Victorious Woman...By Cathartic Virtue

The victorious woman in me had to walk away from you…. I started to feel emotionally, mentally, and physically smothered.  I saw the signs for a long time but ignored them because my love for you was stronger.  One of the best parts of being in a loving relationship is feeling sure of your partner without having to ask for reassurance! Secure, happy, fulfilled, and protected… but eventually those things I didn’t feel.

It started off so good between us, the magic and chemistry was there. Walking through the park holding hands, the sweet music you would send me to express your love for me, your unexpected I love you text messages during the day. Our conversations were intriguing, we would talk for hours about anything and I would leave the conversation feeling rejuvenated and ready for more. Our sex was so explosive! Grabbing of the sheets, the sweat, and loss of breath, the kinkiness, breaking the bed on a couple of occasions, the way you looked at me, and doing it anywhere and at any time because we wanted each other that much.  But deep down I knew something was amiss. I had a bad nagging feeling that wouldn’t go away but I ignored it because I just knew you were the one for me. 

After a while the REAL side of you started surfacing… You were insecure, controlling, manipulative, angry, a user. You were a master at what you do, buttered me up and melted me to get my guard down.  I know everyone has a side to them that is not so pleasant but you became unpleasant daily. Every day (in your eyes) was a bad day, I tried to make you feel better, sooth you whenever you were feeling bad but that wasn’t enough, you wanted me to do more. I’d send you flowers for no special occasion, just because and you found a problem with that… I remember your words well… “You must be cheating on me, if not why would you send me flowers out the blue?” If I didn’t answer the phone right when you called there would be an issue, if I decided to see a movie, or take a damn nap without telling you I must be cheating. If I was proud of myself for something I accomplished you would catch an attitude and tell me to “get off my high horse” or “you think you’re better than me don’t you?” WOW! What the Fuck!  I can’t believe that was the response I would get!  And for a split second I would feel bad for sharing my good news and once again I would pacify you, coddle you, so you felt better about you…. I would express to you the things that were bothering me and you would ignore what I said or tell me I was wrong or making things up and my feeling were not valid. I had never in my life met someone so miserable. You could suck the life out of any living thing if you had the opportunity, and you tried to suck the life out of me.

I would pray hard for a sign not fully realizing that all the signs were there (right in front of my face) but it was like I was waiting for something to actually slap me in my face… I knew what I needed to do but my heart and head were at war with each other because I fell in love with what I thought was really you.  When I would put my foot half way down and tell you I was done, you would find a way to again butter me up, melt me, and I would again see the man I fell in love with and fall right back into the trap because I wasn’t really ready to let go… so I fell right back in love with a soul sucking, miserable individual…. and I was allowing myself again to be emotionally abused.

Finally I really had enough, I was tired of burying my thoughts and feelings to appease you, tired and feeling empty and half of a woman, tired of keeping my phone at my side (at all times) so I wouldn’t miss your call, tired of having to explain where I was and what I did, tired of not feeling supported when things were going right in my life, tired of having to hide my accomplishments so you wouldn’t feel inadequate, tired of the arguing, tired of being tired. So after being with this “man” for 5 years (off and on) I broke the chains and ended it… really fucking ended it!  The shackles around my neck, hands, and feet are now broken, I ran for my life, my health, and my sanity. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I AM FREE!

I can’t put all the blame on this man though... I had a CHOICE to walk away but I didn’t. I should have walked away a long time ago, I should have listened to my gut but I chose not to. A person who loves you shouldn’t purposely hurt you, they shouldn’t make you feel less than, they shouldn’t humiliate you for their personal enjoyment. These are the things I had to learn the hard way.  The lesson here is no one needs to come into your life to complete you…. YOU COMPLETE YOU! You are the only one who can make yourself WHOLE. I always knew that but never realized (until now) I wasn’t putting what I knew into action. I can tell you all this, I don’t deserve to be treated like shit and I will NEVER put MYSELF in that situation again because I love me first and I AM a victorious woman.

 

Signed and Sealed

Cathartic Virtue

 

 

Scared = No words by V

When I get scared I stop writing.

