Power and Responsibility

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. ~ Jesus Christ (Luke 12:48, NRSV).

With great power comes great responsiblity. ~ Voltaire (Oeuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48).

I've spent much of my life feeling powerless. Now I know that I was wrong - I am not, nor have I ever been powerless; I just didn't own my personal power. I was busy giving it away, mostly because I didn't know what it was, or even that I had it. The culture I grew up in was not conducive to deep self-knowledge or belief in personal power, especially for women. I grew up believing that my most important role was one of support to any man who happened to be in my life, whether that man was my father, my brother, or - eventually - my husband. I was a secondary consideration, a second-class citizen, even to myself. I look back and see that some of the inability to access my own power came from the way I was brought up, but just as much came from the media, and from other cultural sources like teachers, preachers, and other adults in positions of responsibility. No one made it a point to teach me that I should matter to myself. Maybe no one knew I would need to be taught.

Now the point is moot; my journey has taught me that I have as much personal power as I care to claim. In learning this, I have also learned that with great power comes great responsibility. There was a time when I felt overly responsible for everything - that is a function of having codependency - but that isn't what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about real responsibility. Here are some examples.

I own guns. I like my guns. I enjoy target shooting. I like having my pistols around for self-defense and just for the fun of going out to the range and sharpening my aim. Firearms are powerful, and they impart power to their users. But with such power comes responsibility. I am not at all threatened by the idea of background checks and permits. I already have a carry permit, for that matter, and I'd be happy to fill out paperwork and be checked before making a new gun purchase. I wouldn't mind a waiting period - it's not that big a deal, and there's no firearm on the planet that I need in such a hurry that I can't bear to fill out paperwork and wait for a week to obtain. I abide within the law and I have nothing to fear from such requirements. It is a responsibility that I welcome and even invite.

I have daughters. I can't raise them the way I was raised. The world has changed and is changing more swiftly now than perhaps at any other time in the history of human life. We can't afford to raise our children in the vacuum of our own childhoods. I can't let my daughters grow up unaware of their own personal power. There are two lives in my hands, characters that I will shape. If that isn't power, I don't know what is. I have the responsibility to make sure they understand their own worth and never, ever question it.

I am a survivor of violence. I am no longer a victim; I have a voice and great strength of purpose when it comes to advocacy for those who suffer. With this power comes the responsibility for speaking out, for raising awareness, for working toward a better world. If I ignored or failed in this responsibility, I'd be telling myself that there is no purpose to be found in my past, and no reason to struggle and strive to heal.

We all have the power to change what is around us. It starts within us, not without. We have the power to look at who we are, what we believe, what we live for. We have the power to ask God what wonderful things are happening, and that we might somehow be made a part of them. We have the responsibility to work toward something better. Wherever we are, whatever lives we touch, we have the ability to affect change, to light candles and push back the darkness. With great power comes great responsibility. We can't afford not to act. Look at the world we live in and begin the work of discerning how it can be made better. Speak up. Vote. Call your state and federal representatives and let them know how you feel. Treat other people the way you hope to be treated. Perform random acts of loving kindness. 

Remember that you are powerful and honor the responsibility that comes with power. It won't be easy, but it will always be worthwhile.

The Mark of the Cross

Happy Ash Wednesday, everybody!

Oh, I know...Lent isn't supposed to be happy. Lent is a time for repentance, for abstinence, for fasting, for giving up. Most of us think of it as a difficult journey of sacrifice. But the truth is that I look forward to Lent the way some people look forward to Easter, or even Christmas. Do I give something up for Lent? Sure I do. Is it hard? Absolutely! But no other spiritual discipline has brought me as close to God. The sacrifices I've made for Lent have enriched my life so much that for me, Lent is something to be celebrated.

