Weaving

I am sitting here not believing that I revealed a new memory tonight.  I am ashamed and feel like the cat that ate the canary.  It feels like i have done something terribly wrong, in my heart I know that I didn't.  I am sitting across the table from my sweet Mariska and listening as she tells me about her day.  She is talking about how she turns 20 in April and how crazy that is. Then she starts talking about my birthday and how she should start preparing. I sit her engaged and listening with my whole heart marveling that she is mine. I have come so far from that memory.  Sitting here the weight of the kind of life that I had to live is so very sad. But here I am thriving, growing and healing.  I want more for myself than the memories that haunt me. Now comes the weaving.  I have to figure out how to weave this memory and all the pieces of my life into one amazing work of art.  

I was not at all prepared for remembering, yet I had all pieces. I just was never able to connect all the dots to create a cohesive experience.  It's hard because I was so young, it happened before we even moved to Texas.  We moved when I was 4, that is just so little.  I have always known that my father was a monster in every sense of the word, and somehow this makes it worse.  I knew so early on that he hated me, and I just got in the way. Knowing that a persona hated you that much is just painful.  That I was never special to him, that I was never important, never valued and cared for.  It wasn't even a thought to tell what had happened.  That says so much. This one piece makes me examine other things to see how it all fits together.  I am trying so hard to even name the feelings and I am not doing a very good job.  There is a part of me that is completely at a loss and another part, that wants to scream from every rooftop what is happening.  

There is a part of me that can't believe, such a little girl survived such hell.  And it's trying to wrap my brain around, the world of that little girl. Just how I kept smiling.  There is this one picture, and I am sitting on a dolphin, and all looks well with the world, and I think oh sweet girl.  I am just so sorry that these things have happened to you. I will always be in awe of that little one that never let the things that happened to her dim her little spirit. 

I know that I have often searched for the missing pieces of my story, wanting all the answers wanting things to form a complete picture. Today I can say, I don't want any more pieces.  I know that he was a monster and there are no pieces that will change that. The pieces I don't have can only cause more harm and that is the last thing that I need in the world. I remember enough and have been heartbroken so many times.  There is no memory that could ever change, me or the person that I am today.  I am me, regardless.  With or without those pieces, nothing changes.  People were unkind, people were more than cruel.  Way too many people hurt and ignored me and yet, here I am.  

The moment that I am in right now reminds me of a line from Mark Nepo : 

Everything is beautiful, and I am so sad.

Yes that.  That is what I feel as I continue trying to weave the things that have happened to me into the life that I have today.  I am moving forward doing things I never imagined.  All of those pieces of the past are parts and pieces that I will forever carry with me, and hopefully with each layer of healing with each ray of hope some of the hurt will fade.  I am confident that by the end of this life all I will be are rays of gold, there will be none of the hate, none of the sadness, none of the pain ever ever again. 

Someday. 

I heart your heart.