the darkness no longer has to engulf me
After flirting with the edge of vulnerability in yesterday's post, I feel different. Lighter. More agile. This process of daily blogging feels psychologically healing. I'm slowly unclenching my fist, letting the burdens and the weight I've carried all my years fall to the floor.
I still have to deal with the clutter, the mess of myself, but it is much easier to examine when I'm not carrying it. Releasing the death grip on my baggage... I start to see the blood return to my white-knuckled hands.
Underneath these daily posts, I'm unlearning who I once was and deciding who I want to be. There is a transformation happening at the subconscious level, I cannot clock how I know, but I can sense movement really warming up within.
Part of me wonders if this has been a long time coming, a seed that was planted long ago, just waiting for the right conditions, enough water, sunlight, before it could begin its sprouting phase.
After reading yesterday's post several times, I spent the rest of the night processing through some of these old horrors, talking with my husband about these experiences, and really unloading. I cried, but not for the past crimes committed against me.
I cried for how great things are in my life now, how appreciative I am to have reached a place of safety. My heart swelled, engorged with life, feeling how grateful I am to finally be able to rest and review the past 2 decades of my life. How lucky I am to be with a partner who upholds mutual respect, mutual presence. Who is patient, compassionate, understanding, who is soft yet strong. Who asks to be embraced and for gentleness, not someone who silently endures and builds resentment, but someone who communicates and voices their own wants and needs as a conversation, not a demand or an assumption. It is a beautiful love.
I wept for the old me who wanted to end it all and cried tears of joy for the present me who is so happy that I never gave up. The aches of my traumas and pain don't feel nearly as vivid. A kink in my soul is being smoothed out.
In the act of sharing my process of facing myself, especially the parts that I have tried to outrun, swept under a rug, or outright blacked out from memory due to dissociation, I'm starting to also see more goodness that surrounded me during those incredibly difficult times.
Goodness that I didn't have the capacity to reciprocate most of the time.
Isn't it crazy how depression and negativity can cloud your perspective? What you see becomes so narrow, tunnel-visioned, and breathing is like trying to suck oxygen out of a coffee stirrer. All I could think about then was finding refuge on the next random driftwood so I wouldn't drown at sea. Despite my constant fight or flight mode, I was lucky to have people and friends who uplifted me even when I felt like shit. Even when I felt like I didn't deserve it. Even when I wrestled with my own demons and didn't let anyone get close, there were many kind and compassionate people who helped me from afar.
My perspective was so unfortunately pessimistic then, it was my survival mechanism. To my past self, preparing for the worst and expecting the worst felt like the most logical approach -- an approach that would keep me from being swept under the riptides.
I was scrappy, but I had my moments of genius. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?
There were moments of enlightenment where I shined and shined and shined, and in some wild windfall, people saw that light and gravitated towards me. Approached me. Befriended me. Cared for me. I did my best to offer mutual care, gratitude, but yet, I was still swirling with so much darkness it was hard to really breakthrough to the other side.
I am still yet to breakthrough.
But maybe it's a balance, being a regular in both our lightness and our darkness, never allowing fear to avoid either or.
It's trippy to see yourself as an unreliable narrator in your own life, but I suppose I never really had a reliable model, mentor, or parent. How do I eventually become a reliable narrator of my own life?
That takes a lot of examination, and a lot of time. I suppose that's what I'm doing now, examining so many aspects of myself and my life, spending a lot of time reflecting and integrating.
To be reliable insinuates that you have proven time and time again, you display a certain type of trait or characteristic. A predictability.
Predictability was the antithesis to what I was back then.
I was highly capable, someone who could find rewards if I applied myself, but I was also highly volatile. I wasn't grounded anywhere, and because I chose the path of living on my own and becoming estranged, I found myself shapeshifting. A chameleon, a people-pleaser, but also disappointing so many people by never revealing my true self. By not letting anyone get to know me, I also realize, I didn't let me know myself.
Who was I if I wasn't any use to anyone else?
Who was I if I didn't tie my worth to my job, my work?
I wouldn't be spending time figuring that out until the 2020s.
This just happens to align with my Saturn Return, and perhaps this phase of life is a rite of passage for many of us.
From this point on, I'm committed to work through this. I am really fully here in this process. I'm not cosplaying as 'doing the work', or 'getting around to it eventually'. The time is now and every day.
I'm really beginning to understand this truth with my heart: healing isn't a linear process. It is cyclical. Each time I revisit the past with my stronger present self, I reclaim more pieces of who I am. The darkness I express doesn't disappear, but it becomes part of a larger, more complete picture -- one where both shadow and light have their place. The darkness no longer has to engulf me, it just needs a place and a purpose. Kind of like No Face from Spirited Away.
This post marks Day 41 of daily blogging, and I am dedicated to keep going for as long as makes sense. After all, this is how I'll become a reliable narrator, right? Maybe a reliable narrator isn't about predictability, but about being honest.
In writing here, I meet myself more honestly. I meet myself where I am each day, recording my journey with compassion and curiosity. In this honesty, I'm finding the freedom to finally become who I feel I was always meant to be.
This transition feels sacred, tentative yet powerful. I'm grateful for this space to document the unfolding, one day at a time.
And to the kind souls who have helped me, both past, present, and future: it is my heart's mission to repay that kindness forward.
The terrifyingly powerful being within smiles.
Thanks for being here.
Sincerely,
Nadine ♥