We talk about what we will give up. Some people give up meat, or dairy, or chocolate. Some give up smoking, or coffee, or sex. Some even give up Facebook. Whatever you give up, it must be meaningful. It must be something that comes between you and God. Last year, I gave up self-deception. My life was so profoundly changed that even today I am experiencing ripples from that decision. Some people take something on - a new spiritual discipline, perhaps, or a volunteer opportunity. Whether you decide to take up a new cross or lay down an old distraction, make sure that the objective is to clear the pathway between you and God. 

In 2011, I posted about the Lenten service I attended. The meat of that text is below - it is as relevant now as it was then. I hope your Lent is meaningful, and that it leads you closer to God.

Receiving the Mark

On Ash Wednesday the Christian world begins its wilderness journey with Christ in commemoration of his forty days in the desert. At my church, the Sanctuary is quiet as we come forward in long, solemn lines to receive the ashes. Before me, I hear the ministers whisper about how we are all made of dust and must therefore return to dust – exhorting us to repent and believe what the Gospels have taught us. I pray the prayer of contrition, confess my sins before God. I stand with the rest, my forehead bare, waiting. Knowing that the season of Lent begins in that moment, when the minister’s finger draws the midnight-black cross on my skin, marking me as a follower of Jesus, as one who stands in solidarity with the Son of Man in his long suffering, his work for human-kind, and his violent death on a rough piece of wood. In addition to the imposition of the ashes, we are to think and pray and choose something to give up, or some discipline to adopt to mark the forty-day journey through the wilderness.

If you make a sacrifice, it must be meaningful. It must be something that comes between you and Christ. Something that ties you to this world and keeps you from focusing on Kingdom-business. Some give up meat. Some give up liquor. Some give up sex. Some give up coffee, or cigarettes, or chocolate. Somehow, I cannot imagine coming to God’s altar and laying down coffee or cookies. It must be meaningful. It must be something that I can hardly bear to part with, something without which I cannot imagine my life.

But honestly, there is nothing I have or want that seems good enough. I wait with the others and I remember how I stood before the church and read the words of the Fifty-first Psalm earlier in the evening. There is no acceptable sacrifice except hearts that are broken, and spirits that are crushed. God wants to make all things new. He wants to enter empty vessels and fill them. I receive the Mark of Christ, the Body and the Blood of Christ, and then I go to the altar and I pray in the words of the Psalmist from so long ago –

Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a steadfast spirit within me… Restore me to the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Hide your face from my sins and do not count them against me. Create in me a clean heart.

I came away feeling emptied, ready for whatever the journey brings. I am here, Lord; we can walk together.

Equality - Justice - Peace

I have been struggling to figure out what to write for a while now - since the end of December, in fact. Every time I sit down to sort out my feelings I end up furious and I slam my computer shut. If I'm alone, I cry, or yell, or kick my desk, or punch my pillow. Sometimes I meditate or pray; sometimes I just try to do something else until I calm down. I've been avoiding my own anger. Maybe it's time to stop.

Here's why I'm angry: Jyoti Singh Pandey.

Do you know her name? If you don't, you should. Maybe you know her as India's Daughter. Or maybe you know her as that girl who was gang raped on the bus in India, and who died of her injuries two weeks later. Or maybe you don't know who in the world she is, or why anyone would be angry about her.

I have a confession to make - I'm not just angry about Jyoti Singh Pandey. I am angry about Steubenville, Ohio. I am angry about Savannah Dietrich. I am angry about New Mexico's House Bill 206. I am angry about the Violence Against Women Act of 2012 which was stalled when Republicans balked at protecting Native American women, immigrants, and the LGBT community from violence.

I am angry for my friends who have been abused and harmed. I am angry for the women and men who are pressured by society not to come forward after they have been raped. I am angry for the soldiers who are shamed by their leaders and comrades after being raped or assaulted. I am angry for the children who suffer in silence because they are afraid to tell someone that they are being hurt by a family member or friend. I am angry for the LGBT people who have been viewed as prey and who are attacked simply because they have different expressions of gender or orientation. I am angry for myself, and angry at the people who decided it was fair and just for them to take what they wanted from me with no thought about the damage they did to my psyche and my soul.

