As I lay here tonight there's no sleep to be had no matter what I do it just won't come. This year has been so difficult for so many of us but yet we all carry on, but really what else are we supposed to do? Giving up is something I've never done, no matter how hard it is, my feet just keep moving forward on the road below me, even though I can't see it....my heart knows it's there.....with each step it materializes underneath me....or so I hope.
I imagine life back when I was a child, I never really thought it would be this way....but which of us really imagined life in a realistic way as a teenager? When young you think there is so much time to grow, learn and experience life....as each year passes you think there is an abundance of time to catch up to your dreams.....the years though, they fly by and before you realize a half century has passed....the kids have grown, some still love you and others, well, you are everything they love to hate....a sometimes unavoidable consequence of having children with people who end up being abusive and hateful themselves.....if only there were do-overs for the choices of our youth....of course that is not possible.
I find myself here as my 52nd birthday approaches...it's been an interesting life so far...there has been joy, happiness and much heartache.... A life filled with abuse, domestic violence, and things that can never be forgotten. So many years you would think that it would be easy to forget, but it isn't. In reality every moment of our Lives shapes every coming moment of our Lives... So while we may not carry the anger, the regret or the pain any longer, we will forever carry the experience.....in every cell of our being, the memory resides and when you're really lucky-insert sarcasm- the wonderful PTSD will remind you, over and over again.
Of course this is not to say that I have not had a good life, I have...I've had so much joy, I've had so much love. After my first incarnation in marriage, I swore I'd never do it again. I was convinced that there was no way that I was going to live under the thumb of any other man. What had started with so much love had ended so brutally that I was nowhere near thinking that there was ever going to be a way to find happiness with another man, hell with anybody man, woman didn't matter I was just done. Now as I lay next to my old guy I realize that if there was one thing I could change, it would be to go back to when I was 15 and to walk away from the first one. I would have waited to meet him, but but no matter how much I wish it's not a possibility...even after almost 24 yrs, I want more time, endless time with him...if I could turn back the clock, and relive the life that I wish I had done with him, I would...Oh how the choices would have been different..... It's funny I always think that I've let go of all of this, then this time of year comes...it starts to get cold, the leaves start to change...The familiar chill comes in the air and I know that it's not going to be long and my wheel of the year will turn... Maybe it's just the getting older, maybe it's the hindsight, I may never really know what it is but this time of year brings about the melancholy...
The feeling that there's there has to be more than this, there has to be more than the struggle...the struggle to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged...somehow when you're young you just think this shit will be all worked out by the time you're old.....then you get older and realize that age has nothing to do with having all your shit together... But maybe it's never really about having your shit together and it's more just about walking on, not giving up...Maybe it's just about trying to do better today than you did yesterday...
52, wow, there are more years behind me than there are ahead of me now...there are still so many things I don't know, and no matter how I try to convince myself there will be always things that I regret... But there are some things that I do know...I fought hard to break free...I scraped and clawed my way to me, and I like me...my babies, the best parts of my life, amazing humans that I love to the end of the galaxy and beyond, just for them it was all worth it....and call me stupid but I still believe that one day I won't struggle anymore...I will find the peace I so truly desire, birthing my art, crafting magic and making love to each day....then I realize I already have this now....just need to remember to tune out the noise.....haters gonna hate, no matter what I do, I will just need to remember to turn up the music more.
These are the musings that keep me up tonite, September, the turning of my wheel.....
