How, Cat? HOW do you keep on going? WHY haven’t you just given up?
me:
Umm, because I promised myself a long damn time ago that I’d NEVER let myself down again as these seasons keep changing and changing. And believe it or not, the Light in me IS much stronger than the dark! So, I picture FUTURE me standing at the horizon—with a sword in one hand and fire in my eyes—waiting for YOUNGER me to reach the divide! Also? I sing my favorite love song to myself literally every single day because I am my own greatest love story. That’s how!
Trauma doesn’t always look like “the Big T” catastrophes we tend to picture when we hear the word. Experiences that seem small to others, such as being dismissed, unheard, or unseen, can quietly shape us and leave unprocessed emotional pain. The anger, frustration, and sadness we show over things that seem uneventful to others may be the hurt little kid inside us still trying to feel safe and “seen.” Sometimes those reactions are rooted in experiences we don’t consciously recall. Research has linked trauma with emotional and physical stress reactions; for some people, that can include anxiety, tension, or ongoing health problems. What comes out may be what’s still hurting inside, and that pain can affect our relationships, decisions, and behaviors.
Well, I’ll tell you! You start by standing in front of a mirror and having the most important conversation of your life with YOU … “What’s underneath all my reactions?” By the way, remember that you’ll HAVE to feel it before you can fix it. Journal or talk to someone safe about what hurt you.
In case you missed the memo, tonight brings a deep partial lunar eclipse! At full eclipse, roughly 96% of the Moon’s visible surface will be immersed in Earth’s darkest shadow, leaving only a slim bright edge while the rest takes on that eerie copper-red glow. Quite the phenomenon, indeed! Cosmic moments like this can also serve to remind us that just because a human psyche is imprisoned by darkness, it doesn’t have to be a life sentence.
“Light can devour the darkness, but darkness cannot consume the light.”
If you or someone you know is on the brink of an abyss and fighting not to fall through a black hole in your mind to the murk below, please remember this:
There are seasons in a mother’s life when loving her daughter means holding on, and there are seasons when it means opening her hands. Gia is standing at the edge of one of hers, and I am learning that my job is not to hand her every answer – or every wound I inherited – but to remind her what belongs to her and what never did.
May she inherit the love, the strength, the humor, the stubborn hope, and every beautiful thing that came before her. But the chains? Those end with me. My daughter gets the crown. She gets the freedom to become. And when HER seasons change, I hope she remembers that becoming is not a betrayal of who she was; it is the fulfillment of who she has always been.
A pluviophile is a person who enjoys rain and rainy days, and is fascinated by the sights and sounds of rain. Pluviophiles may find joy and peace of mind during rainy days, and may enjoy being outside regardless of the weather. They may also find comfort in listening to the rain hitting a window ledge, or enjoy the scent of rain on a road or freshly cut grass.
… and so, I wrote to her. My “sibling,” whom I do not know, in this sisterhood of the most twisted, tragic, bittersweet, and almost ethereal bullshit sororities of all called “SHATTERED CHILDHOOD“:
My heart is in pieces for you. So, I’m what some people call a “pluviophile”, a person who revels in rainy, stormy, gloomy weather, and it IS literally like some twisted Heaven here in Dallas for me, right now with the skies in the full bloom of every shade of grey. I have long believed that the reason I feel most comfortable and “at home” this way is because it’s the sky’s way of helping me peacefully grieve for not just my “childhood”, but for EVERY other one of us (especially mothers) who are walking around with smiles on our faces despite it all, because not only do we “know what we know”, but we “KNOW what we know” and feel it for every broken child who does now or ever has existed. I’m hearing “The Irrepressible Shirt” right now. It’s my rain song. Much love to you, my friend. This is an awful, twisted, but also kind of beautiful sisterhood, is it not?
Listen, I dunno who needs to hear this right now, but pain really does demand to be felt, and dare I say that internalized pain that doesn’t hurt you anymore is actually dangerous. So, if you’re that child in a long line of family people who either refused to feel a thing and chose to avoid dealing with that gift that just kept on fucking giving, KNOW THIS:
But none of them were ever gonna heal from it unless someone finally faced and ROSE from it, and that, my fellow black sheep, was YOU validating the realities that no one wanted to talk about. You CANNOT move on from all that generationally gifted pain until you face, FEEL, and overcome the gauntlet of emotions and friction you WILL endure as you go through this journey to freedom.
PAIN
I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all. (Three Days Grace)
Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements, was published TWENTY-SIX years ago today! Well, put it this way: “November 7th” is the clearest publication date I’ve found, so I’ve always rolled with it, celebrated it, and honored it on this day.
It was in 2010, while I was in the fledgling stages of crawling out of the beautiful wreckage of my nervous breakdown and the accompanying stay at that, err, “spa” I love to LOVE so much in Wickenburg, Arizona—”The Meadows“—that a dear friend and mentor of mine, whom I’d hired as a life coach for a few months, introduced me to it. Lol, I walked into my weekly session that Friday, sat down, and she handed me the book and said:
Okay, little one. Time’s up! Your session is over, and by the way I’m not even charging you for today. Just take this with you, read it ALL, and I’ll see you back here next Friday.