For the past month, I've been trying to find a way to constructively deal with my anger. I have signed petitions, worked to raise awareness, and participated in two magazine interviews on the subject of sexual violence and the rape-friendly culture we live in. I have meditated, read books on healing, shame, and vulnerability. I have prayed endless prayers, asking God to change our world. Asking God why people are so cruel. Asking God how he can allow these things to happen. I have prayed that God would take away my anger.

I wanted peace. I wanted resolution. Instead, my rage grows. Maybe the answer is in the anger - maybe the rage itself is right. Shouldn't good people be angry when they see evil being committed? Shouldn't we be enraged when we hear about innocent women and men and children being abused? Shouldn't we be galled by inequality and injustice?

If everyone was angry, maybe things would change. If everyone felt this same anger that I feel, maybe instead of ignoring these issues or deeming them too controversial, we would all work together for justice. Maybe we would overturn a few tables in our cultural temples, and drive out those who are abusing the system for their own gain. Maybe. This is my hope - that each of us could be as incensed over injustice and inequality as every football fan is when the refs make a call in the other team's favor. That we could all spend as much time working for justice as we spend making up our fantasy football teams and talking about last night's game. This is about human rights, people! Wake up!

Equality. Justice. Peace. Aren't these things worth fighting for?

...let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ~ Amos 5:24, NRSV

Giving thanks

I've been writing here for over two years and faithful readers know where I am now, where I'm headed - well, as much about that as I know, anyway - and where I've been. Last week was Thanksgiving, and while I don't spend the month of November publicly posting what I'm thankful for on a daily basis, I have been thinking a lot about my many blessings this month. This seems like a good time to enumerate a few of them.

First, I am thankful to be here. Not just here, in this blog, or here, in my home, but here, in the world. I am thankful to be alive. There have been times when I doubted I'd make it this far, and it is very cool that I have. I am grateful to God for every minute, and that I have learned to inhabit each moment so that I am really living, all the time. That leads me to...

Second, I am thankful for the lessons I've learned. My therapist tells me that our hardest trials teach us our best, most needed lessons, and that life keeps sending the right people our way until we learn what we need to know. So I am grateful to have had the people in my life who have taught me my most-needed lessons. It was hard, but worthwhile, and I am a better person for it. Thank you.

Third, I am thankful for my children. I have two lovely daughters and I couldn't be more proud of them. Erin is incredibly intelligent and witty; she challenges my intellect and my social justice principles and never lets me just slide by. Laura is also very smart, and she is open-hearted, loving, and hilarious. She brings laughter to my life. They both bring me joy and I am grateful to be their mother and to have the opportunity to teach them some of the lessons it took a lot of time and trial for me to learn.

Fourth, I am thankful for my job. I am employed by the most incredible church in the world and am loved and nurtured by a stellar cast of co-workers and a beautiful Christ-like congregation. I don't know what else I could say about that except that I love each of you and am so grateful to work with and for you.

Fifth, I am thankful for my family. I think most of you don't really understand me, but I always know that each of you loves me. I love you, too, just the way you are.

Sixth, I am thankful for my friends. I have truly been blessed with great friends. Some of you are people I have known most of my life. Some are people I only know because of our connections via computer - but real or cyber, you are gifts in my life. I am happy to go through my days knowing you support and love me, and I am privileged to do the same for you. Some friends are more than friends; I don't have a name for that concept. Family isn't right...maybe Superfriends is best. Superfriends - and I trust that you know who you are - you bless my life. I hope I have blessed yours.

Seventh, I am thankful to serve and love God. Words can't convey how I feel here, so I won't try. But thank you, God. Thank you.

