Stuck on Repeat

Warriors with different weapons

Deviance with new device

Prayers of Ancients bastardized

Dreams of better still take flight

There is no river stood in twice

Yet here we are

Again

Without an end

My Whiter Shade of Pale

The swift coming of my 30th class reunion coupled with social media (which was non-existent in my younger years) has me wondering about certain people. I am missing some and happy some are no longer in my circle.

One person in particular seized my mind as ghosts from the past will sometimes do.  This person, CWDP, had come into my life from a far off place - dropped like a human meteorite, literally, in my back yard.

I had been dating a young man who had some 'yet to be uncovered issues' and I accompanied him to a friends house one evening.  I walked into a house (which at the time, unbeknownst to me, was a church related half-way house).  It honestly didn't matter that I had no clue as to what that was at the time because it was love at first sight.

There stood a quite tall, quite broad male in his late 20's with slightly shaggy, slightly sun-kissed blond hair.  The hair framed a pleasant and open Germanic face with Hazel Blue eyes and a slight gap in the front teeth.  We locked eyes.  I understand now it was for very different motivations.

At the time I was maturing at so many different rates as well as regressing in others.  I would've done anything to escape my childhood home, my mothers mental illness, my fathers rage, and the constant flood of financial insecurity which silently seeped and soaked like a plague over everything.  Almost overnight, the other guy was history and CWDP and I were inseparable.

I'm in my mid to late 40's now and my mind seems to perform subtle seemingly unplanned excavations of my memory on both mental and cellular levels.  I say seemingly because I know there are greater forces I've accepted...a sort of Meta Self...that knows exactly what it is doing.  I've learned to trust this process.

Back to the present...

I decided to look CWDP up on social media.  Nothing.  I looked him up in my surrounding state.  Nothing.  Then I recalled he had always had an affinity for the beach, specifically the state of Florida.  I had run there after my high school graduation with him, to escape, to 'start a new life' and to prove that I could do better than what I had been raised with.  Young impetuous fool.

I decided one more search, then I would search no more.  Come on Sunshine state...

I typed in his name and 5 seconds later arrest records appeared throughout the mid to lower section of Florida.

One offered a picture.

I clicked on it and waited, it was like looking through cloudy water as it refreshed a few times until it became clear.

A Mugshot of a 54 year old CWDP.

People stay frozen in our minds at the age we remember them, as if the brain has a snapshot that is always current and fresh.  I wasn't looking at that shaggy open Germanic face of 26, I was looking at what he had become, what he was under that surface all along.  It was difficult and frightening.  I talk a good talk but when it comes to the law, I respect and obey.  Without it we would deteriorate into chaos.  And that is what I saw.  Chaos.  Eyes that had become devoid of anything remotely like the 20 something I left years ago when my father (within and hour of my distress call) procured a ticket to bring me home from the sunshine state.

And suddenly, with the maturity of looking at a road behind oneself and looking at roads that may not have been traveled, I suddenly understood that I was one lucky girl that grew into one lucky woman who, upon seeing that picture, transformed into a deeper state of gratitude than I thought possible.

My process through things is to write, to lay down ink, to get it out on paper where I can save or burn it, to not let whatever it is fester in me like an infection; stealing my energy and life force.

I ran south with this guy. I left my family behind.  Forgiving myself for what I had put them through took much time.  Forgiving them for what I was running from took longer.  If they would've known better, they would've done better - same for me.

I had watched this young man and pretended not to see the small hints...petty crimes, theft, small drug things, larger theft, entitlement, narcissism, lack of remorse.  I felt if I just loved enough I could absorb all of that and it would all be ok...such awful learned behaviors. If you knew better, you would've done better.  Let it go.  You raised your children and gave them tools you didn't have, tools you had to learn.  They have them now , it's ok to let it go and lay it down.

The biggest surprise is what I'm going to share now...

I have learned to love my ex-husband, and this situation deepened that love.

My ex-husband was quite a bit older when I met him.  He had gotten most of his dumb shit out when I met him.  Most of it.  Those patterns can be so deeply ingrained within us that if we don't recognize that they are there, if we don't balance and learn from them, if we do not honor that they are as much a part of us as everything else we are, they can AND WILL overtake us.

