Balance

What a week. It's been good, but I am exhausted. Thoroughly. It is a nice feeling.

I miss being home with Little Big Boy, but it is good that he has one on one time with G, too. Things are hectic yet with trying to balance getting everyone where they need to be; G is handling the brunt of the juggling-he is a master at it really.

When I was in high school I penned a poem-okay, I penned many, many poems, but this particular one was about hiding myself from the world. I went deep inside myself and stayed for a long time. Then came the time when I was ready to begin the long journey back up.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like without abuse, but more and more I have realized that if anything had been different, that it wouldn't be my life at all. I think that is what you call "acceptance." Instead of looking at the abusers in my life and feeling like they had stolen it, I can see that my life is just my life.

It has taken me many years to arrive at this insight. Twenty years of therapy-off and on, but therapy nonetheless. It is as if I suddenly realized the truth in the statement that I was not a bad girl. Those men did bad things, but they didn't do bad things because I was bad-they did bad things because THEY were bad.

The concept is very simple. It is easy to say it, too. It's not the victim's fault. The thing is that you have to believe it for it to be true. And to arrive at it being true means that you embark on a journey of self-acceptance.

When I was a little girl, one of my uncles walked into a room while his father was molesting me. The uncle said, "You deserve it." For many years, that was the loop that ran inside my brain. I think although I didn't knowingly buy into the accusation, that on some level I believed that I must have done something to deserve the abuse. Years later, after being battered, 18 year old's father told me, "Look what you made me do."

When I first launched my blog, I think that I was going to use it as a place for creative writing, but it actually evolved into a place where I could blossom and flourish. Many of the blogs that I read were discovered at Rosie's blog. Little does she know how much of a catalyst for healing that she has been.

When it comes right down to it, though, you have to inspire yourself to heal yourself. Acceptance is balance. I'm learning to love the high-wire and the acrophobia is fading. Maybe the little girl in me is ready to take my hand and walk with me side by side and not hide behind my knees anymore. That is a journey that I have waited a lifetime for.