This well of sadness

There is such a well of sadness that comes from the smallest parts of me.  I think that  Callahan is running free and there should be no sad left. I see her smiling and happy in ways that she could never be.  I see her little spirit able to play and make noise, and yet I start talking about her little life the things that we missed and the sadness seems to ooze from every cell.  It is such a deep sad.  A sad that I am not sure I can even put words to.  

I think of little Callahan and she no longer has to hide in the corner,  Really, she doesn't hide at all, she is everywhere .  She is not worried about the noise that she is making.  She is not at all concerned about much,  she doesn't have the world on her shoulders anymore and that is a feeling we do not have much experience with.  Just when I think that I am done with the tears, I hit another well and it knocks me off my feet. I want to be done with the sad, that deep deep sad that feels so overwhelming.  It's the kind of sad that I wonder if it will ever end.  I wonder if I will ever see the bottom of the well with no more tears left in it.  

Wednesday the well opened for a time, and the tears just wouldn't stop.  They came like the rain and are exhausting.  Because each time I hit the well I think surely there can't be any more, and yet there are so many. 

My little life so many things that were missed, things that were taken away that I never got to experience.  So much missing , being left out, being abused and tortured, raped before I even knew what was happening,  battered and bruised yet expected to live the carefree life of a child. 

And so that well of sadness seems to fill instead of drain.  So much was taken so much was lost and that is something so unimaginably hard to understand.  When I think there can not possible be any more tears , they still come. 

So many sadnesses, oh so many and I want there to be a day when I can talk about them and they not break my heart.  I want there to come a day when I feel strong because I have survived them.  Not ashamed that they took what wasn't theirs to take. I missed being innocent about the world, I missed being special, I missed having a body that didn't hurt all the time. I missed being cared for, ,and protected.  I missed being heard and kept safe.  I missed everything childhood and that is hard to get my head around. 

I have worked more than hard, letting little Callahan have all of those things, and I can smile and hold my heart grateful that she can be free, that she can run .  Her mind is free, she knows that she is safe and her little body doesn't hurt anymore. 

At 46 I woke up this morning and my body hurt.  I felt it in my very bones,  the hurt the ache the pain and I want to crawl in a hole.  After all this time I don't want to feel it, I don't want to remember .  I don't want to understand why my body hurts and why I can't make it stop.  These are the days I could run a million miles and then some just to try and forget.  

Today that well of sadness is overflowing, my body aches and I remember that little girl being at work with my father hiding in the bathroom wanting my body to stop hurting.  The UTI was more than painful.  I would dread using the restroom because my body hurt so much.  It's amazing the things that a little girl can learn.  The longer you hold it the less pain that you create for yourself. I was so afraid in that restroom the lights only half on, and then he came looking for me.  Such fear in my heart the moment that I heard him.  My body in pain from the night before, still bleeding why would I even be sent to work with him. I am not sure if I have spoken about that day before. It's still in my mind clear as crystal,  that poor poor little girl.  Every sense on high alert, I remember every moment,  I was maybe 6 or 7.  That poor girl.  I can remember the lights the sounds, the pain, even the smell of that bathroom.  How does a child understand that,  how does a child just do what needs to be done with no thought in the world to tell someone that I was hurting and needed help.  That I can not get my head around.  

Such  a monster of a man, I sit here and my eyes see it as someone else,  and yet I know that little girl is me and her strength is undeniable.  I see it as a third party yet am aware of every feeling. She survived and I am oh so sorry that was her reality , this was her life; this was the way that things were for her.  So small and so used to what happened. 

I am sitting here and can hear the birds outside, its even a little cool and I am grateful that I made it, that somehow I didn't fade away, somehow I was able to see and hear those birds and  find some peace.  I am grateful that there was always something to help me through to make me feel not so alone. To help get my mind off the pain, and I am forever grateful.  

So many pieces of this puzzle that is my life.  I don't know how or why I survived such cruelty, sometimes it doesn't feel like surviving at all, because today it feels as if I am barely breathing.

 Everyone is still sleeping in my house, I am grateful as the tears continue to fall, that my children have had a life that is so far away from the life that I lived.  I don't know how to understand this, I don't know how to process this.  Such evil and so many questions.  I hope as this day goes on, the pain will subside, and I find even a little peace.  My life was not ok and today I am not sure if that well of sadness even has a bottom, it feels oh so never ending.   

I heart your heart.