It's October now. I waited a year for this moment because I knew I would face the inevitable anniversary. And here we are, full of trepidation and a sense of finality- that I can now let this go. I'm sitting on my bed, listening to Tristan Prettyman. Her words are spellbinding to me:
"Take all the words you've spoken, and all the promises you've broken, and throw 'em all into the ocean...and let it be. And late at night, when you're lying in your bed alone, wishing you were still at home, but we both know it's too late..."
I am reminded of where I was last year at this time and how much can change in a year. How I have been finding my voice stronger than ever, and how I am more determined now than I've ever been before. But that doesn't mean that this is simply a celebration- it is also a time for grieving. I am also mourning this anniversary in a way. It is bittersweet, like when you watch a majestic sunset fading into the night. Mesmerized, you don't want it to go, but like all things, it ends and a temporary sense of sadness descends on your soul.
It isn't quite the day, and it isn't quite the hour, and it isn't even the same place. But last year, when the moon was in its own position in the sky, and the sun floated to the other side of the world, I was fragmented.
I won't go into the details because I'm not ready for that. Even now, it's too sensitive. But what I can share is this: Madelaine came over and we walked in the park, late at night. I remember a tree overhanging the bridge where we sat, its branches looming large like a shadow in the night.
We talked in the cold for a while and I remember feeling cold only a little. There was no point to anything. The emptiness was vast. The silence of the park echoed within me. I turned her away that night and returned to our little cove.
A knock on the door. I knew it couldn't be her again. This was different.
The man who stayed with me for hours after that had a tattoo of the Archangel Michael on his arm. He was Indigenous but he liked the idea of the angel with him wherever he went. Michael was the angel of healing and the man was a paramedic- it only made sense.
But could he have been an angel in disguise? Did some kind of divinity intervene through numerous people that day, that I was unaware of at the time? It's possible.
That week was transformative in its own way. Sometimes I wonder if it's something I should be ashamed of sharing, even though privately, in a bizarre twist of events, I'm glad to have gone.
I reflect not on him, but on myself. I reflect on my sheer strength during a time when everything was in the air. I reflect on the people I met. I think about the boy I knew in the ward, who disappeared afterwards. I never heard from him again. But in that moment, we were brother and sister and his mother was my mother. My own mother, who didn't even know the circumstances. But now he's gone somewhere else and I haven't found him since. That's life.
Our lives are made up of these little intimate meetings with people from all walks of life, who weave in and out of our path, leaving a trail of stardust in their wake. These meetings are what colour our lives and make our days different. Who would we be, what would we be, if we lived in isolation, never knowing how much our souls contract and expand from just merging with one another, whether it be for two seconds (a glance, a smile), a few hours (a conversation), a few days, a few months, a few years, a lifetime?
While I'm sorry things ended the way they did, I reflect and I see the emergence of a new self from a place that was fraught with shards of glass, pools of blood, tears, aches, pain...and you all know (because I've written about this so many times over the year) that now it's not so much like this.
Now I feel my strength in my bones. I feel my soul expanding and filling me up. I feel my heart beating. And yes, there are walls. There are defences. There are shields. But I am okay and I am happy and I am more whole now than I was then.
I am more sure of myself. I am continually learning, unlearning, relearning, stripping myself down, being vulnerable, being honest, not being scared to face my truths. Cutting away those who do not add to my growth and inviting those with whom I can share my growth with as I support their growth. I'm depending on myself, falling in love with myself, blooming into myself.
Why wait? Take the opportunity now to seize the chance to be who you've always wanted to be, the person you could become. Why wait? Wait for what? There is no someday, only today.
And yes, you still might have problems... I still get sad on occasion from different things, I get angry, I get lonely sometimes. But the difference now is I'm aware, and I acknowledge it, I let it breathe through me and I let it go. I work with it. I don't judge it, I don't hold onto it. This is part of the human experience. Growing into a new person doesn't mean ignoring what makes us human. It's how we respond to those things that make us different from who we used to be. I'm more comfortable in my skin now. I've befriended the loneliness that used to make me feel like I was apart from the rest. The irony now is since I've done that, I feel much less lonely and much more happier being on my own.
I wasted ten years being in abusive, toxic relationships. 26 years being manipulated and abused by family members. 26 years of having my voice lost, my existence deemed useless, and being objectified by strangers. But now I feel the power that is possible within me, that divine creativity that gives people (women especially) the power to transform, to transmutate, to change form. It's a miracle how we're able to give life, it's a miracle how we can rebirth ourselves. I feel like a new woman. I don't feel like the same person I was back then at all. But I am grateful to her for her strength, nonetheless. As Rumi asks...“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”