First came the anger.
I needed to let myself feel the anger because for years anger had lived in me coated with guilt and shame. The old anger was wrapped in the feeling that I actually shouldn’t be upset, that I had no good reason to be angry.
But I deserved the anger without the guilt. “Let me have this anger,” I thought. “No one rush me to good feelings of reconciliation. You will not take this anger from me.”
An unspoken message of my childhood had been, “The official story is that you are ok”. And so for years I told myself, “I’m ok. I’m ok. I have food, I have a home, I have parents who love me. I’m ok. I don’t deserve to not feel ok when others in the world are starving and being beaten at this moment.” But I wasn’t ok. I did not feel ok. In fact, a long-term maternity sub who taught me algebra in eighth grade and was friends with a close family friend told her, “Catherine is the saddest kid I’ve ever seen.” I was not ok.
Once I got a little older and was able to see how not ok I actually had been, then I was angry. I was angry that someone’s dogged determination for things to be ok made them blind to the suffering daughter in front of them and their own damaging behaviors. I was angry.
I was angry that I got so used to not feeling ok that later when my first boyfriend asked me to do things for him that did not feel ok to me…well, I thought it was just my hypersensitive feelings that I needed to overlook. I didn’t learn to trust my feelings when I was a kid, so when I thought things were not ok in my first romantic relationship, I trusted my boyfriend when he assured me that we were ok, that this was what love was, that there wasn’t anything better than what we had. I was angry that if I had been taught to trust my feelings as a child, if I had witnessed and experienced what respectful love felt like, then I wouldn’t have lived in a long-term sexually and emotionally abusive relationship that did further damage to me.
Anger was a stop on my path to forgiveness.
I met a comedienne that week who told an inspiring story of how she finally forgave her father who didn’t want to be a part of her life growing up. She forgave him because it was hurting her more than it was hurting him–she was harboring all these resentful feelings while he was just chilling drinking beer. They spent their first Father’s Day together this year.
It used to be that if I heard that, I would reach out to my dad. I would send a nice card, invite him to lunch. I would do what I thought a daughter should do. I would place a lot of responsibility on myself. Maybe he didn’t make good choices, but you could have done more, too. Be the bigger person. Look past the hurt. Life’s too short. Make an effort.
Everyone’s path to forgiveness is different. I can’t forgive what I haven’t fully reckoned with. I had tried pushing the feelings down to forgive; I had tried looking past my hurt and moving on. It didn’t offer any kind of lasting forgiveness or inner peace.
There have been times when I thought I forgave my ex-boyfriend Sean and my dad. Sometimes it would come over me in a moment of listening to the right song or seeing something beautiful and larger than myself. But later I would lose that feeling. The anger would rise up again as I saw more and more of myself and realized new ways I had been hurt. Maybe I forgave them in those moments. Or maybe those moments just showed me that I was capable of forgiving them, that the desire was there. Before you can forgive, you need to want to forgive. You have to be ready to forgive.
I spoke truth to power.
A few weeks ago I wrote the words that had been building in me my whole life. I wrote them in anger, I wrote them in love, and I wrote them in peace. I spoke truth to power.
I wrote words that I didn’t want to have to write but that I couldn’t avoid writing. I knew the instant I found them that these words were not just for me; they were meant for others, too. I had the sick feeling in my stomach that I get when I don’t want to do something.
These are the moments when I’ve felt closest to God, when I feel this calling to do the thing for which I feel unqualified and would rather leave for someone else to do–someone stronger, more deserving, better equipped. Me? You want me? This is my job? How can it be me? Sometimes I am moved to tears in these moments when I feel that my maker made me and shaped my life so I could be ready for this moment, this moment when I bow down before you and stand up strong with these words.
Then came the peace.
Hours after I published my words, I wrote this:
“This morning at the sink I plopped a couple lingering blueberries in my mouth in between rinsing breakfast plates. Plump. Juicy and seedy. Perfect.
The Avett Brothers played in the background: ‘the clothes I wore out there I will not wear ’round you’. I sang them to myself. I sang them to my son, who was by my side. I will not wear the clothes of guilt, of shame, of dysfunction around you, precious son.
Feeling filled me from toenails to hair ends. I guess you could call it the spirit. There was a holy presence, and I was a holy presence, too.
It wasn’t the lyrics exactly that hit me. It’s the fact that I’ve been singing them for years and years. Through numbing abuse, explosions, controlled burns of my life. Through new love and honeymoon drives through the mountains. Through waking up dark cold morning after dark cold morning to teach sixth graders, some of whom could barely read. Through sunset desert wandering and carrying the full basket home from the farmer’s market.
And now here, in my kitchen. Rinsing my breakfast plate. My baby smiling and pointing at me.