I felt grateful for him.  Grateful for my ex-husband.  Even though he almost broke me, and hollowed me out, he made me so very strong.  He also gave me the children I have, which made me so very tender.  It is because of this love and strength that I was forced to dive deeper within myself, and to give my children what both he and CWDP never had; the unconditional love of a mother - a real mother that was all in, all the time. 100% straight from some dormant DNA in my soul that expressed itself upon my near demise.  I love a stronger unbridled love today because of my ex-husband.

Because of him I became an almost mythical warrior mother being, to be there, to watch, to willingly be over vigilant to the point of exhaustion, to pour so much love, over and over again out of a seemingly empty cup.  I was able to look at my children and turn to look at the history of my past and somehow I knew that was both God and the perfect divine alignment of everything.  The unseen had been watching out for us - watching our for me, so I could stand when I wanted to fall, so I would protect them when I was too weary to lift my soul sword.  I work on self acceptance every day, but never once do I doubt that I am now strong.

I work on happiness, undoing grooves in the record of my brain to create new paths.  I crave to 'Learn Better so I may do Better'  it's there for all of us if we want it.

I've earned and gained the respect of friends and family who view me with eyes I will never see myself through.

I truly believe self evolution is  a Great Magical Realization and Shift where you hover above your own being and see all sides, all angles, both gray places and thin spaces. You accept the wrong and the right, the clean and the dirty, the muddy and the clear; for you would not know one true side of anything without the other.  It is within this mosaic of everything I am learning to accept the gift that is ME.

I've earned others' respect but more importantly;  I've earned my own.  This has been the hardest to imagine, accept and do.  It was only when I was tired, completely spent yet grateful and tender with myself that both respect and forgiveness washed over me...took me in it's arms and said 'It's ok, YOU are ok.'  It's a wonderful magical shift I wish for everyone, for what is this life if we know not the unexcavated parts of ourselves?

'Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure' - Rumi

Namaste

They don't look like me...

So a friend of mine sent me something that they thought I would plug into...social media warriors that show skin with ink and aren't afraid of it.  They use the community to to appreciate their differences...darling, I've been striving for that since day one...

Being a ginger is, by default, different.

It caused ridicule.
It caused lust.
It caused adoration
It caused fist fights.
It caused a marriage.
It caused children.
It caused uncertainty.
It caused divorce.

It resulted in questioning and eventually (thank all that is holy) acceptance of self.

Different has always been my thing...from birth.

The site features ladies with lots of ink...on exposed bodies.

You're talking with someone who bypasses ink,, who has major commitment issues, because I understand the ebb and flow- I've lived it through many existences.  I know the only constant is change.

I have cosmic ink...permanent tattoos known as freckles - been there, done that, since being incarnated over and over as a familiar, yet foreign, energy.

My hair, my crown, my thorn of rose colored locks - is a waving flag of difference that I cannot deny.

The ex wanted blonde.  Ex for a reason.

I have learned to accept myself...dare I say...love myself.  Not all sins are visible.  Mine are much deeper than skin, I assure you.  Both a blessing and a curse.  You speak of discomfort - I breathe it, and have chosen to keep breathing.

The ridicule, the hate, the adoration, have molded me beyond belief.
I have crowned myself with my own sword.
I have been my worst enemy and my best friend.
I have been certain and uncertain - stumbling through the dark, crying in the night, persecuted throughout time for what people ASSumed I was.

And yet here I stand.  In love, in difference and indifferent to your view.

Here is my profound rebellion - I have learned to love myself.
You no longer seep into my cracks - I love all, have compassion for all, I identify with universal and am united.

I see and love no gender.  I see and love all color - we are a rainbow of existence.

I have found peace and I am not letting it go.

It's a fine reduction sauce that has slowly simmered into peace, and I dine on it's delicious flavor daily.  I am fed and satisfied with who and what I have realized.

I AM LOVE.

My reply to my friend..'They just don't look like me, I'm staring down 50 and can't wait to be 80 - Somehow I feel more whole than I have ever been - FK I should post that'

So I did.

Love who and what you are.
Namaste