It usually corresponds with some sort of event that triggers me back to the ugliness of the path. 

Textures, smells, they all begin to resurface and pull me into years of what used to be blackness and now are full canvassed color.

See, I remember so much of it now.  And it’s difficult to straddle that story, that history, and continue to walk in this world which is so devastatingly undifferentiated from the world that hurt the little girl that was me.

I was speaking recently and found myself saying that I could not count the number of times I was raped.  That it was literally beyond me.  I used to soften it by saying that I couldn’t count the number of times I had sex to somehow assume accountability for it…  Truth is, I’ve been having sex since I was 2.

And as I lay in bed with my lover, in present day, and his bristly cheek rubs up against my soft cheek…  Or his hand touches the top of my hair…  I fly back to the past.  Back to it, again.  Again.  Again.

It was haunting for a long time.

Now it is an entrée in the 12 course supper Spirit has prepared for me.  To feel pain, chew it, saturate it with spit, and swallow it.  Not whole.  Processed.  To digest it, allow it to move through me, down my esophagus, into my stomach, intestines, and eventually flow back to Spirit where Spirit can use it productively.

To do whatever it is that Spirit does.

And as particular entrees come up, I find myself sharing bits of the meal with those around me…

“You know, I used to have a wad of hair that was all ratted up on top of my head.  You know when you have sex and you get a wad up hair all ratted up there?  Well, I had so much sex, so little self care, was tender headed after my neck was broken, so I didn’t comb my hair.  And the wad of hair just got bigger and bigger and you couldn’t get a comb through it.  But the boys just kept raping and I kept tolerating and the wad of hair got bigger.  Til finally, we were on a family vacation down south and some hair stylist commented on it, thought it quite remarkable really, that it had survived as long as it had, before she unceremoniously cut it out of my hair.  And I was missing some hair on top of my head for a while…”

That’s tough to swallow.  Especially when I know that girl was about 12 years old.

And the knowledge and sensation just eats at my guts and I stop eating.  I stop drinking.  I stop breathing.  I do whatever I can to shut myself up…

It takes a hell of a lot to kill a person. 

It would take a lot to finally shut down this story.

Myself, that is.  Not someone else.  Never someone else.

That’s probably my biggest character flaw...  In the Darwinian sense...

There is a Greek Chorus of mother fuckers who deserve to be dead and whose energy I internalize into mine until it makes me so angry I just gyrate.

And there is so much that needs to be said that doesn’t get said.

So much that has taken place.

What am I here for?  What do I stand for?  I stand to testify to the fact that it is not okay to treat a human being the way I have been treated.

Perhaps my goal to date has been to small.

My audience too small.

Perhaps I need to blow this shit up in my mind--- this concept of helping the ill and impoverished.  Perhaps it needs to be all beings.  That my perspective needs to get so big that I can’t possibly do anything but that…

I don’t know…  All I do know is that what I am doing right now isn’t working for me, on the whole…

When I slow down to process the bits and pieces with words, with movement, with a circle of support, I begin to find more patterns to wind around…

More sensation of support.

And I’m living with that, for now.

Evil Is As Evil Does... By Salad

I’ve been having an ongoing dialogue with women who I consider to be pretty darn “with it” and we lose commonality as we encounter one thing…

Our understanding of evil as it exists in the world and our management of it in our daily lives.

I say it exists, some say it doesn’t.

We differ.

It’s a big topic with some back story.

I was a pronounced liberal for a long time and I have to say I lost interest in the left due to its lack of dialogue about evil or as I choose to define it in my life…  Violence.

It is my assertion that the Left denies the existence of violence in a real way as a means of seeking to keep their message lean and strong and not pepper it in with too much struggle.  The Left needs to believe that as people are exposed to more opportunity they will become more participatory in dinner party conversation.

The Right, on the other hand, can’t wait to talk about violence, in part, because it acknowledges the presence of evil via religion.  The Right will get out an evil sandwich and take a big bad bite outta it while the camera is on, then spit it in the garbage when no one is looking.

