The Everyday

My day to day, the impact  of being a survivor is something that no one wishes for.  Many days for me now are  just the "normal" daily life work, dinner, groceries, laundry all things to do with my house, My children.  I smile and know my  life is good.  My  everyday life of being a mom, daughter, sister and teacher are awesome . This crazy life of mine is  taking care of all that needs to be done with  joy and I live every moment to the fullest.  The face that I portray when I am at work when I am doing all those normal life things that I truly love is a woman  without a care in the world. And all at the same time if a person cares to ask;  there are days when  being a survivor is  nothing normal and everything unimaginable and crushing. On the outside things seem so put together but, there are days when being a survivor knocks life right out of me, and finding my smile among those ruins seems impossible. For me I  often feel like having my feet in two places at once.  There is the present where the assaults and abuses seem miles away, in another time and yet there are times it all comes crashing in and it feels like it was yesterday. This is about those days when I feel like every trauma and hurt was yesterday. 

  

There are days I am fighting memories , dealing with the constant reminders and triggers and literally wanting to hide in a hole. The days that I can't be touched because every movement feels like another attack is right around the corner.  Sometimes my day weighs  the  weight of  10,000 blue whales and every memory and feeling is screaming to be heard all at the same time. There are moments so raw and real that the tears may fall whether they are wanted or not. One of the hardest parts is being expected to carry on as normal when your heart is being broken.  This is my everyday, this is my life and so many expect even with all of this that I am "SUPPOSED" to be what they call normal. I can promise you I am nothing normal, I am just me crazy, kind and unique with many battle scars. Somehow in the middle of everything I learned, to carry it all well, too well at times because there were so many that never had a clue about the life that I had to live. No matter what was going on in my life,  there were  just things that needed to get done.  Day to day my heart often aches, sometimes gently sometimes like a roar of an elephant protecting her child. With so many scars, I take things personally, I am quiet and observe everything all around me all the time.  Sleep does not come easy, little naps during the day are the best in the light of day. I learned to smile and say that things were fine even when I was drowning.  I learned oh so early that being hurt was something to expect. I have learned that most people don't stay, but if they leave they were never meant to be. I have learned that I am too much, I am too sensitive and I take too much time and effort. I have learned that my story is not something to be shared with just anyone. To truly be heard is a gift that I will forever cherish.  I have learned that others feel I should be over it,  I know because I often feel the same and yet some days the ache is constant and ever present. There are days I am my worst critic and get angry for my feelings, for the way that I survive and react. Still, I go through each day smiling, the weight becomes just  common place just the way that it is.  It's on those other days that I stumble, that I feel every bruise and every bump that my mind thinks about all those things that should have never been.  The things that I have survived that I should not have. The things I have seen that no person should ever see.  The experiences that took all the most precious things from childhood and adulthood.  There are days I get sad, I have missed so many milestones in life that others take for granted.  There are sometimes some really bad days, when the tears don't stop and the trauma feels like it was minutes and not many years ago. Those days are getting further and further apart, but when they do occur,  it breaks my heart and the world begins to spin slightly slower, my life in slow motion. .Yet those around me are moving at the speed of light, and there is a sense that I once again am being left out. There are days that being in my own skin feels more like torture than living because after all this time some days I can still feel their hands.  You see I will never have a normal day to day.  I will never understand the so-called "normal life, because there is nothing normal about the things I have endured in this life. As a survivor my normal are things of nightmares, that I have to process and find a place for in my mind and heart. People can ignore, and they will.  Many people pretend that they are so unaffected by such great injustices in the world, and its infuriating because they have no idea how close that these things are to the people that are around them.  I am so affected and can not pretend that all is well .  Every day there are still memories that haunt my very being, some  more haunting than others.  Some days they scare the smile right out of me and other days I am stronger and think no not today.  I wish that there was a way to fully explain the day to day ; minute to minute life of a survivor.  Sometimes it's the smallest of things that tears at my heart, ripping my wounds wide open. Sometimes it's that inconsiderate comment, or that smell of cologne from a monster who took things that were not his to take.  There  are words that bring it all back in a split second, and I am left alone in the present while my mind visits the past. The news stories of yet another survivor being shamed, and blamed, are heartbreaking.  I feel that for me as a survivor, my day to day is different because I see the world through the things I have experienced. The unimaginable that I will never comprehend or understand but affects each and every aspect of the person that I am . For me the abuse was so early and lasted for so many years that there was no before,  this is all i have ever known.  I live in a world that often doesn’t want to acknowledge that I exist, that I am surviving, that people are truly capable of such evil things so I ‘ve been blamed, shamed and made to feel like I was the one that has done something wrong.

Finally at 45 there are much better days and still days that Il go far away. There are days I feel like I should live on a completely different planet because there is no place for me here. Sometimes I feel like I will never be understood or safe on this planet. I don't have those happy carefree childhood memories, but I have new memories to make. I don't have the same every day stories when people are at parties.  I don't have the great high school memories to look back on and share.  I am different,  but I am also brave and strong and I have survived and someday that will mean something in this world that we live in.   I just finished a book and there was a line that said "try to find the words to explain what words could never explain"  I felt that with every cell in my body. I am pretty sure that I will always write trying to find just the right words,and just the right phrase to help others understand my day to day.  I will create many more of my art journals to put meaning to those things that I don’t have words for. I will never stop fighting for my own healing and that of others.  I believe that is just my way of trying to make sense out of something that can't be made into any sense at all.   There are just plain evil things in this world, and I will keep fighting, keep writing, keep trying to find those just right moments that make my heart a little lighter and my soul a little safer. I was that 5 year old little girl that prayed to God that I would die , so I didn't have to survive another night with my father.  I was that 8 year old girl raped in the van and her tadpoles stepped on because I fought too much.  I was that girl at 13 gang raped by 5 men that no one believed, because I was the chubby unpopular girl who would want to do that to me.  I was that girl who at 22 decided I wasn't going to let my father hurt anyone else so when he remarried and got a step daughter; a little girl of three ,  I pressed charges.  I was that girl struggling to belong and at 29 wanting more than anything to be normal I was going to go shopping and have lunch but was raped and became pregnant with Twins,   All these things have brought me here to this day.

Today I have survived and as hard as it is at times, I am grateful. Today I laugh until I cry. I sit on my porch watching the trees knowing just how far that I have come.  I see my children doing things in this life that I never got to experience.  I teach and I notice each child where they are and let them have a day and just be little. I even every now and then write my detective and attorney's from my case and thank them with my whole heart for being there.  I remember to have good people around me that can understand those rough days and remember those rough anniversaries. I have found a counselor that truly changed things and helps me see my courage and bravery and the things I should have always had in this life.  He tells me I have grit and how I have persevered through it all and some days I can even hear that and take it in.  Today I still remember every detail of every hurt but never ever have I let those win, and slowly they are losing their  grip and I am leaving them behind.  There are some memories that have faded and don't have the power that they once did, for that I am grateful.  Never will I stop fighting for others. I am learning that my healing is a process and sometimes there are no right, wrong or clear answers. There are bad days, but oh so many more that are good. I am learning that there are layers to healing and just when I think it's all over there is another level of understanding. I think that more than ever people are listening, our stories are heard and I will do everything in my power to make sure that I am heard and listened to. My everyday life is good and scary and unimaginable all at the same time.  This is  the life that I was given and the life that I have. My every day is affected by the choices that others made. Some days are sad, some days still are devastating but I am still here fighting, making a difference and that will never ever change. 

I heart your heart.