Safety

I was thinking about when I felt safe.

One should feel safe with one’s family.

I wasn’t safe. Emotionally.

Smacks are vaguely remembered, but the emotional turmoil was intense. Unforgettable.

I disassociated from everyone. At school and at home.

I accepted that I was too much of a problem. I was age 5.

I found reasons for my predicament. I was an unwanted child, a burden, stupid, naughty, and I couldn’t remember my lessons very well. I also thought I was ugly because my hair was long, painfully plaited tightly and I thought I looked hideous.

After school I was at sea. I wasn’t actually good at anything. I got by. People put up with me. Some were kind. Some were not. The kind ones had agendas. I was now pretty. What a disadvantage. Predators love vulnerable, pretty people.

The number of times God protected me from awful people was significant. I’d just know somehow to not go there, not go alone, leave by another exit. I didn’t know why at the time, but I could look back and thank God I took the exit.

It was all an ordeal to survive. After a year at college my productivity improved and job by job I developed skills enough.

Emotional safety is the first thing in any relationship.

I sadly did not find it in my marriages or in my birth mother’s house.

I am emotionally safe now. It took 70-something years to find peace.

I comfort myself with gratitude. I have been blessed throughout my life by someone who came and changed things and helped me further along the road.

I have never been in a war zone.

I don’t know hunger or homelessness.

I have unseen scars from of an invisible fight for love and light, peace and safety.

It is vital that we have someone to love. We can endure being unloved, I found, but I have always needed to love.

I loved my dysfunctional mother until she passed. She too had a dysfunctional family before I arrived. It wasn’t hard to forgive her. I identified the patterns. Didn’t make sense of them until much much later, but I did figure out why at last.

At times, as an adult, before my children, it was only a cat or a dog to love and nurture.

I feel safe. I love and I am in love with the heroes that populate my circle of life. It’s a wide circle spanning provinces and countries, which includes my blog circle.

“Thank you for coming. I love you,” as my mother used to say.

Love and Holy Light. And Peace.