Broken

I came damaged. I was broken. If you ask Ward he will tell you that I have changed, that I am less fearful than when we first knew each other. I know that I once projected a sense of false bravado that I have abandoned. I don't need it anymore.But once upon a time I needed it. It was how I protected myself. I was the odd bird with the very strange plumage and the stranger vocalizations, because if you were odd, people didn't get too close. And if they did, you could always distance. Yup. I had it all covered.




The woman who gave birth to me was schizophrenic. I talked before about the things that happened in the house where I grew. She was physically abusive.She was verbally and emotionally abusive. She let her men touch me and use me in ways a child should never know. I learned to dissociate, to be unaffected, to suppress my emotions to such an extent that you would have thought I was a mannequin. I learned to distance rather than feel very early in life.







When I was out in the world, just old enough to work (both to get out of the house - away from her, and because it was required - she wanted the money), I learned that if you were quiet - and non-conformist - usually people left you alone. I shaved my head.I dressed in steel-toed boots and jeans, or all black if required to wear skirts or dresses...WITH black boots. That usually kept people at a distance. And if it didn't, if they were curious about this odd person, my mask of bravado was enough to hold them at bay. And if it didn't, well I never really let anyone in close enough to hurt me.



Then I did, three times. None of them ended well. All of them ended with me working multiple jobs to support my partners who were jobless for two to six years. And while I was working seven days a week, in some cases 16-18 hours a day, they found other partners. And I was convinced that I was not enough, never would be. Even my own mother couldn't love me. I was unattractive, in mind and body, and apparently lacking in heart. This is what I was told and shown over and over and over from earliest memory. I honestly believed that I carried some defect, some darkness because of my birth. I felt that the darkness inhabited my soul, and could be seen and felt.

Then I saw a poem that touched my heart and soul and wrote to the author to express my gratitude for having been blessed in the reading of it, and I met my Ward. The Story of How We Met is found elsewhere on the blog and I won't bore you with that again either (even though I love the story). As we got to know each other better, I was sure that he would see the darkness, too, that he would find the thing that made him run, that the brokenness would send him screaming into the night. But it didn't.

He tries to get me to see me as he does. He tries to help silence the nagging little voice that says he will find me out. He is patient and kind and he gently and diligently calls my surrender of those things that can put a distance between us.. He makes rules to try to guide my thoughts away from the notion that I am not enough. He has made a rule that I may not make self-disparaging remarks. He says that I have been lied to all my life, and that I do not see myself clearly because of those lies.  Sometimes when we are having a conversation about how I am feeling, I will ask for immunity so that I can express what goes through my mind. I have come to realize, with Stormy's help, that when I distance (another rule) it looks to him like I do not trust him with my thoughts and feelings and fears. So I have made an effort to give him those things, I think I've been pretty successful.

One of the most frustrating...disheartening things that I have found in our foray into blogland, and the subsequent self-discovery that it brings, is that every time I believe that I have FINALLY surrendered the very last thing to Ward, that I am completely open and holding nothing back...I find another.

We were having an innocent conversation, and Daddy said something sweet. He said that he felt my love enhance his and us. And I replied with an earnest, 'I hope so.' I meant only that I hoped I was worthy. There was a pause and he asked if he could ask me a question, I said of course. And he asked why I say things like 'I hope so', that it was like I doubt what we are.


I was crushed...I had hurt him.I don't doubt him, and I don't doubt us. I  doubt my own worthiness of this beautiful love. He told me that I am beautiful and complicated and his...and I marveled that he still wanted me, even with all the cracks and imperfections And as he talked, he gently placed another piece of broken little me back in place. He made sure that it fit, and that the bond made with his patience and his love was strong. 

 
The next time, a day or two later, that Daddy said something to which my knee-jerk response was to be 'I hope so", I stopped with the words on the tip of my tongue, and took a breath, met his eyes and said, 'Thank you, Daddy."

I came broken, and he is slowly and patiently putting me back together. And he gives me wings.

 

HIS  POV: 
June's early life was one of adversity and disquiet.  I would see her elevated beyond the hurt of the past and help her see the beauty that has always existed in both form and spirit.  I know that there are scars on or within us all. I guess the way I see  it,  nurturing each other is ALWAYS a priority. It is always a comfort to know that she is there for me too. I too have a very "lived in" life and it is a comfort to know that she is always here for me!