Closet Doors

Those of you that know me, know that I love Halloween more than any other day of the year.  So much, in fact, that I additionally celebrate Halloween in April when about thirty friends and myself dress up and go out and about, in costume.  I also created Zombie Valentine's Day, where we dress up as zombies and dine in the nicer establishments, where couples like to celebrate the love-fest (because there is nothing quite like proposing to your girl with a group of zombies carrying on at the next table).  Random costumes occur all year long, in my world.

 

As a result of my love for Halloween, I have collected Halloween decorations for as long as I have had money to spend and many of the gifts that people have bought me for my birthdays and Christmas were Halloween oriented.  The amount of money that I have amassed in Halloween decorations, costumes, and accessories throughout the years is astronomical.  I used to keep the decorations up year round and friends often joked that visiting my home during the Christmas months was reminiscent of being part of The Nightmare Before Christmas.  These days, I have a closet dedicated to just Halloween items--one of the luxuries of being a homeowner.  Even still, my house always has a touch of macabre in any room you enter.

 

I haven't decorated for Halloween since 2007, due to moving in with the PFA-ex.  I wasn't permitted to have any of my personal items on display in his house--be it pictures, decorations or knick-knacks.  When I moved in, he had the entire upstairs of his house blocked off and it was basically storage.  I cleaned each room upstairs and turned one of the rooms into a ferret room, complete with paying for and installing laminate flooring.  I had the ferret room and a spare bedroom that had some of my personal items in it.  He permitted the spare bedroom to be decorated since his teenage daughter lived in Tennessee and would need a place to sleep during a visit (he also talked me into spending $375 for her plane ticket since he didn't have a credit card--like always, he promised he would pay me back--more promises that he never kept).

 

Basically, what happened when I moved in with him was, I sold and gave away most of my possessions and put my own house on the market.  While living with him, the majority of my remaining possessions were in boxes.  Other than the two rooms upstairs that he didn't use anyhow, the house was kept "his;" never "ours."  His excuse was that since his house was "under construction," he didn't want my stuff to get broken and we would have to take it down as the remodeling occurred.  Oddly enough, there was very little remodeling that occurred during my time with him.

 

At any rate, since my possessions were not a part of "our life together," decorating for the holidays did not happen, either.  When I moved back into my home in 2009, I had very little left.  No furniture, no kitchen supplies, most of my possessions were sold for pennies on the dollar simply because I did not have the room to store them at his house and why would I need my own things?

 

I moved back in November of 2009.  2010 saw me too depressed to care about decorating--even for Halloween.  That was the year that I lost my family and my nephews--why bother with decorating if they were not going to be here to appreciate it?  During the next two years, my current boyfriend/fiancé had moved in and we were finding places for his belongings, as well.  Halloween wasn't a priority.

 

So here we are, 2013. I have the itch once again! I am excited!  It is like a reunion with old friends.  I start envisioning where everything will go; I start thinking about all of the awesome that is tucked away in my Halloween closet; I remember how much fun it always was putting it up and have just barely managed to make it until September to dig it all out and begin.

 

Today was the day, I made sure that my paperwork was done and we started dragging out the boxes.  Except, wait! Where is the crazy, motion-activated ghost that scared my nephews so much that I had to turn it off whenever they visited?  Where are all of my cool, little action figures?  Where is my Hellraiser stuff?  Where is... everything???

 

My lords.  Did I really sell off that much?  I know a lot of it ended up being given away to friends and going to Agape (a local, charitable organization that helps families in crisis, at no charge to them).  There is a good possibility that some of it accidently got left behind at his house.  Either way, my excitement soon turned to disappointment as I searched for this item and that, only to discover that they were gone. 

 

I know I sound whiny.  I know, they were just replaceable possessions.   So many things that I lost in that relationship.  Family.  Friends.  My self-esteem.  Thousands of dollars.  Maybe it was just too much on an already emotionally challenging day.  Maybe I just want to reach the point in the story where I can tell it without feeling the pain attached.  Maybe it is just one more piece of my life that I will never get back.  Maybe it is just a reminder of how much I lost because of that relationship.