Raise a glass with me and give thanks for the good in your life; recognize that what seems difficult or painful often brings joy in the aftermath, the same way storms precede rainbows. I am thankful for these and many other blessings, no matter what guise they might wear.

Words, Actions, and What Lies Between

November is a month of contradictions. We in the Western Hemisphere enter it in a glorious blaze of autumn gold and we leave it grey and dreary. Somewhere between Indian Summer and Pre-Winter, the trees release their last pretense of modesty and stand, starkly naked and shivering, to face the cold. The world turns toward the death that must come before renewal. But, being human, we don't long tolerate the bleakness of impending winter and dying autumn. We dress November in trappings of Thanksgiving and Christmas-to-come. We engage in a frenzied whirl of activity. We celebrate with friends, co-workers, and family and we make the gaiety last as long as we can because behind the carnival masks, we recognize the skeletal trees and grey skies for what they are: heralds of winter's little death.

A few years ago, I lived through a November bereft of celebrations and joy. Cold terror and desperation threaded through the days which seemed to drag on endlessly. There were days that should have been wonderful - my daughter's thirteenth birthday, Thanksgiving with my family. All the good those times should have brought was sacrificed on the altar of surviving an abusive relationship. Daily assurances of his love were punctuated with nights of threats, physical violence, and sexual coercion. I believed in his love for a short while, but the words of adoration became meaningless lies in the face of his actions, which spoke nothing but hatred. What lay between those two extremes was a decimated battlefield that was my life.

People ask why victims of violent relationships stay, why we don't escape. I answer that chains aren't always visible. Violence creates fear and fear exerts a powerful amount of control. When someone shows you by his actions that there is nothing he won't do, no line he won't cross, there is no reason to hope that you will somehow escape unscathed, or even alive. Finally there comes a time of understanding that you don't really have a choice anymore. You could die if you stay. You could die if you leave. Do you risk your life for freedom or for continued bondage?

I chose to be free. A difficult year followed; there was stalking, damage to my property, and constant fear of reprisal. I began to rebuild myself and my life, but I did not understand how deep the devastation had gone, how damaged I really was. It has only been the in the past few months that I have learned how desolate my inner landscape had become. Without knowing how it came to be, I found myself again in the ruin that exists between the two extremes of words of love, and actions of disrespect, indifference, and careless self-gratification. This time, I didn't need to escape; I needed to purge. I needed to learn a lesson about my own self-worth and how to claim my life and my heart for myself instead of giving them away. I needed to heal.

Learning who I was became the goal. I had to learn how to value myself before I could allow myself to be valued by others. Always before I felt that any praise or happiness in my life was a cheat; I felt unworthy and was always afraid that others would see and exploit my flaws. In acknowledging the way I had given up my personal power and the poor choices I made, I regained my ability to discern what is good and right for me, and to believe that I deserve happiness, kindness, and respect. Slowly but surely, I let truth replace the lies, and I began to reclaim myself.

I stand now on the edge of what used to be a wasteland. It is November - the trees are bare and the wind is cold. Drifts of fading leaves litter the ground. But there is beauty in the barren trees and brittle, frosted grass. There is the promise of life in the naked limbs. Standing stones may be battered by the wind but they welcome and radiate the sun's warmth. The shards and ruins have been cleared away and this place - my life - has been reclaimed. It is mine. I may choose to share it at some point in the future, but I will never again give it away or fragment it for someone who cannot be trusted to speak the truth, and act upon it. I did not risk my life to stay in bondage - I risked it to be free.

A Testimony to Imperfection

Because the relief of pain is built into its perception, I search within and remember when:
     I did not use my power;
     I did not see;
     I resisted change;
     I was afraid of excitement;
By these admissions I ask for the help that I long for, the cure that I need, and the insight to change.

