For The First Time In My Life I Feel Free
At nearly half a century spent in this body, on this plane, I am for the first time feeling free. It is a mix of joy and sadness like I have never known.
When my girlfriends call and complain about the restraints, disagreements, feelings of oppression placed upon them by their partners I can’t help but to glance around and smile, knowing I have no one to answer to but myself.
I am my keeper, for the first time. I have control of ME.
So why the sadness?
I miss having a shoulder, a place to hide my face, and feel safe. Arms around me to remind me that I am inside of this body, a solid being not a wisp of air that the Gods can just blow away. Although even in this solid form I still know all too well that the Gods can, and will, do just that when they see fit.
The first time I felt them pulling at me I was just a young girl the age of four. I dug my fingers and toes into our shag carpet and I screamed. My father came to me, at first trying to pick me up but I just dug in deeper and screamed louder.
Didn’t he know? Know that if I let go they would pull me right off of the planet and out into the nothingness?
At such a young age I understood that life was not a gift to be taken for granted. Thankfully he did not force me to let go, he sat next to me stroked my hair and cried beside me until I was ready to let him gather me in his arms and when my little body went limp that is exactly what he did. He picked me up in both of his arms, pulled me to his chest, and rocked me.
He later tried to ask me what had scared me, but I could not explain. My young vocabulary not capable of expressing what I had felt. I am still not truly able to express what happened that day. But I remember it as clear as these words in front of me now.
I trusted my father to keep me safe, to be my protector, and the day he left me, my fragile psyche broke and has never been quite the same. I’ve spent my life trying to replace my protector, and again and again, I have been shattered by disappointment.
This time though, this time was different. This was my choice. I stood up for myself. On the verge of destruction, knowing what would happen if I didn’t end it. Knowing either that man would leave my life that day or I would leave this earth and Gods help me for the first time I chose ME.
This has been my hardest journey, owning my faults and victimhood. Accepting that it was I who allowed the abuse, I who gave myself away, I who let others—men—determine my value.
Never again.
Yet danger still lurks.
Someone caught my eye, someone I thought would be safe and fun and not pull at the edges of my mind. He’s so unlike the others, light where they were dark, stable where they were wild. He is grounded and good. Yet I am causing myself pain because I want his attention, and I see how I am behaving trying to get it. It works, for the moment. But like a drug, I want more. I want him to chase me.
I am disrupting my own peace. Creating chaos where there need be none. And so I gracefully retreat, knowing I need to rewind, refocus and rebuild once again.
As I set my mind to doing so, I hear the ding, like a siren’s song… it’s him. Breathing, I remind myself I am a Goddess in control of her own path, pain, and destiny. Free.