No, literally, those were her EXACT “impeccable words,” and that conversation is tattooed on my heart with the most powerful branding iron of all: LOVE! (NOTE: She had me at “little one”!) All I can tell you is that this SHORT and SWEET ‘lil book of ancient Toltec life nugget wisdom changed the entire trajectory of my formerly broken mind and perspective. If you’ve never read it, I cannot recommend it enough. It really IS “short and sweet,” and you can get through it in less than a day.
She had come to believe it was the dark days of the past that made her impossibly strong. It was years before she realized she was wrong. She was forged by His design.
“Strong” is what she was. “Light” is who she’d be. The darkness merely forced her to prove it.
As she was pulled towards her destiny with a blind faith that swathed her in power and grace, her soul — which “should have been” broken – remained UNbroken. She never stopped believing in God and love and refused to be a jaded victim.
She would have to rewrite her fairy tale an infinite number of times, but never did she cower at starting over. Deep in her heart, she knew she was sent to master the art of diving deep into her own soul and embracing the love and magic that had been waiting to meet her there all along. Somehow she knew that every ending was just a beginning and that even the most beautiful seasons had to change.
Each time the devil tried to steal the crown from her head, she’d adapt, survive, and emerge from her cocoon as the ungroundablePhoenix she was. She was a creation of Light that couldn’t be dimmed … God’s very favorite daughter and divinely appointed “apostrophe”:
I’m an apostrophe. I’m just a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see. I’m just a product of the system. A catastrophe … and yet a masterpiece … and yet I’m half diseased … and when I am deceased, at least I’ll go down to the grave and die happily … leave the body and my soul to be a part of thee. I’ll do what it takes.
{“Whatever It Takes” … Imagine Dragons}
“She” is me!
“She” can be YOU!
If you are stumbling in a darkness of your own, please pick up that crown the devil kicked off your head and put it right back where it belongs! Not just for you, but for the others who are standing in your halo. Even as you read this, your name is being mentioned in rooms you’ve yet to enter where plans are being drawn by The Powers just for you!
As for me?
Like the stars in the sky that punctuate humanity with their halos, I’ll continue to beam through the infinite abyss that would love nothing better than to swallow me alive. I’ll keep reminding myself that my soul is ablaze with all the mysterious and illustrious things that dying eyes desperately need to see to help them find their way back home.
We were all created from perfection! We were all divinely inspired! We are all a product of the Light that the darkness in this world wants to extinguish, and we are all God’s “favorite” children!
A moment to reflect
What is one part of your light that no difficult season has been able to extinguish?
The plane has officially landed, so where do I begin? I have absolutely no idea! Now is the time for me to sit down, reflect and try to put down in words exactly what has transpired since that destined moment that you passed “the message on the napkin” over to my tray table, my Angel from Flight 438. (As if I haven’t bombarded you with enough of my words already!) If anything, please remember that this is more mental therapy for me than anything, so once again, be patient. What follows is complete and total honesty and clarity – with myself, from within myself and due largely in part to you. This will be hard because there are so many things I don’t want to leave out, but I have to believe that somehow, someway, you will be able to fully understand and believe that these words come from a depth in my soul I truly never knew existed, and they are probably the deepest feelings for another human being, other than my kids, that I have ever felt or known. Here goes …
By now I assume that you have read “The Diary of My Perfection.” What did you think? Best seller? Has the picture of all things Kitty Cat become any clearer? I tried so hard to convey to you in person the fact that somehow over the years I have managed to rip myself apart at the seams into this extremely jaded shell of a human being that’s broken into a million pieces. The same goes for those people that have surrounded me. I feel as though my existence in many people’s lives has jaded them a bit as well. But perhaps my story helped you understand the magnitude of it all and helped more intensely clarify exactly how lost I have been here inside myself for SO many numbing years. I have been unable to feel a single, real thing, except for where my three babies are concerned, and until now they have been my only connection to human feeling, compassion or spirit.
