So, we come to me. I am responsible for my actions, reactions, and decisions. I sit on my couch, in this place and time, a culmination of who I am. I won’t say all my decisions were thought out. I’m scarred from childhood drama. Back then, I’d inserted myself into adult subject matters at the lowly age of ten. By thirteen, I’d kicked my father out of the house. Well, more like yelled at him to leave when I’d discovered his infidelity. My heroic gesture opened up a whole new can of maggots. I’d learned just how detached he was to our family. But this isn’t about him. I realize now how detached I’d become to every one else on earth, including my family. My rights became everyone else’s wrong. I became a laughing stock and joke fodder. Miss righteous. Misunderstood. Misguided. I got lost in my tiny pristine world of “if I won’t do it, neither will you.” Is it surprising that i was a republican back then?
I remained stifled until High school. I heard terrible words, insults, judgements…from the adults around me. From my father to the the pope, I learned hate and intolerance. My best friend smoked weed and I almost ended the friendship. Why? Ignorance. Not willful. The difference being I’d no inkling that I could be wrong.
I wasn’t aware of race or homosexuality. Today, I remember hearing derogatory words spoken beneath a dark spotlight. Generations of hate past forward to their children. One defamatory twist of perspective (No facts in sight) taints what is a natural phenomenon, disgracing and distorting its truth, to give power to the ignorant and sometimes willful ignorant power-seeking history-falsifying Marauders. As a human under the burden of others, I was one of them.
Because of the fog hate, though there were many instances of love and affection, I embraced fear and not love.
Fear drew my mind, my health, the safety of my children inward. I saw predators everywhere, therefore it was not I who had to change, but everyone else. I lived in Misery despite adoring my children. They were the only ones who saw my loving nature. I’d die for them. Accept them as is. Unconditional love. Only I could protect them. No one but a few people and for short periods of time, watched them when I’d no choice but to go out. My husband, a good daddy, didn’t fit my idea of bodyguard. To others, I looked unapproachable and intimidating. And then something happened that entirely decimated my already fragile world. Cancer.
Some would say that fear and misery became the cells that threatened to overtake my organs. Eat away at what I couldn’t live without, until I no longer lived. Cancer forced me to make a choice. Continue protecting my children in til I died in a year or so, OR trust others to protect them while I sat in a room for four hours a week, with IV pumping poison through my veins. Who knew that the only way to stop the spiritual darkness destroying my soul was a disease that ate me alive from the inside out. Because of my children, I chose to trust others so I could get better and return to my children. For a year and a half, nauseated, barely able to get out of bed, no hair, puffy complexion, no resemblance to my formidable self, I stopped thinking. All my fears were contained inside surviving, and for the first time in my life, I felt free to just love. Love was what got me through, made me see, and caused me to abandon the path paved by others to make my own path.
to be continued…
Mel Evers wonders about it all 