Calm Waters

It has been quiet.  The longer I am able to roam through my life free of my family, the more peace I am finding.  That is a sad sentence but also a liberating one.  I couldn't have said it last year.  I have healed a lot.  I have gained perspective I have never had.  I am finally getting strong again.

I reflect back on my years in their home a lot lately.  I struggled with depression in those days.  I didn't ever really realize how much it all affected me, I thought I was at fault for any of my shortcomings or struggles, despite being just a kid.  I was ashamed of my shortcomings, I was ashamed to be less beautiful than my cousins, I was ashamed that my dad drank, I was ashamed that our house was filled with so much secret darkness.  I felt like I deserved the darkness our house was cloaked in.  I found it difficult to enjoy happy moments without a sobering knowing that those were just moments, that I didn't actually have a happy life.

I remember in my late teens and into my twenties when I began to break away and find myself.  There was a point to it all.  The point was that moment when your heart is so full of peace and happiness, when there is music playing that resonates perfectly with what is inside of you.  When you're getting soaked by the rain and it is making you feel so completely alive.  Life was about those moments.  An early morning on a day where the sky looks like the colour of a stormy sea and you have a coffee in your hand and your heart is healing from something, that first taste of comfort after a painful time.  Knowing you are okay.  Sitting around a bonfire and being a part of instruments and voices and drum beats.  A train rolling down the tracks, taking you away, on your own to discover the world.  The sweetness of a sad goodbye.  It's in all of those things.  And all those other moments that are not so magical are just a part of life.  They are not what you live for, they are what you live through. 

I remember being in one of those happy moments and wondering if it was enough because I knew it was fleeting.  I had had those thoughts so many times.  Happiness being squashed by remembering how fleeting it was.  But then one day, I realized that it was enough.  I remember seeing the shadows of trees dancing on the sunny sidewalk as I walked down Sherbrook Street and realizing that the beauty in that was enough.  As long as we can see it.  

And so, now as I settle back into my life, as I free myself from the shame of having left my family, I am able to see it again.  The beauty in the raindrops on the window and all of the little moments that bring peace to my heart.  I still struggle with it all, but I am able to breath in the beauty all around me and know that I will be okay.  

It also brings about a difference between my mom and I.  The good moments were never enough for her and my life was so wrapped up in her ups and downs that they really couldn't be enough for me either.  Feelings of 'what's the point' and 'never enough' were what I was brought up around.  It doesn't surprise me that I struggled so much with myself and with finding happiness in my younger years.  I finally have found empathy for myself in those years.  Living in that house was hard.  I could never feel confident that things were okay, that I could let my guard down and just enjoy life.  I didn't know what to do with myself so often, when she was so broken. I always thought that at least in a small part, that brokenness was a reflection of me.  And when I think back, I feel sad for not just her anymore, but for me too.  I don't feel shame or secrecy anymore.  I don't feel responsible for it anymore.    

I feel like last year, I dealt with a form of survivors guilt.  I had to leave people I loved in a burning building because I had a child in my arms and couldn't stay there any longer trying to convince them that the fire was real.  Saving yourself when it means leaving people you love in a painful place is hard to overcome.  To say the least.

I am so grateful for the distance between then and now.