Howevs, I’ve seen evil.  Personally.  I don’t buy into either angle…

I’ve read about it very recently.  I’m sure you have as well…

When a masked gunman blows away a bunch of tiny children, their school administrators, his parents, himself on a cold winter morning in Connecticut.

That sort of thing haunts me and I find myself asking others, how do we deal with something like that?
What is our society’s means of managing this shit? Truly?

 When someone fears nothing…  Is given to extreme violence with great impulsivity…  What then?

I keep looking to both sides for feasible demonstrations of what the game plan is but it remains polarized…
The Right wants you to invest in the Great White Dream, place your confidence in the individual to conquer all of his opposition, believe in the triumph of the human spirit with every last drop of sweat. Don’t trust the government, trust the individual; arm the individual to defend his rights and the rights of the weak. Trust religion and the beliefs of your fellow men in the kingdom of heaven and then…

All is well?

The Left says that colonialism gave us these traditions- capitalism/patriarchy, forced migration of millions of ethnic peoples, lack of value for women’s work; generations being raised with huge disparities in power and eventually they are going to want their power back.  So the powerless get sick.  And eventually the sick kill.  But if you give everyone a fair shot then we will have equal access to power and all of that evil will dissipate and then…

All is well?

Where are you, in all of this?  What are you feeling?

Weary?

Ready for truth?

Truth is somewhat easier…  At least for me…

Truth says that the State does not transform trauma by investigating child sexual abuse.

Truth says that a police officer does not transform domestic violence through paper documentation of the crime.

Truth says a social worker does not transform mental illness if she herself is not addressing her issues.

Truth says that police officers don’t assist little children in processing violence by telling them to close their eyes…

What we do is delay things a little while…

We notate…

We turn things over to an x factor that no one has bothered to define.

When we talk about evil, we talk about ourselves; we talk about all of us, collectively, in it together.

If we don’t start holding one another accountable, in a real way, it will be perpetuated.

We need to look at the spectrum:  the good, the bad, the ugly.  That’s what I think.

We need to look the ugly in the face and say…  Wowsers…  I’m hurting.

I’m sorry.

I fucked up.

You fucked up.

You hurt my feelings.

There’s no way out of this mess.

Let’s put the pills down and talk about it.

Why don’t you pay attention to me?

Talk to me.  Please.
….
I have a responsibility to wake up to reality and not engage in false dialogue.

I have a responsibility to take care of myself.  To engage the realness that is me with other folks who are doing the same.

My bad guys got away.  That’s okay.  Evil remains very real for me because no one ever “fixed” it for me.  Neither side (Right/Left) got it right.  That is my legacy.

But I’m a big girl.

I don’t go looking to the prison industrial complex to fix it for me.  I don’t go looking to religion. I don’t look for a spiritual teacher to enlighten me or a new degree to explain to me why people do the things that they do.

I put on my bright green eyes and see the nice blue sky and know that things happen that are not alright and that it is my responsibility to fight when necessary, find support when weary, and respond to the open opportunity to thrive.

The days of meditating on the mountain top are over.

It’s a razor’s edge, this life.

Community.  Action.

My.  Responsibility.

I have power and choice in my life today.  It’s my duty to make sure that other women and children do as well.

It’s messy but it’s worth it.

Trust me.

Join me.  Join us..

Name?... By Barbara

I’m wildly popular among the online dating set. Hey, we all have our crowd, right?

But it is humbling: full of highs and lows like a fast moving tide that sweeps you up then, just as quickly, lets you down: hard to get your footing. Be careful or you might swallow salt water. You eventually stand up, reeling from the hit: you didn’t see that wave coming.

Good and bad behaviors get magnified…mostly the bad. At least they get the lying over with quickly. Wouldn’t want to get led on for too long…

The younger ones call you things like hottie. They want sex, which has its place, and they work fast and furious on*chat* for a free prostitute to service their needs. They say things like, they’d like to visit (they are often out of town), and ask about the firmness of your ass. They want photos, of course: not the kind you are allowed to post on your dating profile. You go offline when they start to jerk off.

Be careful, lonely hearts, or they will seduce you.