Life is fluid. When we put up barriers to its native motion, life tends to overflow, to flood, to destroy. Maybe it is human nature to hoard life, to try and imprison it so we do not face loss. In the same way we tend to hoard love, to erect safe houses to contain love, to build structures around our hearts to keep love in - and sometimes to wall love out. By confining the flow, we rob life and love of their inherent power. We become misers, clinging to what we feel we cannot live without; people, memories, behaviors, feelings. Because we are unwilling to spend or share what we hoard we cannot benefit from it. We cannot enjoy it. The very thing that we love builds up in turbulent weight behind whatever dam we've created to hold it back, until the barrier breaks and we are washed away.

We are left standing on a flood-plain of devastation, picking through mud-slick ruins and searching for what we once treasured. But the truth is that we placed value in externals - we laid up our treasures in the wrong places. We gave away our own sense of worth - we placed value in others and forgot to value ourselves. We are taught that we should always put ourselves last but we fail to recognize that when we devalue ourselves, we are devaluing the image of God that we carry at our core. Christ admonished us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We forget the second part of that commandment and buy into the idea that if we devalue ourselves we are somehow doing God's will. Christ's words call for a balance within us - a healthy amount of self-love from which we can recognize that our neighbors share our humanity and so are worthy of respect and kindness. If we cannot value our own humanity, how then shall we value that of another? We violate our own worth and because this creates emptiness, we struggle to fill that emptiness - with love, life, work, or excitement; with sex, food, drugs, or alcohol; we lay up the treasures that these things bring us until our walls are finally broken and we are drowned by the deluge of what we could not release.

We violate that which is Eternal when we violate ourselves; for our failures of truth we ask for honesty and courage:
     For acting out of fear of looking at ourselves deeply and honestly;
     And for using honest self-examination as a substitute for changing ourselves.
     For paralyzing ourselves by thinking we could not change;
     And for using these prayers as a substitute for real change.

There comes a time when we awaken to ourselves and realize that there is no substitute for change. We discover what it is we must release because it is the thing without which we cannot imagine life. For some of us it may be an addiction, for others, a person - a belief - a behavior. We struggle with the knowledge that we must let go. We grieve while we still possess whatever it is that owns us. We try to imagine living without it and we can't, or if we can, that future life seems pale and purposeless. But here we are, crushed by the weight of that which we once treasured, in a desolate landscape overrun with what we once loved. We must change, lest we die.

We go through the process of excision; we separate ourselves from what we believe sustains us. We find a new sustenance within ourselves, a well of strength from which we draw. We go about the work of restoring and repairing our lives. We bring order from the chaos. In the wreck we often find sparkling bits of treasure that remind us of what it was we loved. We rescue these from the mud, clean them carefully and place them on a shelf. These relics of the past form a crooked road-map that helps us know exactly where we are today.

We evade that which is Eternal when we evade ourselves; for our failures of truth we ask clear vision:
     For those times I turned a deaf ear on the cries of children;
     And for those times I turned a deaf ear to the small child within me.
     For those times when I believed that I was alone and there was no point in reaching out to others;
     And for those times when I believed that my temporary helplessness was permanent.
     In recalling this pain I experience it, I heal it, and I commit myself to replacing it with joy in the coming year.
   
We learn to be present in the now - the past is worth an occasional glance, and the future is a place of hopes that are yet unborn. This moment we are in is what we have; this body we own is where we live. We accept that confining life does not allow us to live abundantly. We understand that only by releasing that which we love can we ever truly have it. We learn that truth is worth more than illusions of happiness and that those who cannot love us when we are true cannot love us at all. We accept; we understand; we let go. Life becomes too big to contain behind walls. Our hearts - our souls - grow proportionately. We live.



(Words in italics are taken from Appetites: On the Search for True Nourishment, by Geneen Roth - they are listed by the author as being taken from the Al-Chayt, which is a testimony to human imperfection.)

