Fear

Fear is a funny thing… It slithers toward you, takes a hold of you and tightens its grip around you until you can't see or feel or think about anything else. Fear crawls into your throat and silences your voice. Fear holds you down and doesn't allow you to move away from it. Fear is an evil force that has to be murdered to free one's soul from its grasp. One can't just push fear away, it will come back to haunt you. Like David and the giant--you cannot simply knock down the giant, you must remove its head from its shoulders as well.

Fear worked its evil magic on my mind. It was been closed off from the world for years. No one allowed in, and nothing productive allowed out. Fear silenced my voice--until I started writing this blog, only a very select few knew what life has been like, and not a single one of you had all the pieces. I still haven't told all of it… some of it is still too painful.

But I knew the silence was killing me. I've spent the last few years gaining strength enough face these fears--working on me and my endurance. Making sure I was really sure that I would be able to handle what I knew was coming. Trying to make sure I knew how to handle the children and their reactions throughout this ordeal. Making sure that I was able to be not just a single parent but the only parent, if it came to that. I had to break free from the fear.

I built up my fortress walls, only allowing my children access to my heart. And it worked enough to get me here to this point, by preventing any fear to get to me. But now, the fortress walls are coming down--they aren't needed any longer and I need to learn how to live without them. But that means fear creeps back...

A year ago today I endured a most degrading and horrifying act. The person I was supposed to trust defiled every last vow we made, defiled my body, defiled my mind. And with that act, every bit of love I ever felt for him died--he became someone that I just wanted to spit on. I was hundreds of miles from the nearest person I could trust, just alone. Stuck in the middle-of-nowhere-Cowshit, Kansas trying not to cry.

I came home as soon as I was allowed to leave the next morning. Oh God, how I wanted to continue to drive and never look back!!! But I could never leave my babies, never. I stayed put, and continued to live with fear for another few weeks. I had to keep repeating "just a few more weeks" and my favorite movie line of all time: "Patience darlin'! There is a new fiesta in the makin'…" Matthew McConaughey drawls in Dazed and Confused. It was my chant for the next two months, until I had those keys in my hand to my new home.

I have been fighting that fear dragon. And I keep knocking him down, pushing him away, but I have yet to slay him. He was trying to fight me again today. Flashbacks from that awful weekend all day today… I so needed to be with people other than my children. I just can't break down in front of them. All I wanted today was someone to hold me and tell me I was safe, tell me that wouldn't ever happen again, say something to drive these scenes back out of my head. Instead I just fought against them, trying to push them down, away, out-of-sight.

I worked on my furniture projects (couldn't concentrate), I baked cookies for the kids, I had a playdate for the boy, I made food for me for quick-freezer lunches, I tried cleaning the house-only marginally succeeding, I tried reading to the girls, drawing with them, watching silly shows on the internet. Still the scenes came at me harder. I could feel it happening again. I could see and hear him. My mind was screaming back at them, at him "Go away!!!" but he wouldn't.

Finally, I was able to pick up my paintbrush and attack the canvas that had been out for the last week, waiting for me to get the time to finish it. And the paint went on; fast, angry, calculating--just as I knew it would. An hour later, it was done. I stepped away from it for a while to run bedtime and check email. When I came back, I was struck by what I had accomplished. I guess it was just seeing it finished after seeing it sit there unfinished for so long. IDK.

Painting didn't make the scenes, images, those feelings disappear… it did release enough of that emotion to be bearable though. And tonight, sitting here writing about it has also released some of it.

I still don't know how to slay the fear dragon. I hope that one day I am given the right weapons to finish the job. But for now I will cling to my paints and my words (and your words of encouragement coming back to me) to help me continue to heal.