 

Maybe it is symbolic of the disappointment that relationship was, in and of itself.  I entered it with such expectation and hope.  Excitement and plans for a future so much different than what it turned out to be.  It's so difficult looking back and seeing how blind I was, how naïve, how trusting.  How much faith I had in him and how he not only took advantage, but intentionally broke me, as well.  How something as little as decorating my house for Halloween can be a trigger, a reminder, of the scars that I have been covering up and pretending were gone.

 

How even my favorite time of the year is now tainted. 

 

Did my friends and family really believe everything was alright, when 2009 saw the first time in my entire life that I didn't even dress up for Halloween?  Did they forget that I usually dressed up every day of Halloween week, for work, for fun, just because?  Did they really buy the story that I "just wasn't into it," that year?  Did they really miss how depressed and unhappy I was? 

 

It still boggles my mind that even now they can only see "how happy I was."  Am I really such a good actress?  Why did they only notice after I was away from him that I had lost weight?  When I was with him, I "looked great" and even my doctor stated that the weight loss must be "from all of that good sex;" (AFTER he asked me if I had cancer).  As soon as I left the PFA-ex, the weight loss was no longer a good thing, but a "concern."  Surely a sign of something darker, some evil that I was doing to myself.  My happiness upon leaving and renewed joy in life was also viewed as only being possible through some dark avenue.  Why couldn't they see that I was happy to be free? 

 

As I sit and look at one of the few decorations that I have left, a simple gargoyle plaque paying tribute to Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here,"  I am not surprised that it is one of the few of my decorations that survived those days.

Regarding "An Open Letter"

For those of you wondering, the previous post is for a friend that is in a dangerous situation and has had her communications monitored by the abuser, as well.  To help prevent him from intercepting the message, it has become public domain.

Quote of the Day

“Moving on can’t be forced or rushed. Yet from the moment you begin to deal with the abuse, people will urge you to hurry up and “put it in the past.” There will be times you want to move on as well—simply because healing is so painful. But moving on to avoid the pain or to please others is an escape.  Real moving on is the natural result of fully living through each step of the healing process.” ~Beginning to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis~



On Letting Go

I have recently been in contact with several friends that have been with me since the day of my birth--perhaps more aptly, my mother's best friend and her daughter.  They have always been a part of my life, I have special memories with them both and they each have a special place in my heart, uniquely reserved for them and the space that they occupy there.  I love them both deeply and they have each brought love and light into my world, always.  Recently though, I have been watching them struggle through dealing with past hurts that have ripped their relationship apart and have created a chasm between them that seems impossible to patch, to each of them. 

 

I think one of the hardest things to accept in life is when our family doesn't live up to our expectations and hopes.  We all want to be happy.  We all want to be loved.  Beyond that, our family is supposed to be our greatest asset in life.  The more immediate the family member, the more that we expect of them.  They are supposed to be our cheerleader, our support, our safety net.  They are the ones that are suppose to help us through life's storms and provide us shelter.  But what do we do when it is our family that hurts us the most?  What do we do when they are the storm?

 

The logical choice when someone treats you poorly, causes you grief and brings you pain is to end the relationship.  We easily separate ourselves from toxic coworkers, neighbors, even friends.  However, when it is family, the scars are ten times deeper.  And ten thousand times more difficult to let go.  We forgive.  We open our hearts back up.  We make ourselves vulnerable and we often get hurt.  How many times until we say, enough is enough?

 

How difficult to see that our family is made up of real people, with real flaws, and make real mistakes.  In my own experience, I am forced to remind myself daily that my father is no different than any other person that I may encounter in my daily life.  He has no super powers.  He has no hold over me.  He has no hold over my life.  His opinion of me is no more important than what the individual sitting at the next diner table over thinks of me.  Yet, with immediate family, we most deeply feel that need for acceptance, approval, and love.  Without it, we never quite feel complete.

