This morning after a night of pain, cramps and massive diarrhea, I got out of bed to try to start my day. While putting the dishes away, I picked up a coffee cup and had a flash back. The cup had mysteriously appeared here at the house while I was away, it said Costa Rica on it and holding it I was immediately transported back to that country, to the hot tub where I was sexually assaulted within a hour of arriving there. I was also whisked into the numbing, helpless, child state of impotence that lies beneath the well worn facade of competence and power that I wear.
I had gone to Costa Rica to meet up with Isis and Jesse, we were all going to take massage classes in that tropical paradise. I had looked up one my instructors on line to see what I might be learning. In the you tube video that I found him demonstrating his techniques. I fell in love with his hands,they looked so capable. I'm embarrassed to say that those same hands that I was enamored of with at first glance would be aggressively groping my breast and crotch and manhandling my daughter's body within hours of me landing on that foreign soil. I was paralyzed, I am sure that I looked like I was fine, maybe even compliant with his advances but internally I was crying out for protection, stunned into a cornered animal feeling that is all too familiar to me. In that moment I was a toddler, a little girl suffering through the only kind of love that her daddy would ever offer her. When he moved on to my daughter, his wife took over with kisses and more fondling, I stayed defenseless and yielding to her unwanted touch. I t was over in minutes, Isis having the ego strength to stop him, Jesse moving out of the molasses of shock and confusion enough to speak to the couple and to state the obvious, the whole situation was making me, Isis and the others in the tub uncomfortable. I had no idea what I had done wrong to deserve this unfortunate welcome to the week. I only knew that I was numb and defenseless. The aftermath of that peculiar interlude was scary, shame filled and sad. He was whisked off from the site but not until he had molested at least 6 other women and enough noise was made about the situation. It
became an outrageous and unbelievable story to tell when I got home and a teaching for me that in spite of years of therapy and years of being a supposed grown up there was still a traumatized baby, a powerless child, and a young raped woman alive and well living just below the surface of this grandmothers visage of mine. I learned a valuable lesson down there in the jungle and I thought that it stood alone in my experiences. Not so, as today has unwound before me, feeling weak and shaky from my night's ordeal of illness, the trauma of that experience has revisited me ripping away another layer of the me that I assume myself to be.
The thoughts that have been swirling through my mind are "I am all alone", "I can't protect myself" and "What is to become of me". I came to the raw realization that with Doug's death I had lost something that I never knew that I had, the protection of being married to a man who would a given his life to keep me safe. The mere fact of being his wife protected me in ways that are only now revealing them selves. I was aware of the obvious ones of financial security, a stronger someone next to me in bed at night, but the rudimentary one of being perceived as someone's wife and therefore off limits to roaming hands and mouths had escaped me. The mere idea of Doug was a safe haven for me and one I took for granted. Until this morning I didn't have any idea of having lost this fundamental bulwark of protection with his death. Silly, I guess, my taking so many months to get it, but we get it when we get it.
So, after many very hot tears that spilled from my eyes and down my throat when the ramifications of my realizations and hugs and kisses from my little family here, I am left with newly uncovered rubble that begs for me to build something new with it.
In talking through it all with Shiloh and Jesse, I had an unwanted epiphany. With the exception of a few months when I was freshly divorced and the kids went back and forth to their Dad's house for a month at a time, I have not lived alone ever. Within months of his leaving I began having to rent out rooms in the house to keep a roof over our heads. So there was always someone living with me. I had 14 years of house mates, sometimes up to as many as 6 of them, sometimes only one. Then I moved out here to go to school and still had house mates, I lived with Doug for 7 years, 2 months and 5 days out of our 7 year, 11 month and 12 day marriage. Shiloh has lived with me since right before Doug's final illness and continues to. Within 2 months I will be moving into a house by myself, if you don't count the dogs and cats. I actually did live in that house alone for a few weeks, but Doug was always here to return to. Now it will be me and the pets with no loving spouse to come back home to.
Am I excited at the proposition, no I am not, am I capable of living on my own unyoked without the ready comfort and support that living with someone brings, probably.That remains to be seen. I actually feel shame at the fact that I have not lived on my own much, as if the fact speaks somehow to my immaturity or some character flaw as opposed to my penchant for inviting others into my home and offering safe haven and love. I used to feel shame about working for the same institution for 28 years, I felt like that fact somehow spoke to my failings for mixing it up and trying new things instead of being a testimony of my work ethic, perseverance, and reliability. I also feel shame that the deeply wounded parts of me are still laying there inside me right under the surface of my beautiful, worldly, irreverent mask, insidiously waiting for a cup or a song or a cloud to unleash them to wreak havoc on my puny humanity.
Shame- noun 1.the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another: "She was overcome with shame."
I think that I will commit myself to deciphering where myself and another intersect and try giving myself a break from all this burdensome feeling Being ashamed of any of me serves no one and is akin to spitting into the face of my Creator. I think I will also break and get rid of that damn cup. But the cup can wait until I have eaten a cookie or two. I'll let you know how it all turns out.
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