But seduction has its place and doesn’t hurt like a  romance– barely started– then lost…
_________________________________________________________________

He asked me how he should wake me so I gave him my number. He lives hours away. I told him to call me at 5:30 AM because I wanted to hear his voice waking me up – too early– but I needed to see how committed he was.

I loved waking up to him. He was shyer on the phone than I had expected with a voice that made him sound vulnerable. He hesitated, halting as he spoke, searching for the next important thing to say. We talked like that for the better part of an hour.

His writing had been quick witted, with direction. His profile drew me in. His conversation was tentative which made him whole. He told me real things that made me want to meet him. He promised me dinner and made my stomach hurt. I wrote back the next day, eager to set a date as he lived two hours away. I wasn’t worried about hearing back. He had written back quickly, before. We had chemistry and the conversation had deepened it. He had told me things but maybe he feels like he told me too much?

Another alcoholic in recovery: 14 months in. It had scared me and I told him. My last relationship was with a man who had to drink. It was long and devastating: a death that no one grieved. He told me I deserved a vacation: “yes.”  I thought he understood. Things had gotten deep. Maybe too deep? It hadn’t felt that way on the phone. It had felt inexplicably real: romantic, even.

But a day later, a second email and I haven’t heard back. Seduction is easier to swallow. I didn’t see this one coming. How can I grieve a loss without so much as a name?

Letter to My Daughter... By Barbara

Your laughter, over the past few days, has felt foreign and almost unreal.  I had forgotten the sound of it. I have relished it and the joy it brings out in your sisters. God, I have missed you.

We are so much alike: so stubborn and stoic and proud, that we annihilate each other when we most need a shoulder.

I see this as a window of opportunity for you and me to connect and I’m not about to close it. I am reaching out in every way that I can and I am grateful for your responses, your smiles– your hesitant love. I am trying hard not to let you down, put you down, or hurt you.

Don’t grow so distant from me that you can’t get back.  Don’t let me be like my father, with my back turned, with you believing, as I have, that you don’t matter enough. Love me and your sisters, please. I know love lives in you because I see it when you help other kids with homework and projects; when you research homeless animals until late at night, instead of doing your homework; when you smirk and call me “Maaa,” because you know I hate it; when you text me an ugly photo of yourself with a sarcastic comment; when you ask me what band is playing a song on the radio; when you want clarification on how many Ironmans I have done or where my last race took place, when you send me old photos of your sisters and yourself  that I didn’t know we had (back when you joined in family photos). The other night, when you asked if I thought my client would like a piece of your artwork, I cried inside. She had cooked for you kids, again: Phillipino food that, in the past, you had mocked and said you didn’t like and you still won’t eat. But you knew the effort that had gone into the cooking and the loss that had driven it. You wanted to give back and make her happy: a moment of selflessness that I won’t forget. I can’t wait to give her your charcoal rendering of a cat, your sister’s duct tape purse and wallet, your other sister’s letter of thanks. I can’t wait to see her reaction to simply being acknowledged.

Because, Maya, something I didn’t tell you, is that this client lost her own children, which is why she tries to mother the rest of us.

I know you love me even if you don’t.  I live for our connections: moments in time that I can actually see. Maya, I need you to be happy. I will give up mine for yours if that is what it takes. I am right here. Whether you want me or not, I am right here, waiting for you. These past few days have been a gift because you have been mostly happy.

Anna and Ellis keep telling me what a good week it has been and I know it is mostly because you have spent time with them. I also know that it is a dynamic: you and I dancing together and letting them cut in.
Going to the shelter to see about adopting Fiona was the first time we have all been out together, laughing, that I can remember. You holding your IPad with that photo of an elderly homeless cat broke my heart. You knew it would. You smiled so wide next to that cat that I felt like you two already knew each other. You have made me want to make you happy. It is a passion I had forgotten and won’t forget again. You are mine. You will always be mine. I will fight for you, protect you, and never, ever leave you. I will encourage you, as tenderly as I can, to leave me, one day, lovingly, with great expectations. But, not too soon, my dear: please stay a little while.