As you have probably gathered by now, and perhaps even within moments of knowing me, I am very much comforted, enthralled and kept alive by my son’s existence in this world, and he and my daughter are the only true successes that I have ever known … at least until now. All good then. If I leave this world tomorrow, I leave successful! Christian, despite all odds, is and will always be one of the most incredible human beings I know. I am certain that just as his strength of character and wisdom have enlightened and inspired me, there will be countless other lives He will have touched along his way before it is all said and done. I made him! My daughter? God, I wish you could have met her! She is one of the most strikingly beautiful and amazing creatures I have ever laid eyes upon, both inside and out, and her smiles alone have been more than enough to sustain me in the worst of all my days. I made her!Even that tiny wonder that greeted then left me in only a few short hours of time … broken, yes, but perfect in every other way. I made her too! And as painful as it was to watch her life slip through my fingers, and as haunting a memory it is for me to live with, I find it surreal that I was able to hold that little girl in my hands from the moment she came into this world until the moment she left it. How many mothers can say that? Sometimes, Henrik, I’m almost thankful she’s gone. Does that make me depraved? Who knows? I look around at this place that we live in. So much evil, ugliness and disdain. She never had to know it. She just got to be tiny and innocent, grace us with her overwhelming presence, then leave this place completely unknowing and unscathed. This, I think I’ve found, was the blessing behind her very short existence. You know, I think I’ll keep running with that so that perhaps someday the agony I feel when I think about how it ripped my heart out watching her struggle and gasp for air will begin to fade. I truly hope that in time I will be able to reconcile those two things within myself so that the healthier of the two thought processes overtakes and consumes the other.
Can I tell you, Henrik, and could you ever really believe me, when I say there were moments during our time together when I wasn’t actually sure that you were real? Had it not been for the fact that my son and the other boys on that plane confirmed that you were indeed on it, I might still not know whether you were real or imagined! A more likely scenario was that you were an actual Angel sent to me from God. Man, it sounds too ridiculous and again I am sitting here saying, “No, Catherine, you can’t say that to him. It’s weird and creepy and this poor fucking guy doesn’t need to hear this.” But as you can see, I’ve gone ahead and included the sentiment because it is very real to me and I feel as though I have nothing else to lose. Do you remember that during our visits there were times I just reached out and touched your face with my hand? I needed to feel your skin to convince myself you were real! Do you know how long I waited for a single human being to come looking for me inside this darkness? You can’t even begin to know. Please refer to “The Diary of My Perfection” and more specifically to the final plea I made to God just days before I left for France:
Well then, how about an angel? Can You send me another angel, and preferably one a little taller than two feet, and older and wiser than 15? Someone I can talk to? Someone to hold me and make me feel alive? How about someone who doesn’t think I’m just whining? Someone who understands my heart, my pain, my grief. How about one person that will look beyond my surface to find the broken little girl hiding inside herself? Someone who will hear me and not say everything is okay. How about someone who doesn’t think I’m perfect, or that all the things I have should preclude me from feeling any pain? And can You send me a hug, or a kiss, or a touch? Will anyone even want to touch me?
That was just rhetoric! A genuine prayer, but not one I was expecting to be answered. I cried out to God, and yes, I meant what I asked for, but it was more sarcasm on my part than anything. I think I told you that as I boarded that plane to France, I did so hoping for only the best in my wish to “leave some things behind” but not really expecting it to happen. I have almost become comfortable dragging these demons with me everywhere, so a more likely outcome, which I’d have been fine with, was just a much-needed vacation with my son. Nothing more. Nothing less. I am all too accustomed to NOT getting the things I truly need or want!
Henrik, you walked onto that plane and stopped my heart! Like my daughter, you too are strikingly beautiful, and sitting beside you gave me peace. I just kept watching you, and the more I watched, the more I had to know you. Then watching you watch that baby? It melted me from the core in mere seconds. One sweet smile in that child’s direction and I was absolutely done. I wanted to jump out of my skin, into your existence and know who the hell you were and had NO IDEA how I’d manage the plane ride home if I couldn’t speak to you (although as you know I did try to resist). Everything inside of me just wanted to keep that hat pulled as far down over my eyes as possible and just “cry and think” my way home. What were you thinking? Only God Himself knows. Well, God and you that is. Can I tell you something else? When we parted ways at the airport that day, I can honestly say I did not think I’d ever hear from you again. For one thing, and to reiterate, I wasn’t even sure you actually existed in the first place. Those ten hours were just too sweet to be real. Second, I was scared to death thinking that you were just being polite and kind since you were all but trapped with me there. I honestly didn’t think I’d hear from you again, which was fine, because just those hours alone carved a decade of filth off my soul.
So why was I compelled to slit open every one of my veins and so quickly spill the entire contents of my soul into your lap? I instantly trusted you, Henrik, and I don’t do that. I trust no one and am highly skeptical of everything and every person I see. You looked into my eyes when we spoke and kept me there. I tried but couldn’t look away. I don’t do that either. In fact, that’s one of the things I’ve always had a problem with – making eye contact with people. Maybe that’s because I’ve been too afraid that if I actually did look someone in the eyes when I was speaking, and they actually looked back at me, they’d see the rotted-out schism between my mind and body and run as far away as possible. I am petrified of people, Henrik. Scared to death of anyone not of my womb. Surface level is all I can do. Nothing deeper. Don’t need it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation on the plane. Remember, I told you that the night before I had shed the very first layer of my skin with Adoram. But, Henrik, it was dark outside, and we were staring out into the ocean. When I spoke, I was just “speaking” and he was listening. It was almost as though I was a song playing on a radio that he couldn’t shut off. Poor fucking Adoram. The first of two innocent bystanders foolish enough to ask me, “What’s wrong?” The first true casualty in the war of reconciling my soul. We drank, I cried, he stretched out his sleeve and wiped away my tears. But he wasn’t actually looking at me! I was in a very safe place talking to him … in the dark, no eye contact. But with you? Looking into your eyes comforted me and I wanted to stay there because it felt so good and safe. Do you remember what I wrote in The Diary about Gia? Some of the sweetest moments in my life have been those mornings she grabs my cheeks with her tiny little hands, forces me into eye lock and says, “I Love You, Mommy!” It’s a miracle that she somehow intuitively knows this is what I need. But how did you?