Love and Compulsion

Love and compulsion cannot peacefully coexist. Compulsion leaves no space for love; compulsive behavior crowds out loving behavior. The object of our compulsion becomes the object of our affection. The people and things we love or value fall away and we are left with this compulsion upon which we depend. We deny that the compulsion is harmful, wrong, or damaging. We convince ourselves we have control because admitting that the compulsion controls us means we must change our behavior and abandon what has given our lives meaning or brought us comfort. In the face of our need we make poor decisions that impact not only us but those around us. Sometimes the impact is negligible; sometimes it is profound. We end up alienated from the people we love. This has the effect of forcing us deeper into our compulsive behavior and feeding our dependency. In our twisted thinking, we have been abandoned by our loved ones. We do not see that we have pushed them away. We do not acknowledge that we chose the compulsion over the people we love. So we lose our friends and our family, but the compulsion is still there bringing us comfort. We wonder why anyone would ask us to give up this thing on which we rely. It is our only constant! Why would we want to give it up?

Drug and alcohol use, disordered eating, gambling, overspending, hobbies, hoarding, and sex can all become compulsions. There are others but these are probably the most recognizable. Until we can see the detrimental effects our compulsions have on us and others, we will be unable to make healthy choices for ourselves. We will continue to put compulsions between us and the people we love – we build a wall with our behaviors to protect us from the vulnerability inherent in giving and receiving love. Slowing or stopping the compulsive behaviors is not enough. The root of the impulse must be exposed and explored; otherwise, the compulsion surfaces whenever the pain is triggered, and those of us who suffer from compulsive behaviors know how easily that can happen in the course of living.

I have suffered with compulsive eating for much of my life. Though it has been a long time since I actually binged, the compulsion is still there. I often struggle with the desire to binge. There are times when I feel that my consumption of food is out of control, even when it is reasonable. My thinking around this compulsion is so warped that it is difficult for me to know what is appropriate. In the same way that a person with anorexia can look in the mirror and see a bloated, distorted body, I can look at my food consumption for the day and distort a normal amount of food into a binge, which makes me feel guilty, ashamed, and out of control. I have labored for so long under the belief that I can’t make good choices about food that I don’t trust my body to tell me when it is hungry, or to know what kind of nourishment it wants. I have been working for the last month to relearn my body’s cues related to hunger with help from my therapist and several books by Geneen Roth. This mindful approach to living inside my own skin is working well; Ms. Roth’s guidelines are reasonable: eat what you like, eat only when you are actually hungry, and stop eating when you are no longer hungry. Pay attention to your food and don’t eat while distracted. Note how hungry you are before you eat and after you eat. There are some other directives, but these are the core.

Now that I take time to think about the emotions behind the compulsion before I engage in it, I find that sometimes I am not hungry when I think I am. Instead, I’m angry or lonely, sad or anxious. Sometimes I'm simply tired. There are better ways of dealing with emotions than burying them in food. I am learning that my emotions won’t kill me. The pain behind most of these feelings is pain that has already happened. I can acknowledge it for a few moments and then move forward without engaging in compulsive behavior as a way to cope.

As my compulsion fades, I find more room for love. My particular brand of compulsive behavior came between me and loving myself rather than me and other people in my life, so the love that is increasing is self-love. I trashed my own body with my compulsion. I made myself unhealthy. Perhaps I was trying to make myself as unlovable as I felt. My body was like a hoarder’s house – cluttered with the detritus of my compulsion. It has been three years since I lost over 130 pounds – I have kept almost all that weight off, but without addressing the root of my compulsive eating, that won’t remain true. In the same way an alcoholic can stop drinking for a while, I can stop bingeing for long periods of time. But the urge is there – the unhealthy attitude is there – the desire is there. The causes of my behavior are deeply rooted in the past. The pain is valid. The fault is not mine. But the responsibility to find help and to heal does belong to me. It is in understanding and remaking the beliefs that drive the compulsions that I will find healing.

