I have spent the last several years reflecting on my life. I recently turned 36 years old and have made it another trip around the sun. In all accounts I have made it another year into my growth and healing. The truth is I made it another year out of my trauma and into the light.
I grew up in a domestic violence household where the norm was to be a witness to abuse, drugs, alcohol, unhealthy relationships, and the list goes on and on. I would watch my father lie, cheat, manipulate, abuse, and become a chameleon to others and to my family. I now know that it was a sense of brainwashing that was taking place. It was the norm during my childhood though. I didn’t know any different until much later.
I found myself fighting against the little girl from a broken home my entire life and at times witnessed myself attempting to be more important than i actually was. I witnessed myself being whatever everyone needed me to be. I was witnessing the unraveling as I got older. My father was sent away when I was 12 years old for taking another human beings life. A story that in all actuality only two people know the truth too. The truth remains unseen but still very much felt in my life. As I pulled myself out of the shadows of being a daughter of a convicted killer I realized that I was more than that little girl from the broken home. I was so much more.
I found my way into the darkness for a period of time and I will say that the darkness has a way of grasping ahold of every inch of you. It’s almost intoxicating and suffocating at the same time. You witness the pain but at the same time you want to peek inside a little closer. Just to see what you can find. Or maybe who you find.
Someone once told me, “what if through my healing I don’t like the person that I find?”. My question to them was, “But, what if you do”. We all have a story, a narrative, a trauma that we have been through. We are all attempting to understand bits and pieces of who we are and why we behave the way we do. We are all grasping ahold of this unknown idea that we may just figure ourselves out in this lifetime.
We just might.
I started to find my way into the light towards the end of my twenties. My relationship wasn’t going well, my career path was not panning out the way I had envisioned, life seemed to be taking a dark turn once again. I started to question the little girl from the broken home again. Did I actually have anything to offer anyone let alone myself? Was I capable of jumping through enough hoops so that I wasn’t seen as the little girl anymore. My twenties were meant to prove to myself that I wasn’t that little girl anymore. While doing that I found myself becoming a chameleon. If i did everything right then it would be enough. I would be enough. Right?
My thirties were meant to fight for my own sanity.
I found my way into the light though meditation. My sanity was restored for the very first time in my life. In truth there was nowhere to run when I was focusing on what was in my mind. I settled into the idea that the little girl from the broken home existed but was no longer all consuming me. She was there but instead of running from her I am embraced her with open arms and reminded her that I had her the whole time. I had been with her the entire time because I am her. I brought myself out of the darkness and into the light.
The truth is I am my own kind of light. I just didn’t see it when I was younger. I didn’t know that it existed until I was shown the direction. The path had put a lot of road blocks in my way but those roadblocks were there to show me that the light I was seeking was already inside of me. I just had to open myself up to it.
I had to give myself the permission to embrace the dark while fighting for my light.
The wandering mind of a 36 year old.