So then, what of all our visits and chats? You have blown me out of the water, Henrik, and I’m not sure what to do with it. You hugged me so many times, and with every one I felt a steady release of pressure from deep within my core. Each time you hugged me, my breathing got a little easier and the tight grip that constantly clenches the pit of my stomach loosened. That night when we stood in the parking lot? Do you remember that hug? The one where I had my face pressed sideways against your back and you pulled my arms around to the front of your chest? I could hear your heart beating, Henrik, and can still hear it even now! It sends chills up my spine when I close my eyes and remember. It was at that very moment that I decided if you were in fact an Angel, you had to have been the kind that could actually manifest itself into a human body, because how else could I have felt so much from a being that didn’t exist?
The night that I gave you the music and the medal, you were so concerned I had given you so many pieces of myself, but what had you given me? God, man, you did give me a piece of yourself. Can’t you see that? How can you not see that? You gave me your kindness and true compassion and you gave me your eyes so that I could begin to find myself. You made me want to look into the mirror and try to see what you were seeing! For 16 years I have searched for my own reflection in another person’s eyes but could never find it. I looked into the mirror and felt ugly. I felt dirty, empty and invisible. I see the way people look at me but have never really understood it. What the hell could anyone possibly see? There’s nothing here. I’m hollow. “Lights, smoke and illusion!” Please, please, please, Henrik, hear what I am saying: Last July, when it was finally time for the doctors to take the bandages off my chest and stomach, I came home and couldn’t even walk past a mirror, much less look inside one. I knew then that my destruction was finally complete but just didn’t know how to reckon myself with the reality. That’s when I decided to not EVER search for my missing reflection again, whether in a mirror or through the eyes of another! I just gave up. Two full days passed before I was finally able to take my shirt off, and I couldn’t actually look at myself for weeks. When the day finally came, I just stood there and cried. I touched my scars, held my stomach, dropped down to my bathroom floor and cried for so many hours you can’t begin to imagine. I thought my life was over, which was par for the entire course, and I knew from that day on I would NEVER show “myself” to another living soul, whether physically or emotionally. When I was done crying, and God, I remember this like it was yesterday, I stood up, wiped away my tears, straightened my shoulders and began to devise a plan that would allow me to continue the “grand illusion.” I got dressed, got in the car and had Him drive me to a little shop across town that carried prosthetic implants I could stuff inside my bra to disguise my mutilated chest. I walked back out of that shop a whole and “perfect” woman again. Got back home, pulled into the driveway and never looked back. I have played the game very well, I might add, with the cards I’ve been dealt in a manner that would cause no one I love to suffer.
So, then what of all that? Do you know that although you never asked (and I have to tell you I am more than impressed with your fortitude of principle), if you had, I would have very willingly given myself to you? That’s what you gave me, Henrik … Breathe. Desire. I trusted you and trusted myself and would not have been afraid to let you see me. That is such a huge thing for me to both say AND realize. Every time I walked away from you, I walked away wanting to look into the mirror to try and see what you were seeing. That is what you gave me,Henrik! You made me feel alive and important. You asked nothing from me and made me believe it was possible for someone to genuinely care for me as a human being worth trying to know beyond the surface. You made me feel beautiful! Absolutely, intensely and extraordinarily beautiful! I can look into a mirror now because of you and I’m no longer afraid of what I’ll see!
So, let me begin to close by letting you know how things are going for me now. As you can imagine, He is hurt, angry and wrecked beyond belief. You read it in his email. I can’t really say that I blame Him and if the shoes had been reversed, I probably would have written you something even worse. These weeks have been painful for Him. He feels jilted and remorseful and is finally beginning to realize the role He played in my becoming what I have over the years and how badly I needed Him all the while. We’ve talked and talked and talked some more and today I told Him all about you. Things no man would ever want to hear from his wife: “A stranger walked onto my plane, into my life, ripped open my heart and saved it. I love him. Here are the reasons why.” Every one of the thoughts and feelings I have expressed to you herein has been made abrasively clear to Him by now and He knows that for as long as I’m alive on this Earth I will always hold a candle for you and that I will always eagerly await our communications. I think He’s sorry He’s not you and He wasn’t the one to reach me inside here, especially given the fact that He’s had almost 20 years to be the man who I felt so compelled to trust and give every single piece of myself to but instead chose to take me for granted. He understands that although we’ve decided to try for our children’s sake to co-exist and perhaps somehow repair the 19 years’ worth of mutual abuse, either way I will always want you to be a part of my life. I told Him that if what He wants is for me to lie to Him and myself and say you never really mattered to me, that you will ever stop mattering to me or the two weeks between us never happened, I would never be able to say and mean it. Lying to Him that way would not only be unfair to Him but would belittle one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever known, and I simply refuse to do it. I must convey all these things to Him somehow, clearly and concisely, Henrik, and still can’t believe that I have to do this. Again, with me and my recent cases of “don’t do it, Catherine” but then I do it anyway. He is hurting so much but I won’t lie to Him, myself or anyone else ever again!