A Long Way to Go

It is hard to believe that I have completed another trip around the sun, but here I am - forty-one years old, give or take a few days. It feels almost eerie to be this old. OK, I know - forty-one isn't exactly ancient. But bear with me; I'm making a point here. Survivors of violence often feel a sense of a foreshortened future. Since I was a teenager, I have expected to die young. I really never thought I'd get to be twenty, much less thirty. And when thirty-five came around, I was pretty shocked. So shocked, in fact, that I aged myself another two years! I went around for a couple of years telling people I was thirty-seven. It wasn't that I meant to lie about my age, I just lost track of where I was. The year I turned thirty-eight I was not surprised to find myself in a life-threatening situation. After all, I never imagined I'd live to see forty.

It was the night of November 14th, 2009, when I stood in my abuser's kitchen after he had just tossed a plate at me, thrown his glass across the room, and ripped the silverware drawer out of the cabinet. He grabbed my left shoulder with one hand and held a knife in his other fist. A six-inch long blade might not sound like much, but when you expect it to plunge into your throat any minute, it looks pretty impressive. I'm not sure what stopped him from stabbing me at that moment; it certainly wasn't me. I didn't fight with him, didn't struggle, didn't try to take away the knife. All I did was look him in the eyes and say, "I'm not afraid of you." And strangely enough, I wasn't. Fear came later - the next desperate month was spent in a welter of fear. But in that threatening moment, I didn't feel anything at all.

Of course, this is not healthy in any way. I should have been afraid. Any sane person probably would have been. By the time this happened, he had already sexually assaulted me and had been verbally and emotionally abusing me for months. I knew he had a terrible temper. I had seen him destroy my belongings and throw pots and pans and books across the house. I had heard him threaten to rape other women, kill me, and then commit suicide. I had seen the hole in the wall by the front door where he had put a glass through the sheet-rock because he was angry at me for dating someone else after we broke up. I think I wasn't afraid because I honestly believed that I was meant to die young. A violent death seemed like the strange fulfillment of some long unspoken prophecy.

All this disclosure begs the question of why - why I believed I would die young, and why I am still surprised that I'm here today. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be the most logical answer. It is a feature of PTSD for survivors of violence to have a sense of a foreshortened future - Criterion C7 states that the surviving individual may not expect to have a marriage, a career, children, or to live a normal life-span. (DSM IV Diagnosis and Criteria: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, 2012).

So here I am, forty-one years old, and feeling like I am very far behind on my life's goals. I think time got away from me because I kept expecting to die young. Sometimes it seemed like making efforts to accomplish things just wasn't worthwhile, because I wouldn't live to reap the rewards anyway. Logically, I know that this is a ridiculous mindset. No one knows when or how they will die. I certainly don't want to die - I am not suicidal and I do not take unnecessary risks with my life. About five years ago, I started making plans for a longer life than I used to anticipate, even though the incident I mentioned above only happened about three years ago. I often still experience disbelief that I am alive at this point, but have begun to live my life in a more forward-thinking way. I will graduate college with my BS in Human Resources this coming January, for example. Sure, it took twenty years longer than I originally thought it would, but I'm getting there. I'm also figuring out how to be a healthier person, one who is PTSD free, who is healed of codependency, and who truly believes that she deserves to have a happy life with good, solid relationships. And I'm looking at ways to give back to other survivors - ways to bring light out of the darkness of my own past. As one of my friends used to say, "It's all good!" - at least, it can be, if you live purposefully and work to make it good.

So I am celebrating myself this month. I made it to forty-one! How cool is that? I've come a long way and have accomplished a lot - even though I get frustrated at the pace sometimes - and I hope I still have a long way to go.

Resources:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder DSM-IV Diagnosis and Criteria. Retrieved July 30, 2012 from http://www.mental-health-today.com/ptsd/dsm.htm.

