Not Going That Way

 

 

“May god bless all the women you had to be
Before
You became the goddess you are today ..
They are all you ..
love them with Grace ..”
― Samiha Totanji

As I stepped away from my beloved friends, leaving my beloved Maine, after the death of my beloved, a dear friend said, “Remember, don’t look back, you’re not going that way!”  That was in 2005.  I have kept that quote tucked in the forefront of my emotions and thoughts since then.  I cannot let my past dictate my life.  Yes, I grieved hard for a long time, butt I only allowed myself good memories.  I continue to work hard to let go of the past negatives and refuse to let any of it haunt my tomorrows.  As well, I cannot “forget” in order not to let those who hurt me come back into my life.  I get the “forgiveness” but not forgetting part.  I have often said that I am grateful for my scars/woundings, for it is that part that caused me to be strong and remain positive.

When negatives from the past come to visit me in memories, I have to remember how brave and strong I truly am and honor that.  That extinguishes the negative reactive memories.  I have not won all the battle with my Ego versus Soul.  Sometimes I visualize sitting down with some who wronged me and telling My Side of the story.  It is almost like practicing ahead of time for that confrontation.  A soon as I feel the angst coming, I switch back to remembering what strength it took not to defend myself.  I cannot befriend them again when I know I have spent a lifetime forgiving such things.  It has been a few years now and it is so easy to forget the WHY of the distancing.  Now, I remember what peace came after walking away.  No more constant oppositional conflicting behaviors and language to deal with.  No more constant drain on me to help someone who does not want to make decisions so always the haranguing for me to, in some way, make suggestions for decisions that she never ever took anyways.  No more being on guard constantly.  No more constant draining my emotions to try to have me feel as badly as she felt. No more betrayal by someone I would have sacrificed my own life or limb for.  Walking away was like I was free from emotional bondage. I walked away from two long-term relationships that were abusing my giving nature.  Both left a huge hole in my life and I grieved the losses and then learned to make some better boundaries.  That gap has been filled with new relationships that are healthy, compassionate, and comforting. Being strong enough to walk away put me on a path to be edified in new relationships.  I have been blessed.  Being their friend does not cost me anything.  It is uplifting, is rare.  And, I am grateful.

After a really rough year, I was grateful for the turning of the calendar. After the death of my daughter, we went on a previously planned cruise.  For one week, I did not have to think, explain, feel the burden of a mother of seven who was now mother of six for a week.  As Christmas loomed, another wave of grief hit me and I was grateful that The Bee Man wanted to drive to Yuma for two weeks.  There I was gathered into the arms of beloved Mexican friends who plied me with my favorite Mexican foods, three times a day; who walked with me when I needed to walk; who kept my spirit busy with their loving nurturing and compassion.  Again, a reprieve from quiet nights up alone with my thoughts.  And an old grief came to visit, as it always did after 2005 when I lost my soulmate.    There was our desert, our chocolate mountains, our greatest adventures, that I could no longer do without him.  My brother, who loved Man Hands as much as I did, came down early to spend a week with us there.  We both were grieving for he lost our beloved Ev after Man Hands.  But there were sweet memories too. Our friends knew all of us for years, and they, too, missed our partners as much as we did, I believe.  There were tears.  But there, too, was great laughter at the shenanigans we all got up to in those prohibited caves and on dangerous ground; oh, foolhardy were we.  Before we left, I gathered some stones, my brother gave me some of Ev’s stones, and I squirreled them away in the vehicle to bring home.  …on last time.  I was very aware we would not be able to go down again, to that beloved land of ours.  I had had one last peek at red sunsets falling on the mountains and desert and, it too, was sending me off on my last goodbye.  We turned our vehicle North and headed for a different future than we had, any of us, thought we would have to live.

This last year, taught me new kinds of strengths, through sorrow, through failing health and eyesight, through needing to still be the strong mother, through wearing my new sorrow, I realized there was not such anguish of the other.  I am a strong woman.  I can do what needs to be done.  I am older, needier, more vulnerable in many ways, and am willing to admit it and change to meet that change in me.  I, though, within, am still the child, the young woman, the other, the grandmother, the great-grandmother.  My own woman, my own goddess, I am trying to master some kind of grace and dignity and willingness to go softly into that goodnight.

©Carol Desjarlais 1.2.24