It was too much. Not too much actually–just enough. The too much for which we wait.
I put down the plate, picked up my son, and pulled him in close to dance. He grinned and pointed to the fridge. He picked the butterfly magnet off the door. Yes, love, yes. That’s a butterfly.
I cried because all the abuse is over forever. I don’t have to take any more of it. Ever. And now I’m standing in my kitchen in my own life full of chosen family, loving people who believe in me. I have my own family, and we get to decide how we live.
I made it.
It’s that little melody. Those notes woven through the best and worst moments. That melody that kept going when it felt like life was ending. That melody and I traveled together to this moment. And is there anything that could be more wonderful than that simple melody in my kitchen? I am alive.
Here I stand in the middle of gratitude and wonder.”
Out came the fighter.
I had written the words that had been building in me my whole life. I didn’t write them for my dad. I wrote them for myself. But he saw them. His voice spoke slowly and calmly in the voicemail, like he was approaching someone who was holding a bomb.
I geared up for the fight. I armored up. I turned myself into steel. I wanted to be impenetrable, immovable.
I wanted to position myself on an island where hurt from my family couldn’t reach me. I wanted to position myself on a mountain up high where I could see an attack from miles away.
My fight or flight response was on high alert. I looked out the window often when I heard a truck drive by. With each new text message or email that came in, I braced myself for words that could hurt. Everything got shaky. My clear vision blurred. I was a fighter one minute, crumbling the next. I was grounded in my purpose and love one minute, in a flurry of self-doubt and anger the next.
Up came the confusion.
I thought I was a strong swimmer, but when the current pulled strong and the waves mounted, I found myself pulled under. When I kicked to the surface, I gasped for air. I was disoriented, thrown about. Up was down. Water spiraled and stung my nose. Salt burned my eyes. I didn’t know what was what anymore.
I kept giving myself pep talks, reading inspirational girl boss memes. I wrote affirmations for myself. I made sure to connect with the people who would remind me that I am kind, I am strong, and I am worth it. Sweet husband Lloyd made a playlist for me called “Warrior Crosses the Threshold”, and he laminated a picture of Wonder Woman that said “Catherine Gray: Unsilenced since 2017”.
Then came the retreat.
I needed a change of scenery. I hoped it would put me in a different head space. We drove six hours to the mountain house that had received us in retreat so many times before. I went to The Mountain with an aching heart and a racing mind. I felt a great sense of loss amidst anger and bewilderment.
I thought a lot about why I had gotten myself into this headache and heartache of a situation. Why had I kicked the hornet’s nest? Why was I playing with fire? I knew I would get stung. I knew I would be burned. There was no shortage of adages that kept filtering through my mind.
I told myself, “I don’t need this anger in my life. I don’t need this fear-driven misunderstanding. Maybe I should just sink back into my quiet life. Maybe I should stop writing things that shake shit up, including my own world. I just want to stand still in peace for one rising and setting of the sun.”
Knowing that there are people out there who are fighting you and cursing you across town while you try to go about your life strolling your baby and cooking dinner…it’s unsettling, especially if you’re not used to rocking the boat. Of course, I knew that I wasn’t the only one feeling unsettled. So was my family, who had been cooking dinner and driving to work and putting kids to bed when they came across my words that shook their existence.
I don’t like creating negative energy waves in the world. I don’t like when my life creates a wake that disturbs others. If my freedom hurts others, do I deserve my freedom?
My words brought me into the light.
Was I just airing dirty laundry? No. There’s a difference between airing dirty laundry for sport or to hurt people and airing yourself from the dirty laundry, venting the house from dirty laundry. I stepped out of the room that held the dirty laundry in order to breathe fresh air so I wouldn’t suffocate because I had locked myself in a room with laundry that was covered in shit for so many years. I couldn’t live with that dirty laundry in the house, so I took it out to the yard.
I had done the thing that families don’t want you to do. I hadn’t kept the situation contained. I didn’t do it to hurt others. I had told a story of true things that happened to me in my life and the ways I struggled to process them and move forward.
“Shit I’ve been through probably offends you,” Kendrick Lamar says in his song “DNA”. That struck a chord.
When your own history and experiences are offensive to people’s sensibilities, you feel like an abomination. An eyesore. A blight. You feel like you exist a little less than other people. Like you’re worth less. You feel like you’ll only be accepted if you show the parts of you that are nice to look at and don’t make anyone uncomfortable. You learn to hide other parts of yourself. You learn to worry that people will discover the real you. You feel like an impostor.
These are the real things that I experienced. If it made you uncomfortable or challenged you, I’m not sorry. It was uncomfortable for me, too. Actually I suffered a great deal. It’s uncomfortable now. Sometimes I still suffer.