So, now are you beginning to understand? You know, along with every other thing you have given me, these last weeks have also helped bring closure to one of the most painful chapters of my story, the life and death of my relationship with Mitch, my “blaze of glory.” I loved him, Henrik, so deeply, and as much as I possibly could have given the heart I had to work with at the time. But you see, he and I came together at intersections in our lives where we had both begun unraveling. We were equally broken and sick together and hid our pasts away within the safety of an unconditional love. I found him, or he found me, not sure which one, not too long after my rape. He was recovering from his own self-destruction and had only recently spent four years at Angola State Prison in Louisiana for a series of really stupid decisions. He too was violated inside that place, many times in fact, and his time in prison hardened him in ways that even he didn’t realize. We shared that bond – the violation of our most sacred temples, our bodies. I didn’t even have to tell him what that night in the parking garage had done to me. He already knew firsthand! So, then we came together, each having found a safe, warm place to be broken. There were nights that this man, this six-foot, three-inch vision of masculinity and strength, would cry himself to sleep in my arms because he couldn’t find his reflection either! He too was an illusion to most everyone he knew and all he saw when he looked into his mirror was a body with its manhood completely excised from its being. He’d served the sentence but was never able to leave his prison. There were so many times that he would look at me and say, “Thank you, Catherine … thank you for loving me. Thank you for letting me be me again.” He said I made him feel alive inside for the first time in all his years and that he had never felt so completely safe with another person. He said that each time we were together he was more able to leave his stolen virtue behind and remember what it felt like to be a man. But you see, until now I didn’t really understand how profound his words to me were. I appreciated hearing all the things that he would say and the gratitude and sentiment he showed me every single day we were together. But only now do I understand exactly how he must have been feeling. Henrik, for ten years I have tried to understand “why”? Why did God put Him in my life only to take him away? What was it all for? What did it mean? I can’t believe that a decade later I finally understand: It was ME God placed in HIS life just as YOU were placed in MINE! The plan was never “forever.” Maybe I was his Angel? That man was tortured from the inside out for all that he’d done and had been through and was an empty, walking shell when I found him. I know with every shred of my being that the night he left this world he left knowing how beautiful he was and how it felt to be truly valued! He died having known compassion – true and unconditional love and friendship – and having been able to give himself, show himself and be “seen” by another human being completely. I did that, Henrik. I did that! I did for him what you have done for me and now I can finally let him go.
We have given ourselves a year or maybe even longer. He needs to do some serious soul-searching and self-repair as well if this is ever going to work. He too has been damaged by his past, our past, and also needs to shed some skin. We have tortured and abused each other to the point of no return but our history together has got to count for something. We are living here together and will remain married on paper but are separated in every other way. He’ll do His thing, I’ll do mine … basically nothing will change as this is how we’ve existed for years. Only now there are no false pretenses or expectations as to what we either can or can’t make of this farce of a marriage. I won’t lie in a bed with Him or any other man for that matter and give myself completely unless I can honestly see myself as beautiful and whole in someone’s eyes as I felt in yours. That is what I want, that is what I need, and after 20 years of living this way, I will settle for nothing less! What I want and need probably most of all is to finally be able to have my own husband, the man I’ve been chasing endlessly around for almost 20 years, try to begin to see who I am, what I am, what I’ve become and be the one who I can truly connect with, and not in the imaginary way it has been this whole time. Maybe, just maybe, then the years of chasing Him will not have been in vain and the hole He left in my heart can be patched and filled. This next year will be about legitimately trying to find and repair ourselves, separately. When the time is right, and who knows when that will be, we’ll begin to spend some time together, try to get to know the new, healthier people we will hopefully each be becoming and see if there is any shred of hope left between us other than our kids that we can salvage. I honestly don’t foresee that happening at this point and I think He is a little more hopeful than I am. That is probably because I truly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look into His eyes and not see the huge joke He sees in me reflecting back. We’ve pushed each other and pushed each other and then pushed each other some more and now it seems we’re so far away that all this could be pointless. There is so much water under our bridge and so many damaging things have been said between us over and over and over … many of which still ring inside my ears, and probably his even as I write this. But I will give it my best effort for the love of my children and because I do love Him as well. Twenty years are too many to throw away and something tells me that if ever it were possible for Him to really look at me and see me as you did then our relationship could truly come full circle. How are we gonna make that happen? I have absolutely no idea. I think He does truly love me somewhere deep inside, but I need to know the reasons why. Does He love me because I am the mother of his children, and He doesn’t want to hurt or leave them? Does He love me because He only thinks He loves me, and He really doesn’t want to give up or fail? He needs to find an honest place, as painful as that may be, to land when it comes to me. I think right now the person who came back from France is scaring Him half to death and maybe He has no idea how to love the “healthy person” that actually knows for the first time in her life what she truly wants and needs.