 

I think the difficulties increase further when we see others surrounded by the relationships that we, too, wish that we could have.  Seeing friends that have families that support them and are there for them can be so confusing when we can't maintain similar relationships in our own lives.  It makes us wonder if there is something wrong with us.  When our own family isn't capable of loving us, does that make us damaged goods?  I have heard it said a lot in counseling sessions: "Their own family wants nothing to do with them"; as if this surely marks them as a bad individual. 

 

We can never truly see into another's heart.  We can never fully gauge the pain that they carry.  They can attempt to explain it to us in the best words that they can find--but we can still never truly feel what they have felt.  What the experiences have been like for them.  How deeply words and actions can wound; how the situation appears through their eyes.  There are old blues lyrics:  "There are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth."  The truth is no less the truth.  I may see it as black.  You may see it as blue.  Another yet, may see it as purple.  Perceptions are very rarely, if ever, viewed the same by individuals.  But that doesn't make their view any less important.

 

My father sees me as bitter and hateful because I have walked away.  He believes that I am incapable of accepting that he loves me.  He sees it as that simple.  All I wanted was admittance that he made a mistake; an apology for hurting me deeply.  I don't see that as a lot to ask.  I see it as "manning up."  But I am also aware that he is incapable of seeing where he acted improperly.  He is the God of his world and those that are in it.  He made the moves that he did because of who he is and his own life experiences.  I can accept that.  I also realize that even if he did apologize, even if he regretted his actions--it would not take away the events that happened.  It would not make the situation okay.  I would still be deeply hurt by the events that transpired--I will always see a black cloud over that stretch of my life.  He can't take that away--only time can heal or soften the edges.  But an apology or even an attempt to see things from my perspective would have prevented where we are today.  I see it as that simple.  Yes, I am stubborn, too--he should at least see where I get it from. 

 

Do I see myself as bitter and hateful?  I don't know.  I have a lot of people in my life that have hurt me repeatedly and that I have forgiven.  Only I can say when enough is enough.  Only I can decide when someone has caused me enough pain that I don't want to try again or continue the relationship.  My heart knows what I can carry and what I can't.  I would rather be surrounded by people that bring love, light and happiness into my world.  I would rather not have to worry about what they may do to hurt me next or if I can trust them to be a good part of my world.  If that makes me hateful and bitter, okay.  I can live with that.  I see it as self-preservation and life being too short to allow miserable people to place their misery upon me; but I can see how others may call it a different shade of black.

 

At any rate, I recognize that I have two choices, now. 

 

I can let my father back in and not look back.  I can accept that he will always have skewed and hurtful views of me.  I can accept that he will always hurt me, maybe without meaning to, maybe other times because of his own reasons.  My choice is to allow him back in, knowing who he is, how he views the world, and knowing that I will likely be hurt again. I can let him back in, understanding who he is, that who he is will not change and that we will never have the relationship that I have always wanted.  I can let him in knowing that I will never be Daddy's Girl or his Princess.  I will still be me.  He will still be who he is. And that will inevitably mean more hurt.

 

Or I can keep my distance, still hurt, and accept that he can not be a part of my life.  I can continue to avoid family functions that he attends.  I can shut my family out because I don't feel that they are capable of seeing me for who I am.  I can shut them out because the recent hurts were deep enough to leave scars that I can't pretend don't exist.  I can't change them, as people.  I can't change what has already happened.  I can't make them see me for who I am.  I can't make them see the pain that they have caused me.  But I can prevent further hurts at their hands.

 

The difficulty, as always, is in weighing the pain.  Is the pain of having them excluded from my life greater than the potential damage that they may cause me in the future?  These are real crossroads that many of us come to when dealing with family members that bring us pain.  The choice is never an easy one.  No matter how simple it appears to an outsider, the damages done to one's heart simply do not show up visibly to others.  The world would surely be an easier place if we could see those wounds.  It would be an easier place if we could see ahead like in a Choose Your Own Adventure book and could skip ahead to see where each path led.  Should I stay or should I go?  If only it were ever so simple...