Telling my story made me feel like I stepped out of a picture book and entered my life as a real person.
I remembered my purpose.
I remembered that it’s not just about my freedom. It’s about yours, too, all of you out there who have hurt like I have. You start to feel a little like a crazy person, though, when you have thoughts like, “This is bigger than me.”
Ok, Joan of Arc…go save everyone if you must. Joan, who said, “There will be no help (for the kingdom) if not from me. Although I would rather have remained spinning [wool] at my mother’s side … yet must I go and must I do this thing, for my Lord wills that I do so.”
In the midst of this grandiose purpose-doubting, I heard from many of you. People who have lived with similar feelings of hurt. People I know and strangers across the country.
“Reading this, processing this, it brought me hope for the future. It brought me comfort for the present. It brought me peace for the past. It was the flip of the switch that I needed so desperately in my life.”
“Your example helped me find peace today.”
“My daughter shared this with me. At first I cried, then I was moved beyond tears. Thank you. It is the impetus for change. Moving out of the pain and constant wounding is what I will do.”
“You are one badass love beam.”
Your words made me feel like all this pain was worth something. Thank you. YOU have made the difference.
I don’t know what I’m doing, y’all. I’m writing one word at a time. I’ll go back to spinning wool if I feel like I’m done. For now, something pulls me away from the loom. My voice in my head writes the words in front of me, and the words walk me out of the shower and up from the soft bed in the middle of the night, and they follow me out the car door. I will continue to follow them, and when they stop, I will probably go searching for them. I am a writer.
Gratitude appeared.
Some of the words I said hurt me on my dad’s behalf. They hurt when I knew that they had met his ears. They were never really for him. They were for me and for others whose childhood hurt them in similar ways.
I hurt because I started to see a beauty in my relationship with my dad that I was never able to see before. Something started to shift in my heart. Even amidst all the pain and confusion, I could feel myself healing. The anger scabbed over and peeled off bit by bit.
“Already I can feel my heart softening towards him,” I wrote a couple days after I published my words.
I started looking through photos of us from my infancy on, and I saw his love and pride for me in a way I couldn’t when my hurt was locked deep inside. I found a little scrapbook he had made for me from a trip the two of us took together to Key West when I was a teenager. The note he wrote to me inside the cover contains sweetness that I never remembered him offering to me. I almost couldn’t look at the words straight-on they hurt so much now that I feared he may never want to hear my voice again.
I read my old journals, masterpieces of sixth grade poetry. The eerie thing was that the feelings I had about my dad in the poems were so similar to the ones I felt 18 years later. I felt my child voice trapped inside me.
The little girl had been trapped inside me and needed to be heard. She was crying in there all these years while my brain and heart and spirit grew. She kept me in the world of ghosts. She pulled me back time and time again.
The sounds of her cries had taken over my world. I couldn’t think or live or be without an awareness of her presence. There was no hope to block her out. Her cries had burrowed deep under my skin.
The day I published my words, I opened the door to her. She ran into my arms. I held her and rocked her and sang to her. She stopped crying. Finally she felt secure. All those years she had felt alone and isolated. Like no one even knew she was there. Like no one cared. Now she was secure. And she stopped crying.
When we were ready, we walked out of the room together. Hand in hand. At peace.
The healing rose up.
Amidst grief and confusion and madness, some kind of magic happened. I started to feel healing not just from my relationship with my dad but also the one with my ex-boyfriend. They had become so entwined in my mind and heart.
These eight years that I had been trying to heal from that toxic romantic relationship, I kept finding myself back at the start. That secondary hurt wasn’t going to heal without traveling all the way back to the source. I travelled back 25 years to the place where life started to feel icky. I found the place and entered the water. The icky feeling started to wash away as I really looked at my wounds and laid hands on my pain.
For the first time, I felt like if I ran into my ex-boyfriend at the grocery store or at a coffee shop, I would feel fine.
I started to get the urge to tell my dad, “I love you. I’m not ready to talk to you now, but I hope we can sit down and talk in the future.” I started to miss not the love that I always wanted from him but the love that he actually was able to give me. He began appearing in my dreams nightly offering gentleness, understanding, a desire to move forward.
Hope in the fragments
This story is not straightforward or simple. It’s not a “Fuck you” story to those who hurt me. It’s not a story of villains and heroes. At this moment it’s neither a story of reconciliation nor one of clean breaks. But it is a story of hope. It is a story of growth.
These past few weeks I have lived in fragments. Fragments of emotion, of thought, of perception, of time. Each piece has only been true for as long as I could hold it.
I hold my fragments in my hand and stretch them out toward you. Because maybe your pieces look like mine. And maybe we can help each other build something beautiful with them.
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