Like me, He has a lot on his plate and now it is His turn to deal with the demons He’s been harboring inside himself. What worries me most is that I’m not even sure He realizes how damaged He is inside because I know if we’re ever going to truly be able to love and know each other and have the actual, “real thing,” He will first have to come to the place that I have. That’s a little scary though because there is a fair enough chance that once He dissects it all from deep inside out, He’ll realize that He never even loved me in the first place. That too is a chance I will have to take in all this. Only God knows if it will ever be possible for us to fully connect on every emotional and physical level the way that I know I need to. It’s just going to take some work. Lots of time and lots of work. I feel very sorry for Him because I know that He’s hurting. Far above and beyond everything else that this next year will bring, He will also have to reconcile himself with the fact that He now lives here with not only me, but yet another ghost in my heart as well. Your shoes, my friend, will be incredibly hard for Him to fill but now I know that just about anything is possible. Maybe, just maybe, God will send Him an Angel too.
In the meantime, know that I am fully aware that within the confines of these pages have been set forth so many open parameters that you may feel as though I have overstepped any possible bounds of reality. You may actually find after having read this letter that you think I am surely insane and perhaps it would be in your best interest to say goodbye, call me a “friend of sorts” and walk away scratching your head. I am prepared for that consequence, won’t like it, but will accept it if I must. I will respect any of your wishes as far as which category you would like to place me in to best suit your life and needs. I can’t really imagine how I would feel if I was in your shoes. You’ve just been handed a lifetime sentence of lingering in my life and mind. Only, you can choose not to accept the “in my life” part of your sentence and simply walk away. Fortunately, your participation is not at all required for the latter. You are here in me for as long as I’m alive and there is no amount of time that will ever change that.
Oh, and one last thing. You know by now that one of the things we shared was a similarly intense love of music and that in my life when I have been unable to “otherwise speak” or “feel” it has always been my music. So, here is the song of my life. “So Far Away.” I imagine that it is the one song that will be playing the loudest in my head if the day finally comes for me to walk away from here for good. God only knows that sooner or later it may be time for me to move on once and for all and start over fresh somewhere else. Believe it or not, I kinda love you, Henrik. You truly ARE an angel to me! Please pray for me and my family, as I’m sure you already are, and more than anything please take these words for whatever they are worth to you. Or don’t take them at all. Either way, they remain. Catherine
SO FAR AWAY
This is my life – it’s not what it was before, all these feelings I’ve shared. And these are my dreams that I’d never lived before. Somebody shake me cause I, I must be sleeping. Now that we’re here, it’s so far away. All the struggle that I thought was in vain. All the mistakes one life contained; they all finally start to go away. Now that we’re here it’s so far away, and I feel like I can face the day. I can forgive and I’m not ashamed to be the person that I am today. These are my words that I’ve never said before, I think I’m doing ok. And this is the smile that I’ve never shown before. Somebody shake me cause I, I must be sleeping … I’m so afraid of waking. Please don’t shake me. {Staind}
I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I’d cry for a week.
Everyone was packing for the journey back home, but I was on pins and needles. Since my bags were ready, I’d decided to walk down to the water to clear my head once more before we left. On the way down the boulevard in Beaulieu-Sur-Mer, I ran into our tour guide, Adoram, who was heading back to the hotel after having been out with our driver, Pierre.
Adoram was a lovely Israeli man who everyone on tour fell in love with. I sensed that he was an empath who was deeply concerned with the human condition, and it was clear that he fervently loved not only France, but even more so his job sharing it. He didn’t work from a script; his musings came from a place of pure love and adoration as he described the things we saw. He’d even managed to capture the attention of the boys who were the reason for our trip, which of course was a feat. As you can imagine, your average teenager wants as much to do with the history of a foreign country as waking at 6:00 a.m. on a summer vacation in the first place. Adoram and I had spoken often while on tour, and on several occasions, he’d commented that I’d seemed even “farther away” than the trip itself. “How are you, Cat?” he asked me many times, but I would just change the subject, as I didn’t want to become too heavy and truly wanted to stay immersed in the experience.
That night, Adoram and Pierre caught me heading down to the waterfront around 9 p.m. as they were heading back up. He wanted to know where I was going and didn’t want me wandering alone in the dark. So, he turned to Pierre, uttered something in French, then turned to follow me back down the hill.
