pain is painful

"mamma please stop crying,
i can't stand the sound,
your pain is painful and
it's tearing me down"

...i told dad you didn't mean
those nasty things you said...

this is my shelter....

growing up in
world war three...."

pain....


hurting...when will it go away?

my little boy prayed a week ago:

"Please help me to work hard
and work fast
so that I can have all my recesses."

i promised myself that I would ALWAYS remember this prayer,
and NEVER forget it.

it made such sense to me. he didn't ask God to do his work for him and just give him the blessing of all his recesses. he asked God to help him to WORK HARD and to WORK FAST....so that he could have his recesses.

he asked God to help him and he told God why....he wanted to have his recesses, ALL of them, and in his expression of FaiTh he stated help ME TO WORK....

a willingness to WORK....work HARD and work FAST....

His words really got me to thinking...

How willing am I to work HARD and work FAST so that I get all my recesses in life. Seriously how many of us think about asking for the strength, the help to WORK!!! I think too many times we are so busy just asking for blessings to happen for us. We want things to just happen.

Nothing happens by chance. Nothing worthwhile anyhow. We work, and while we are working, anxiously engaged in good causes, we find our peace, our happiness, our strength, our HEALING....our recesses.

With all the thoughts I have been having lately...pondering my own process of healing, of overcoming fears, and letting go of my painful past.... i realize that until i anxiously engage myself in the WORK of healing, of honestly opening myself, letting the dam flood, that i am holding back on the blessing of RECESS in my life.

The definition of Recess is:

a temporary withdrawal from
or halting from work....
the key word here is temporary

While looking up the definition of Recess I came across the definition of Recover. I have often said that I am in recovery. But I don't remember if I have ever really pondered Recovery.

To Recover means to get back something that was lost or stolen. This felt so good to me to think that I could get back what was stolen from me. My childhood, my sense of peace, of being whole, healthy mentally and emotionally, and physically.


I then looked up the definition of WORK:

physical or mental effort exerted to do or make something.

I find myself in a reflection of my past, present, and future here.

I have to work out my past, here in the present, so that in the future I can take pleasure in my recesses, with hope, healing and a feeling of wellness, of being whole, of Recovery.


I want to stop crying, to stop aching, to stop fretting about everything all of the time.

I desire to find a place for the pain that is so painful,
and take a recess from it, I want recovery.

I have the understanding that the pain will not just "go away",
but if I am willing to WORK....

I pray for help to WORK HARD, to WORK FAST,
so that I may fully understand
and enjoy the blessing of Recess.

if i were strong enough

if i were strong enough to say it...

i would talk about the pain in my head and heart.

i would have told Mr. B that i was hurting last night because some of the things we were talking about triggered memories that i wanted to NEVER remember and ALWAYS forget,

memories that haunt me often and leave me lonely.

i would tell him the details of the abuse that i have never wanted to talk about. i would tell him hoping that he would be able to filter through them, understand my inner turmoil, and then let it go with the flow of tears that picking the scab of my abusive childhood would bring.


i would scream and cry, and curl up as a little child and be comforted by his tenderness, comforted in a way that i have always wished for, always needed, and never had.

never had but always given.

never had
because i have never allowed anyone
to hold and comfort me.

i would tell him that i am sorry that i push him away, that i am sorry that i push everyone away when they come close to breaking my dam of tears, fears and emotion.

i would tell him how jealous i am that my children have a loving mother and a loving father. i would tell him how much i hate being jealous of them. i would scream that it is not their fault, they don't deserve my frustration and my anger and my sadness in seeing them grow up with security and peace.

i would tell him that i hate not talking about my childhood,

but i hate the thought of talking about it.

i would tell him that i fear that i will end up lonely because i haven't been able to overcome the past and i seem to be pushing everyone close to me away.

i would tell him i notice that people avoid me.

i would tell him that i seen the pain of my childhood reflected in the way that others look at me, the way that others interact with me.

i can see the pain
in my own
children's confusion,
i would tell him.

i would tell him i notice that i am not the strong person that i pretend to be, and that i don't need him to keep pretending for me.

if i were strong enough

i fear

i fear that i will never be able to kiss my husband with my eyes closed

i fear that i will never be able to share the things that are on my mind and in my heart

i fear that sharing will make me more vulnerable

i fear that i will stop breathing from the pain

i fear that i will never know who i could have been without the abuse

i fear that i will never know who i am because of the abuse

i fear that i will never recognize the strength everyone seems to see in me

i fear that i will drown in my own flood of tears

i fear that i will ruin my babies because i am so sad, so scared, so destroyed, so BROKEN

come into my closet...

come into my closet,
come under my bed,
where you'll find me hiding,
the fear in my head.

abuse in the past,
now, where do i start,
making my future,
healing my heart.

crushed, and broken, falling fast-
needing comfort, make it last.

