writing as healing

In my former life, I was a writer.  I suppose I should say that I am a writer, but the words have been buried for a while.  When I would write a character or a story, it sometimes felt like an invisible shield separated me from the words I was writing.  This shield prohibited me from hearing what they heard, from seeing what they saw, from sensing their touch, from being scared with their fears, holding their hopes, fighting their fights, it was like a thick pane of glass would forever separate me from the feelings I wanted to feel.

So I returned to the world of blogging.  I had one that showed my real life, included pictures of what I was doing, transparent, except for hiding some of the awfulness of what was happening to us.  Because it was for ‘the world,’ so I wanted to show ‘the world’ that my life was fine.  That my kids and I—we were okay.  But that was another shield, because it shielded me from accepting some hard truths about our lives.  There would be posts about family day at the beach or going to the zoo.  But there were never posts about choking the dog and throwing him up against the wall.

Someone once said truth is stranger than fiction, and I believe it.  So writing here, even though I don’t have pictures or reveal my name out of cautiousness—it still frees me to write freely about everything.  It helps me feel the feelings, keeps them close, the happiness or sadness or fear or comfort.  Writing it down keeps them at my fingertips.

I once was so afraid I couldn’t sleep.  Every night I would wake up at 2:00am, my mind racing with the things I had to do, take care of, shield myself from.  It was like that for a year, I know it was from stress, residual stress from the divorce.

I tried western medicine, the usual suspects, trazadone, ambien, lunesta.  The trazodone didn’t work, the ambien did, but I didn’t dream, which was really weird, the lunesta made me feel hung over and left a terrible taste in my mouth.  I then went to a naturopath and after three months, I think the herbal medicines might finally be working.  So these days, I have started to sleep again.  I still have wakings, but they are brief, my eyelids heavy, my thoughts like warm molasses ready to slip back into dream world.  I hope this lasts. 

Another aspect to this is—my stress level has decreased rapidly.  The trial is over.  Yes there are residual messages and nastiness to attend to when he emails me long diatribe letters, but they are much better than what they used to be.  And there’s no more court.  And my girls—they are doing so good in our new life, loving their friends, playing at school, active in their extracurricular activities.  We have decorated our tree—well, they did, i only did the lights, we are planning to bake cookies for santa and cakes for our neighbors.  So thankful to be in this good place of late.

And so it’s true I’ve felt a lot more peaceful lately.  I have embraced a new love in my life, treading carefully where my children are concerned, treading carefully to be sure that the kindness and love offered so generously to me is real, evidenced by actions and behavior, and not just words.  There is no ‘some day’ there is just today.  He shows me kindness and generosity and love today and yesterday and so the promise of tomorrow is based on real life data.  Not to sound clinical, but I think it’s okay to be a little clinical given all that we’ve been through.  My heart has awakened and it does feel whole and full.

I hope that somehow, someway, I might find my way back to writing fiction again, to feel immersed in a story like I used to.  To feel that their words are mine and theirs at the same time.  I know the words I’ve just written are mine, and I know what it feels to feel them. 

Happy Holidays and I’m hopeful, more hopeful than I’ve been in a long time. <3 <3 <3