Broken Strings

We stumble, we fall, we fail, we break. Eventually the healing comes, but it never seems to happen when you want it most.

These past few months have thrown me directly into the waves of a tsunami that I thought I had escaped. It's easy to sit back and convince yourself that you are okay, yet so quickly the earth shattering reality of emotions come flowing in and you realize it's time to step up and face everything you ran so desperately from.

I've been running, only to finally face the inevitable truth that I can't escape the pain.

Distractions are my game, and emotions are my enemy… or at least they were. I perfected the art of feeling just enough to never hurt.

But that game is coming to an end.

I went through many months of counseling both before and after my divorce, and I tell myself I stopped going because I couldn't afford it (which is true)… but deep down I stopped going because I thought I could fix everything myself. So after a year of attempting (and constantly failing) to fix myself, I'm giving up control.

I have decided to go back to counseling. I have my first session on Friday. How do I feel about it? There's no one feeling to describe how I feel getting ready to embark on this journey that I know will be far more painful than I can fathom. It's going to rip scabs off of wounds that I never allowed to heal, and that's straight up scary. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm very open about my past. But what most people don't know is that when I talk about it, I detach myself. I look at it as someone else who went through all of that. I've spent the last year and a half convincing myself that what I went through wasn't THAT big of a deal, I've minimized my pain.

Yet when all the distractions fall away and I have to face everything… the pain is real.

I devoted my life to a man who let me down and deceived me. I spent endless nights crying myself to sleep, while feeling the breath of the one inflicting the pain laying directly beside me. I changed every aspect of who I was to try and make a man, who was incapable of love, love me. I had the man I loved convince me that no one would ever love me again while I stared at his fist confronting my face. 

That is painful. All of that is painful, and all of that sucks! Yet I try so hard to fight the pain… why? Maybe because my deepest fear is that the lies he told me were true. 

It's painful to think about the physical pain he caused me, but what is an even harder thing to face is loving someone who could never love you back. Loving someone, and devoting your life to someone who took every ounce of you and never gave anything back. I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with him… while he simply looked at me as a object at his disposal. 

So what all took me on this journey to admitting I'm not capable of healing the wounds of my past? Many, many things. Most too personal to share with this blog (sorry!), but there are two things that I will give you a glimpse of.

Dance has always been very therapeutic for me. There was never a problem I had that couldn't be fixed by allowing myself to get lost in movement. Dance was always my quiet time, my healing time, and the thing I could depend on for mending my life. I've been back in the studio for about 5 months now, and have had the privilege of being part of two dance ministries. It's been an amazing thing, but I've realized it's been an escape for me instead of healing. The studio and the stage have provided me the ability to escape and distract myself from everything around me instead of healing the wounds. When I realized it was no longer healing me, that's when I realized the severity of these wounds inside me. So I am looking forward to feeling the healing of movement again, as opposed to the escape.

The second was a very emotional opportunity I've been given. The doors have opened for me to serve on a committee with The Julian Center for their fundraising events throughout the year. For those who aren't familiar with The Julian Center, it's a domestic violence shelter in Indy. During my first visit with the center, they took me on a tour of the shelter. Walking into the building my heart was racing, because I knew the rush of emotions that would happen when I walked through those doors. Throughout the tour we would walk past women and children, some with fresh bruises on their bodies… others with brokenness in their eyes. I am those women. That is me. It hit me like the death of a loved one, because it was the death of my false strength. Sure, I didn't wind up in a shelter because I had a forgiving family who took me in. But my hurt was the same as every single woman that I met eyes with. Walking throughout the building all I wanted to do was break down and tell them all that I know their pain, that I am one of them. That is when I realized I may keep it all together on the outside, but I am no more "together" than those women who were freshly broken. A year and a half after my escape, I am still as broken as I was in the beginning. And that is not okay.

I haven't allowed myself to heal because I haven't allowed myself to feel. And that is where I am. And that is why I'm admitting defeat, and relinquishing control.

Embarking on this journey of healing means I will get out of this pit I'm in, and will put all of my broken pieces back together again.