Crossing the Boundary

I attended the Hay House Writing Workshop in San Francisco.  It was an amazing experience!  But with one short, two minute writing prompt, we were asked a question that has set me on edge and put me at odds with myself.  What won't you write about?  Wow!  They wanted us to do a free write about what we won't write about.  I didn't know if I could do it.

As I've tried to expand on that idea both in concept and in writing, I find that it is something that I will need to do.  It is something that I will need to push myself to, a goal to reach, a place to heal.  It will be crossing a boundary that I've placed myself behind.  It is a very, very tall wall that I've been too afraid to breach.  And, it is of my own making.  Yet, I now believe that crossing that boundary will allow me to be free of the things that tie me here and keep me from moving forward.

I'm not yet prepared to actually write about it, because the writing will make it permanent and personal.  I am not yet prepared to write about the emotional and physical abuse that I tolerated in my marraige and the role I played in it.  I would love to be able to blame it all on my husband, but I cannot do that without accepting the blame that is mine, for knowing that things were not right and taking a stand for myself.  And yet this is where I can finally accept what was and put it aside.

And yet, I'm not ready to cross that boundary.  I'm still not able to write about it.

Beauty

Ha!

I want to say that I never cared, but that would be a lie. In my mind, I'd see myself as beautiful. I'd create an image that ....that....was just not what the mirror revealed, was just not what others saw.

I'd like to say that I know what they saw, but that too would be a lie.

I know the words that I heard...boobs....Mr Ed...clumsy....these weren't words that spoke beauty to  me.

When I was older, I gave myself to a man who professed his love and said I was beautiful. But his words came with strings. I was still clumsy. I was beautiful, because he'd do anything he wished I'd ask him for sexually, but I didn't. I was beautiful, except that I was not that bright. I was beautiful except that I had jowls, those of my mother. I was beautiful, after he twisted my words around his, until my eyes were red and puffy and he'd console me, with sex, for himself. I was beautiful...just not to me.

And then there was another, who spoke the words so often...who told me his feelings, his truth. Who was angry when I didn't trust, didn't believe. Until I did. And then it stopped. The words. The beauty. Was it ever real?

I could tell myself that I'm beautiful. I can imagine. But I can't hear a voice that isn't mine, and the beauty has no reflection.

I try to believe, even if it's just a dream. I try to hope it's different then what I face, when I open my eyes. And even if I can see my beauty, it is me who is blind, if no one else does, or is my vision enough?