Writer's block is an interesting and perverse thing. I have been happier over the past year than I think I've been in my entire life. So happy and fulfilled...and absolutely unable to write anything about it.
Maybe I was worried that I would hex things. Probably I was just enjoying being happy...
In a nutshell:
December 2015 Bill and I got engaged. We were visiting the daughters for the holidays and he proposed during the Illuminations at Epcot. Very romantic and perfect for beginning our life together.
March 2016 My brother passed away from a year long struggle with pancreatic cancer.
August 2016 Bill and I got married in what was one of the most fun celebrations of love that I've ever experienced...it was simple, but fun...and the gluten free cake was divine!
October 2016 I started working full-time on my weaving. The path to this decision was painful, as so many paths to major life changes can be. I struggled with "can I do this?" to "will Bill leave me if I do?" (ex hang-ups...what can one say)...so far, two weeks in, I'm very happy and truly hoping I can make a run of this thing because I really really really enjoy doing this all day.
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But, the thing that unhinged the writer's block for me was the election. As I sat here yesterday in complete and profound sadness all I could think of were the words I needed to write. The strength I needed to find to write the things I needed to write, and the fear, the real and utter fear, I felt at the thought of writing them.
But the words kept coming and coming and all day I felt like I was in a weird fog...a place where I needed to say the things and no one could hear me.
And they couldn't hear me, I knew, because I didn't write them.
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And then my daughter texted to see if I was ok. To tell me that she cried all the way to work. That her friends texted her to tell her that they love her. That they needed hugs, virtual or real, and that they needed to know they weren't alone in the world, and I knew I couldn't remain silent any longer.
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This thing...this thing that scares me is admitting how utterly broken I am. How as a victim of so many different types of sexual assault, I have to see a man in power who not only admits to such behaviors, but boasts about them. That people know about the things he did and still elected him...it breaks my heart in two.
I've spent the past two years in therapy to validate my feelings, to become whole again, to be able to stand up for myself when I needed to (recently and in a very scary and painful confrontation), and to wake up on Wednesday and see that all that work means nothing to the majority of Americans who voted for a man who embodies such horrific behaviors and ideas...it terrifies me. To my core.
Today I'm raw though. The child who was too young to understand, the teenager who was so frightened that the only defense she knew was to burst into tears...the woman who was so blinded by trust that she couldn't see what was happening until it was over. All of these bits of me...every single one of them...is crying today.
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Because to discuss this fear in a real and meaningful way I need to say those things, to admit my brokeness, to let people know that people in my life, who I trusted, sexually abused me again and again and again and I never said anything to anyone because I "knew" no one would believe me, because I was ashamed, because I was scared.
You know what? I'm still scared. I am no longer ashamed. I know I didn't deserve to be treated in such an awful way. I know that no one deserves to be treated that way. And I strongly believe that all of us who have daughters, who love women, who want to change this rape culture...all of us need to speak up. We need to bare our shame to others so that they, too, can fight back. With words, with political action, with whatever it takes to make people hear and understand that this is real. It hurts...and it's terrifying.
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