I'll be dammed

ups and downs: we all have them

had a down last night

this morning i woke up and tried to snuggle into hubby.
he was cautious. i don't blame him.
last night was ...interesting.

all was well. date night. we stayed in. talking and laughing together and then came time for bed.

i guess sometimes memories just strike quick and tempered.

like a fire in dry conditions

memories can destroy what has taken years, decades;
centuries of beauty gone in an instant

what happened?


i suppose that it started with the flashback a couple weeks ago, triggered memories that seem so suffocating,

yet memories which fire blazes destructively wiping out years of healing in an instant

i read something today, something that sparked a thought,

a healing thought.

it was a story that i had read months ago and meant nothing to me then.

i picked it up today and began to read. i almost put it down remembering that i had read it before, but something inclined me to read it again.

i am so glad i did.

the Neeches River in east Texas was one of the most beautiful places of lush dense forest and river. an ecosystem rare and magical, with beauty, animals, peace and tranquility.

there came a time when the plan to dam the river was put into action,

a dam that would destroy the freedom of the river and the animals. a dam that would certainly suffocate the lives of many plants, animals, and people who had found peace there.

a girl and her father decided to do something about it. she prayed: "Lord, this river is a precious part of your creation
and deserves to be saved."

i stopped reading here.

i had an epiphany, a thought so strong in my mind and heart that it could have been said by someone standing directly beside me, holding my hand, cupping my face...

i felt the tears as this thought came to me:

YOU ARE A PRECIOUS PART OF MY CREATION
AND DESERVE TO BE SAVED

tears were stinging my eyes, threatening to loosen the dam that has been holding back the flow of my free emotion.

i began to realize something.

there is a beauty inside of me
that is flooded right now.

i have dammed up so much of my past, my emotion, my mental stability is suffocated by the dam of tears and the dam of holding back and holding in so much of my past.

if only i could release the dam, break it into bits and allow the tears to freely flow from within me...

maybe, just maybe my ecosystem could rebuild itself, maybe there was a chance that the beauty that is within me could flourish and maybe I would find that there are signs of life, of survival within me, life and survival just waiting for me to let down the dam of tears.


i am constantly holding back emotion, holding back information, and flashbacks, and memories.

i don't want to burden my husband with the things that are suffocating me.

i don't want to say out loud the ugly thoughts and feelings that i am having.

so i dam them up inside of me, and walk around tense, all the while doing all that i can to hold up the dam....my dam has leaks,

...it feels like it is bursting and near to explosion,

and what i fear is that if i let it down i wont recover.

i fear that the damage is done and that the signs of life are irreparable, that my ecosystem doesn't stand a chance of recovery, of healing.

so i hold it all in, i hold back, the dam seems permanent to my existence.

i wonder what beauty i would find if i were able to let it loose?

What I learned from a RAT!

My daughter is home today from an injury after accidentally stabbing herself with a pencil yesterday which broke off inside her hand. No worries, she is okay, just nursing her wound with a little help from me.

I am home today nursing other wounds.
Wounds that are internal

and which wounds I normally try to hide.

In the course of me nurturing her, she nurtures me today.

I asked her today if I am all the mother that she could want. I wanted an honest answer. I have been picking myself apart my whole life, why not let someone else do it for a change.

She was honest with me, thankfully, and didn't give me the Sunday School answers that I am perfectly perfect in every way and that she could not want for a better mother.

No, she told me the truth, how she really feels, and I am better for it.


She was watching Ratatouille.



Armed with half a Bacon Cheeseburger each and Sweet Potato fries we watched the final moments of the movie, and pondering her sweet answer I listened to the food critics response to the meal he had been served by the RAT:

~ In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.
We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.

We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.
But the bitter truth we critics must face is that,
in the grand scheme of things,
the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

But there are times when a critic truly risks something,
and that is in the discovery and defense of the new.

The world is often unkind to new talents — new creations.

The new needs friends.

Last night,
I experienced something new,
an extraordinary meal from
a singularly unexpected source.

To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement.

They have rocked me to my core.

In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook.

But I realize only now do I truly understand what he meant.
Not everyone can become a great artist,
but a great artist can come from anywhere.

It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion,
nothing less than the finest chef in France.

I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.~

I have offer up my work and myself to her judgment. I opened myself up in this way because who can be a better critic than one who is at the core of my work.

My darling daughter, a daughter who I hope will grow up to blossom all the love and light and talent that she has been blessed to have.

A daughter who I hope will take all she has seen in me and learned from me and make more.

Who I hope through her life's experiences will come to forgive me for my shortcomings and who will forgive herself when she experiences them too.


Now hearing this next piece made me smile: the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so... May I be lucky to be such an average piece of junk in someones world, and may I do all that I am meant to in my own.



The exciting part comes next....a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new ahhhh, the discovery....

The world is so unkind, and we can often find the extraordinary in the unexpected.

It is always in the things that I least want to happen that I have the most blessings.

It is never fun to hear that you are not coming across the way that your heart believes you are. That others don't see you the way that you think they will. The mistakes of misunderstanding. We all suffer this. There is no possible way another person can know the true intent of my heart, because what ever they are experiencing, where ever they are coming from they will see me with their own tainted view.

Discovery and defense....Even as I discover myself I find that others are discovering an entirely different person than I believe myself to be. The natural defense is to weep, to mourn or grieve the criticism. But...

To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement.

...what if, ...what if we really tried to see one another for the person they are within??? what if we offered to see them in their refinement....

What if we challenge our preconceptions.....Our Maker has such a divine and individual plan for every one of us. He makes no mistakes. You, me, everyone you meet.

Hard concept to grasp, but yes, He makes no mistakes.

I think of this and wonder....my judgement of others makes me question this truth, and when I question it I become a harsher judge of myself.

[arggghhhh... the thoughts....I think right now I have a bit too much salt in my meal, and the only solution is to cry it out...]


and then...

I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France

We are no less than perfectly refined by our humble origins....we are made into the finest and find that OUR PERSONAL greatness comes from out of the junk.

So, for me today....in my own personal junkyard, I am discovering something wonderful about me. I am letting down my defense, and allowing my imagination to wander. What will I become??? Who knows, but I am sure it will be nothing less than the finest!!!