Little Anni

Many native cultures once believed that we carry with us a piece of the spirit of those we love, and that they have a corresponding piece of our spirits with them. When we lose someone we love, our souls yearn after them because they are a part of us. The same holds true for animals we love - we share their spirits and they share ours. Grief for our animal companions is very real and must be honored, just as their important roles in our lives must be honored.

When I was thirteen and going through an extremely difficult time, my dog Rowdy was a tireless comforter and companion. I couldn't tell anyone about my pain, but he sat on the back porch with me and leaned his head against my shoulder, bearing silent witness to my tears and listening to my hurts, offering unconditional love as only an animal can. My heart broke the day he died, and though it has been twenty three years since I lost him, I still remember his loyalty and the joy he brought me, and I still miss him. I think I always will.

My very good friend Eve lost a beloved companion animal today, one who had been her mainstay during times of deep suffering and hardship. The grief is just as great and just as real as if her companion had been human. Little Anni carried a part of Eve's spirit with her, just as Eve carries a part of Anni's. Anni's deep love for her human companion was visible and almost palpable. She never failed to give love and support during Eve's darkest moments. Her contribution to Eve's life is worthy of honor and praise. Anni was a beautiful creature with a pure, giving, loving heart, and she will be sorely missed.

We Remember

June 6th is D-Day. We spend time today remembering the troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy and turned the tide in World War II. There was so much loss of life that day - I find it difficult to wrap my mind around. Allied casualties have been estimated to be around 10,000 soldiers. During the months of April and May of 1944, around 12,000 soldiers were lost. This gives us some idea of the carnage that occurred that day. Though the invasion happened 68 years ago, we still remember. We mark the day with prayers and occasionally, solemn ceremonies. The folks who lost family members might gather to talk about the brother or uncle who never came home. The pain may have faded, but the horror never really does; we remember this anniversary and in remembering, we quietly celebrate the freedom that was won by those soldiers' sacrifices. We remember, and we are grateful.

June 6th is a personal d-day for me. It is the anniversary of a life-defining event that changed me forever; it is the anniversary of the sexual assault that occurred when I was 13. It has been 27 years. For many years, I didn't recall much of the incident. I think now that I wasn't strong enough to deal with the pain. Forgetting was a form of self-protection, much like the denial I struggle with in other areas of my life. I still sometimes question whether the pain is real, or whether I deserve to grieve or to call myself a survivor. For a long time, I didn't remember the date when it happened. Then, in 2001, I woke up on the sixth of June and I remembered. Since then, I have marked the anniversary with silence and solitude. I often try to do something I've been frightened to do. In 2002, I went hiking and climbed a huge boulder that jutted out over a sheer drop. I hate heights, but I needed to prove to myself that I could conquer that fear, if only for a few moments.

In later years, I have often had to work on June 6th and so could not have an adventure like the first one, but today I'm on vacation, so I left the beaten path on a lark and just drove. I ended up in Marshall, North Carolina. Going somewhere off-track and without any preparation is something I've been afraid to do for a long time. There's always that nagging fear that if I go somewhere out of the way, something horrible will happen to me. I know it is irrational. There is no safety in staying in one place all the time - there is no true safety anywhere. I know that I have to lay aside that fear and silence the voice that wants me to believe that I deserve horrible things. There was still a part of me today that was just certain that something awful would happen when I left the high-way. It didn't. I think that frightened part of me was shocked when I made it home, safe and sound.

Sometimes people don't understand why survivors mark our anniversaries. They think we are wallowing in our pain, or refusing to heal, or reopening old wounds. They don't get that we are mourning who we once were. We are grieving the loss of our old, false-freedom, our former surety that we were invincible, that nothing horrible could ever happen to us as long as we dressed or talked or acted a certain way. We are marking our loss of innocence. But we are also quietly celebrating the fact that we are alive now, we are well - or getting better - now. We survived. We are tougher. We are stronger. And if we are in a good place now, we can acknowledge that the younger version of us did the best she could. And really, she did all that was needed - she survived.

We remember, and we are grateful.