The Journey …

 
I am awake, I am alive, and as I savour the first sips of my coffee made just as I prefer, my mind travels back over the days of my life and what a journey it has been!

A child born to loving parents, oblivious to poverty as love tinted everything beautiful. I lived in a world of possibilities and “what if’s” fueled by a father that insisted “You can be whatever you want to be, if and ONLY if you are willing to work hard enough to get it”.

The years in school, inhaling lessons, books and the words of teachers. There was so much to learn, so much to know and I wanted to know it all! But I wanted to draw too (so I did) and I wanted to write too (so I did). I was still living in the fertile land of possibilities after all, or so my mind told me.

High school, however, brought new standards where emphasis was more on looks and height and weight and makeup then dialogue and interests. This world didn’t seem to fit as well. I wasn’t blonde or blue-eyed. My body didn’t curve as the magazines suggested it should. Self doubt had begun to grow in the fertile soil.

But then someone offered to love me. It mattered little I had known him for 10 days. I didn’t care if he was already divorced on the grounds of physical and mental cruelty. That was not the man I knew … yet.

So began the dark years – a full decade of criticism, condemnation and ridicule as I learned that I didn’t fit in any of the “wife” boxes. Self doubt had taken root.

But one night, in a shelter of safety for women and children, I shook my head. “THIS is not how it was meant to me!” I said to myself and the ghosts in the room. “I am doing something wrong because this was not what my life was meant to be! But I can fix it!”

And so the fixing began – the careful selection of supportive friends and bosses, the adjustment to self-talk to ensure I was no longer abusing myself, and the hard work that Dad promised would bring fruition.

Now I sit in my own version of heaven. Challenges still exist but they pale compared to the dark days. Here hope and gratitude bloom and friends laugh, with me not at me. And it is good, real good.

Pain, sorrow, ridicule, condemnation – those are not what your world was meant to be either, my friend, so I pray – pray that if you have ever found them, that you left them behind as well.

 

I love you! HUGSSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi

#ibelieveinyou #ibelieveinme #celebrateandsurvive #repairingfeathers