The Beginning of a Journey

I am starting this blog for a couple of reasons.

First because I think it will be therapeutic for me.

I have always found writing to be healing for me. Writing allows you to get out exactly what you want to say. Journaling like this allows the time and quiet to give voice to your thoughts without any interference of any sort. When you speak to someone else, you are looking at their face, reading their body language, looking for cues as to how they are reacting to your words, which in turn modifies what you say.

There is none of that instant modification when you journal.

I get to set here after my kids are fast asleep, listening to my worship music, speaking to thousands, and to no one. Just cathartically giving voice to my inner thoughts.

My life seems like a lie right now. I keep quiet as to why my husband and I are separated for many different and varied reasons. It is easier for me to hide in my home than to venture outside and measure each word when I see someone I know. Trying to talk about my life while not giving any clue as to the real reasons for our separation is difficult and tiresome.

Growing up as a child in an alcoholic home, every time we left our home we put on the 'out of the house' persona. That person was very different than the person who lived at home. What we represented as a family to the world had very little to do with who we were as a family behind closed doors.

Beyond lying to the world, I even lied at home. I was being sexually abused myself as a child by two of my parent's friends. All of this lying to everyone about everything took its toll. I turned to drugs and alcohol as a way to escape.

I became a member of AA at 23 years old. It is clear to me that one of the most healing things about AA is that you tell everyone all about you - the good, the bad, the ugly. Of course if you are in AA at 23 there is not much good - just lots of bad and ugly. LOL. But a wonderful thing happens in those rooms. They listen to you tell all about all of the things you have spent a life time hiding from everyone, and they say 'welcome, we love you, keep coming back'. It was truly the first time in my life finding acceptance. The experience of sharing all the hidden gross parts of me and seeing that people could still love me was wonderfully healing.

So, knowing that for me, hiding things is dangerous, this is my way of shouting to the world (in a very anonymous way) the truth of what I am experiencing, my feelings about what I am going through, the pain, the struggle, and the incredible strength that I am finding in the Lord.

"A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly buring wick he will not quench" I saiah 42:3

One of the scriptures that I quote to myself many times a day. I will leave it here for now.

K