The Flog

I was going to post a flog today, instead of a blog. You know, a page long rant about how awful I was, my insecurities, letting my inner critics have the stage, spotlight and a loudspeaker. Flog myself without mercy. I got a good start at midnight last night, finishing a rough draft by 1AM.

I wrote it and looked at it. It shouldn’t fit anymore. And yet, I believe the words, the shame and take the humiliation because I know I deserve it. I’m a little girl, nothing I can do or say is okay, I must be bad if the people who love me treat me this way. Years and miles away from my abuser, my confidence continues to be raped, over and over again. I am powerless.

He is still inside me. Taking. It makes me sick.

There are times I feel like I’m almost in the clear. I’ve almost exorcised all the demons. I can sit back and watch me chair a meeting, deal with finance issues, discuss grant making programs, do the work I’ve done for 15 years, and I almost feel free.

Almost is the key word. Almost.

While feeling particularly miserable this morning, after a long, sleepless night, Zachary came over and asked me, buried in my email, if I wanted more coffee. I was sitting on a cold stone, alone, in the fog, believing the world would be better without me, and then my beautiful blue eyed boy came and put me back in the threadbare, worn chair next to the gas fireplace, my ever attendant dog at my feet.

He didn’t see me start to cry when he took my mug and skipped to the kitchen, only the big smile when he returned. Perfect, I told him as he watched me take a sip. Three tablespoons too much sugar and it was delicious.

Maybe almost is as good as it ever gets. Maybe it’s not about clearing away the nightmares but learning how to live with them. I need to take away center stage and give them a small space on a sidewalk with no microphone to perform.

Because the day I start to depend on my kids to pull me off the stone, is the day I become my mother. It’s my job to take care of them. Not theirs to take care of me. Not now, not ever. That doesn’t mean they can’t come visit and bring me flowers when I’m old. It means I will not need them to hold me emotionally in anyway, especially not as young children.

I know the scars it leaves. The loudspeakers it feeds.

I deleted the flog. Partly because I know better. Nothing I write at 1AM is going to be a balanced evaluation of who I am. Partly because I had a friend write and remind me who the words belong to.

And mostly because I have three kids who need me to move from almost to free.