard. And yet silence flows from my lips, from my fingers.

It is fear, trepidation, concern for truly worldly things that keeps the words locked up. Are not some worldly things legitimate concerns? Job concerns. They are the weightiest. So many of my heart family, the people who know my deepest heart, those who hold my hand, even from afar, have expressed clearly how much they worry that speaking truth would frighten me so. 

It's my kids. The ones in my home and the ones in my heart. My love for them keeps my lips sealed. I've already been separated forcibly from many of them. In that, I have started dying slowly. 

A conundrum: what example do I set by not speaking out? What good am I to them if I speak and subsequently lose contact? The attack, the battle, is both spiritual and psychological. And forceful. I wait for the right thing to be done , something to be done. Anything. Hell, I would be relieved to find the most awful, backward thing was done, if only something. I say that, and yet, in the supposed name of "help" I'm already dying. 

Crime dramas are my favorite. Have been since my sister first introduced me to Quincy while I was in junior high. In them, sometimes, a victim is stabbed or impaled and the object must remain in place that a slow bleed not become fatal as quickly. This object has entered my life, my soul, in an area resembling the belly - soft tissue, unprotected. The space reserved for the most tender of touches. And with each day, each hour of inaction, a few drops of lifeblood fall forever away. In the place I should feel most safe, the object in place is slowly turned, day by day, inch by inch. 

I've resolved to believe the answer to my plea "help me understand" is silence. Sustained and complete. Nothing will be done and I will be expected to go on about my days and nights behaving as though I am not leaving a trail of blood in my wake. My best guess: the supposition is that I have lived like this before, and eventually the wound heals, even if the dagger is not removed. That I've done it before, so I will again. What's forgotten is that I am not the same woman. 

I am not the same woman. I've learned that House was right - everyone lies. I've learned that the dagger never becomes invisible. Never disappears. It just becomes yet another subject of secretive conversations involving all but the one whose blood was shed. The one who most needs to be involved. The one who most needs to share. 

Ultimately, I will not be hushed to silence. I will not be pushed aside. "No one puts Baby in a corner." My voice will find its timbre, and the words will hit their mark. Rest assured, you will know that I've been opened up. That my heart, mind, and soul are aligned, and that the speaking is not only full of conviction, but with compassion for those like me. Don't try to tell me I don't have a reason to be angry, hurt, afraid, guarded. "Be not afraid" cannot mean "protect yourself not." We are given all we need - to use, not to lock away inside ourselves. 

The power over me belongs to One who has always loved me. Who knew me before I wake. Who gave me words and a means to use them. Who asked me to dance, and has always been and forever will be, my Partner. He listens to me. And asks me to speak. 

Last week, speaking to a priest I respect, I was told, "It is not enough to speak to the Father only in the silence of your heart. Even Christ cried out to his Father in words that hurt 'Why have you abandoned me?' He knew that those words would carry. He knew the people around would hear them. He knew they were shocking. Yet he cried them out, loudly. 'Thy will.' We must cry out, speak out loud in prayer, and in life. And remember that it is, in the end, His will we must follow." Say What You Need to Say - one of my favorite songs. 

Not everyone wants to hear what I have to say - especially the 'good' things: you mean something to me; I like to be around you; I'm glad you're in my life. Virtually no one wants to hear the harder things, offering the excuse "I don't want to upset you." Although I suppose it is intended to be gentle, it lands on me like a slap, and I bleed that much more. I recognize that for what it truly is: "I don't want to be upset. Your pain is something I don't know how to handle, process, hear." While I want to be compassionate then, I become preoccupied with direct pressure on the bleed. 

I hate that there are flashbacks. I hate that you don't care. I hate most that you would like to pretend they don't exist, because it makes your life, your job, easier. I hate even more that I keep hoping this time you will step up. That you will see that it's not for me that I wish it, but for a generation. I will not benefit personally from action. I will still bleed. 

Forever I will likely bleed.  

alongside of me

God knows I need time. He patiently waits with me - not across the heavens or even across the table. He stands, sits, and lays beside me; silently. He knows he needn't convince me of this because his presence is enough. His presence is enough because I am enough; he made me so. We don't talk because right now that is not what we need to get close. We both know it will not last forever. He better than I, and that is why he waits with me. Not to prove anything; rather, for understanding to process. It is well. I make mistakes in the meantime - I am a child testing my limits with the ONE who loves me without question. He is, indeed, my one. He is the gardener, the weeding is his. People often misunderstand the silence I'm holding with God. A trusted guide tells me the silence is prayer; a form I'd not previously experienced or expected. A form I'm not entirely comfortable with, yet not quite uncomfortable. Every deepened relationship allows for the silences, the times when self-reflection supersedes. He supports me through this, he smiles on me, laughs when I laugh - he laughs when I cry sometimes. He knows what I need and is allowing me the time to feel. And he graciously allows me to feel this pain, this fear, this process of healing. He knows that time alone feels like the (forced) isolation to which I've grown accustomed, easing me through those times, whether that means leading others to me, me to others, actions, activity, what may look like "more" to those who don't understand.