There are things I need to do while I'm in this body, living this life. One of them is to learn how to forgive myself for mistakes I've made in this lifetime. And there are plenty of them.
But, more daunting and more difficult, I must learn to love myself unconditionally. If I want to love others without conditions, then I must accomplish this first, and I do want to be able to open my heart as wide as I can and let the flood of light and love that I know is there come pouring out.
The obstacles I face -- and they are formidable -- hide deep inside me where I store the Idea -- the certainty -- that I am flawed, even a terrible monster of a person. I learned these "realities" from my 5th grade classmates who tormented me without any pause or hesitation because I was pudgy. Not fat, exactly, though that came later and plagued me my entire life. I learned from my first husband how inadequate, how unlikable, how ugly I was, until i started cutting slashes in my forearms out of self-hatred. I deserved it. It felt good -- so much better thab the pain I felt inside.
But I had the good sense to seek out a therapist. And I threw my husband out because he was, quite literally, making me crazy. So at age 24 I found myself to be a single mother with a ten-month-old daughter. I had never held a job, so I ended up working a split shift at a Jack-in-the-Box. Instead of money, I found a very sweet woman who agreed to babysit my little girl in exchange for household items. Neither of us had any money, so she traded a week's worth of babysitting for my vacuum cleaner. She had never owned one before. She had five children, so we were both happy. That's when I began to realize that I had strength inside me that I hadn't known was there.
I applied for a better job as a receptionist, enrolled in college, badgered the head of the Psychology department until she hired me as a work study office helper. I got some grants and was on my way, determined to become a Psychologist.
That was hard, juggling work, study, and a toddler and I was tired. The felling blow came when I arrived back two days late after visiting my parents in another town. I'd been involved in a fender-bender. A Toyota rear-ended my behemoth of a Chevy Impala. His car was destroyed. Mine had a dent in the back bumper. However, his car hit mine with such force that my car ended up half a block down the street. I felt fine. No pain anywhere. So the next morning my girl and I started back to Houston. About five miles down the road I had a dizzy spell that almost ran me off the highway. Whip-lash, I learned, is for real. So I rested a couple of days and my parents OK'd me to drive home.
When my daughter and I arrived at the house I'd been sharing with a girl I'd known and been roommates with for years, the front door was standing wide open. We walked in to see two strangers throwing my belongings into garbage.bags, right along with actual garbage.
The strangers were the landlord and his wife. It seems that, while I was gone, my roomate had moved out. She hadn't said a word to me. What was worse, I had given my half of the rent and utilities to her in cash. She kept it, no doubt using it to pay her moving expenses. So I was left holding the bag -- the one with my belongings mingling with putrid garbage, without any money, and a barely 2 year old to take care of.
My parents helped us find a place to live. Most of my belonging like clothes and shoes were ruined, so it didn't take long to move. I finished out the semester, but was just too tired and disheartened to have enough stamina to do it another semester.
But I didn't give up entirely. A year later I made arrangements for my 3 year old to stay with my parents so I could finish my degree at University of Texas in Austin. I worked cleaning apartments for part of my rent, enrolled with a double major of Psychology and Journalism, found a job working at a self-serve gas station that nobody ever came to, so I had plenty of time to study. I did well. At the same time, I was dating a guy named Douglas who still lived in Houston. He was funny, with a wicked sense of humor, intelligent, loved to dance, which was a real plus in my eyes. He was attentive and romantic. I fell in love with him.
When the semester wiound down, I had planned to stay in Austin and carry on with my studies the following semester and spend the intervening time working and saving up money. But that flew out the window when I got a telegram from my mother. She had breast cancer. She was retired but my father wasn't and she needed me to come take care of her, my daughter and the household. There was no question in my that I would move in their house and help her. College could wait. My boyfriend could wait. I was all hers. I didn't return to college until my kids were teenagers.i took a creative writing class or two, but wasn't working for a degree. Even that proved too difficult, though I did well in the classes. I also had my first-ever full-blown panic attack.
My mom recovered completely from her breast cancer, by the way. And, once she was well, I moved back to Houston and did the most moronic thing I've ever done in this lifetime. I marrried Douglas. True, I would have needed a crystal ball to see what was coming, but I loved him. I thought we had a strong bond. We did, but I couldn't have known that it would transform, metaphorically, into something that would have been more appropriate for BSDM.
A lot of my inner pain and self-hatred developed during the ten years I stayed with him. People sometimes ask me why I stayed, why I didn't just walk out. And I'll try to explain as best I can in my next entry. But you won't ever really understand unless you've been in my shoes. I hope none of you will truly understand because that would mean you've been there and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies, if I had any other than myself, that is.
Love yourselves. Be forgiving of your mistakes. They're really just learning tools, after all, and not a measure of your worth. If only you could see how magnificent we all are in spirit. We are really just beautiful spirits having a human experience. I know you've heard it before and I can guarantee it's true. Yeah, some people think I'm off my rocker because I say I caught a tiny glimpse of an old friend's spirit, especially him, but it doesn't matter. I also got the teeniest peek at life through my own spirit and it changed me. There is so much we, as humans, cannot see or even conceive of. I saw magnificence. I saw and felt intense love and experienced the most incredible joy. And, believe me, joy has not visited me in many years. I wanted to stay there. But I'm not ready. I still have things to get done before I go back to spirit and go on Home, i can tell you this. When a loved one dies, grieve for your loss, mourn for yourselves, but be joyous for your loved one because they will be free of pain, free of fear, free of sadness, and will be surrounded by boundless love and joy. They will be Home.
Love, peace, and joy to you all.