Well Cat, I’m not thrilled with you out here alone in the dark like this, so you can go and sit by the water as long as you like, but I’m afraid I’ll be joining you.
After much resistance on my part, but insistence on his, and having repeatedly said my stroll was for sightseeing only, we finally began talking about life in general and then about “what had me staring so far out the windows of the bus each day.” He was such a good listener, never once interrupting my thoughts, and in fact was quite easy to talk to. “What’s really bothering you, Cat?” is what he wanted to know. With that, I talked, then cried, then drank Sambuca, then cried and talked some more, then breathed … then finished.
When I was done telling him all “the things,” he fixed his gaze upon the shoreline like a deer caught in the headlights as we sat quietly staring into the abyss for what seemed like eternity. “Okay,” I said, “THIS is where you pat me on the back and tell me how beautiful my life is NOW!” Still, no response. “… AND” I continued, “THIS is where everyone else usually tells me, ‘Everything’s gonna be okay and everything happens for a reason.’” Then he turned to me and spoke the words I never knew I’d needed to hear:
No, Catherine! NONE of this is okay, and none of this may EVER be okay! You have had some HUGELY rotten shit happen to you, and I can hardly believe that you’re still here to talk about it!
Adoram Schneidleder … my beautiful Israeli tour guide … the first of any to validate my broken feelings and help me begin to shed my skin on the coast of France in the wee hours of dawn. I’d begun to find my voice!
As we walked back to the hotel, I felt lighter than I had in what felt like a century, a sensation I couldn’t quite relate to. Yet, somehow, it felt SO good! He hugged me so tight before I headed to my room. I thanked him profusely and said I felt as though I was about to have a truly restful sleepfor what was left of the morning. And? I DID! I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes for the first time in years and drifted peacefully to sleep! No drugs. No alcohol. No food. No anesthesia. Nothing to medicate my slumber! I fell asleep on my own and awoke feeling reborn.
The lobby was abuzz that morning with the clamor of travelers and their suitcases. Adoram was busy answering questions, directing traffic, and saying his goodbyes. I felt a little uneasy with him at that point, as I wasn’t exactly sure how he may have received and digested our conversation just hours earlier, and I was a bit uneasy to approach him. It had only been a couple of hours since he had brazenly walked through the gauntlet of my mind, and he had to have thought I was insane. When we got to the airport, though, immediately after he hugged me goodbye, he handed me an envelope with this note inside:
Dear Cat,
Since on tour there are not many moments for communication, and tomorrow we probably won’t get the chance, I decided to write you a note. Your story – that you shared with me last night – is huge. I did not at any point feel that you were being either inconsiderate, selfish or just “needy” by sharing it with me. And, if having “unloaded” some weight with me has helped you see things clearer, then I actually feel honored to have been able to help. No fears whatsoever. And I hope you will sleep as well tonight as you did last night and that you will continue this way forever. I understand that it was important to unload – and probably being in a foreign country and doing with a stranger who would listen was the best way. I’m happy to have been that person for you. You have gone through some real heavy shit. Don’t ever forget it! And, don’t lose to consciousness of your inner strength. You have it – it’s there! Don’t forget to take care of yourself – of your needs and desires – while you give everything you have to your family. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of them. I am sure they love and need you. I know Christian does. I can see it in his eyes and in the way that he looks at you. Take care of yourself girl! You’re a wonderful woman and you’ve got lots to give others and to yourself! It was a pleasure meeting you!
~ Adoram
SHED MY SKIN
I am not alone. I live with the memories; regret is my home. This is my true freedom. Express all the feelings of what I’ve become. I watch the rising sun. I hope I find some peace today. It seems I’ve gone away. It seems I’ve lost myself; it seems I’ve really lost my way. It seems I’ve lost myself; it seems I’ve shed my skin. Are you ready for me to purge my love? Are you ready for me? A bitter sinking feeling. Awake to the fact there’s no going back to this world in which I was living. I’m searching for something but found less than nothing.
On this cool, crisp day in November, he’d asked me to meet him at a church in Sachse, Texas, where he had been invited by one of my new “Christian” friends and mentors, Angie – whom he’d also befriended – to a Power Team evangelism show where he’d be baptized afterward. He told me he had something exciting to tell me that night, and based upon the tone and context of the conversations we’d been having, I had every reason to believe he was going to propose to me. Imagine my surprise, then, when after the baptism I was led into a room in the back of the church where he was standing beside Angie and her entire family—people I had truly come to admire and respect. It was there that John told me he was “so sorry,” but over the months, “God had called them together,” they had fallen in love, and they had been hiding their relationship from me.
There I stood, just as twenty years before, numb and sick with the same stinging, disconnected pain just beneath the top layer of my skin on the day of the Spic and Span. I walked out of the church heartbroken and alone and just started driving on a 300-mile round trip to Oklahoma City and back. I had just danced with the devil – a narcissist of unspeakable proportion – who, after all was said and done, would “hoover me” for years to come. But that’sanother story for another day.
When I arrived back in Dallas, it was almost time for the Saturday parking-lot meet with Christian and his dad for our weekend custody switch. I was wrecked beyond belief, but I was doing everything I could to keep it together for my son’s sake. I needed not to let what had happened the night before break me down completely, and by that stage in the game, I was already a pro at stuffing painful things down and pretending they didn’t exist. Despite my best efforts, though, I consciously picked a fight with my ex-husband so I could run away and avoid having to fake my way through a “normal” weekend visit with my son. I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, had just experienced the second biggest bombshell of my life, and, though I didn’t know it at the time, was less than fifteen minutes away from the first of my nervous breakdowns. I went back to my parents’ house, where I had been living at the time, and swallowed every single pill, capsule, and liquid medicine I could find in my bathroom. I JUST WANTED TO GO “HOME”!
The details of that morning were never very clear, but I do remember lying there, rocking back and forth and screaming that I wanted to be with God. It was my sister who first realized what I had done to myself and called 911. Meanwhile, my ex-husband and son had followed me home because he had sensed that something was just “off” at our meeting and had become worried.
My parents were ballistic as my sister frantically pulled me from the bed to the bathroom and tried to make me vomit up everything I had swallowed. While I cannot and will not ever say that I actually died that day, what I can say is that something did happen within my body and soul in that moment—something that defies not only logic, but also everything I had been taught to believe about life, death, and the “hereafter” in my cradle Catholicism. It was something. I went somewhere. Somewhere I still can hardly fathom. No, I never saw “the light at the end of the tunnel” people often speak of when they’ve had a near-death experience, because again, I don’t believe I was actually dying. Rather, there was a numbing, soothing, lulling void in my mind, as though I were being cradled in blissful nothingness by every single hand from every single shred of the universe at once. It was ethereal, to say the least, and even now, when I think of it, I want to cry—not in a sad way, but in a joyous one. That moment devoured and immersed me in something so much bigger than my simple mind will ever understand, yet at the same time, in some strange way, I very much do understand it.
Meanwhile, my Christian, a mere five years old at the time, managed to slip through all the chaos and come to me. He, too, was frantic and crying, but he had taken hold of my wrist and was patting my back as though HE were the parent consoling the child. Up until that point, I hadn’t been able to focus on anything in the room because everything around me was just dark, and yet I could hear everything my son was saying very clearly:
Mommy, God’s not ready for you to go Home. He wants you to stay here and be my mom.
It’s imperative to note that although I could see his mouth moving and hear the words he was saying, it was not Christian’s voice I was hearing. I firmly believe—and will never be convinced otherwise—that it was God. God Himself was speaking to me through my son. He’s real, my friends. HE’S REAL!
I remained hospitalized until the state committed me to a psych ward, where I underwent treatment for clinical depression, PTSD, and the much-needed rape counseling I had never received. My whole family was involved in this process, which was something we were all in dire need of by then.
Looking back, I realize I didn’t want to die that morning. I just couldn’t pull myself out of the black hole I was in. I was lucky. Very lucky. I made it home in time for Christmas that year feeling lighter and happier than I had in years—clear-headed, focused, and internally combusted with a fire in my soul of epic proportion. Despite the unbelievably selfish horror I had put them all through, my entire family welcomed me home again.
As for the devil? He never ONCE turned back to see what he had done. For him, it was easy—so easy—to discard me as unwanted “baggage,” just as he had once referred to my son. As for me? It was everything, because I loved him—or so I thought—trusted him, and had given him every piece of my already broken heart I could give. And as for her? Her betrayal of me “in Jesus’ name” literally murdered my soul and caused spiritual damage within my heart and psyche that took years to recover from. Perhaps you’ve heard it said:
The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.
It took years for me to finally understand that they were two of the actualdevil’s own: he, the consummate wolf in sheep’s clothing, and she, by the name of “Angela,” the most beautiful angel of Light I could have known—my friend, mentor, and “sister in Christ,” with a pit viper’s tongue, a knife in her hand, and a smile on her face as she plunged it into my back.
Indeed, it was my darkest hour to discover what really lied beneath the surface of two of the most truly evil “things” I have ever encountered. How starved these vile creatures must have been that my heart became a meal for his very small affect and her insignificant, insecure, thirsty, and insincere ego.
WHAT LIES BENEATH
Take a breath. Hold it in. Start a fight. You won’t win. Had enough. Let’s begin. Never mind. I don’t care. All in all, you’re no good. You don’t cry like you should. Let it go if you could when love dies in the end. So, I’ll find what lies beneath your sick twisted smile as I lay underneath your cold, jaded eyes. Now you’ve turned the tide on me ’cause you’re so unkind. I will always be here for the rest of my life. Here we go. Does it hurt? Say goodbye to this world. I will not be undone. Come to life. It gets worse. … Don’t carry me under. You’re the Devil in disguise. God sing for the hopeless. I’m the one you left behind.
