Mousetrap. I wanted to play mousetrap. You roll your dice, you move your nice. Nobody gets hurt. (Bob the Tomato)
I’ve been quiet lately. I know that. I’ve struggled to find words to say, and not just here.
But how do you find the words to express what is happening when what is happening is so awful it hurts to breathe?
Because that is where I am right now. And I’m torn between finally speaking all the truth that the careful readers figured out long ago about the hell I’ve lived or staying silent. On the one hand, I finally get to speak the truth because there’s no reason to pretend or lie anymore. On the other, if I do, am I just saying it to air my dirty laundry and get it off my chest or am I saying it to empower other people with my story?
How does one balance the need to share a powerful story of survival as a means of taking one’s power that had been stripped for so long back with the need to temper that honesty with some discretion?
I don’t know.
Throughout history, women have been held to a different standard than men in all aspects of life and society and they have also always had a different set of rules and expectations to live by. It is only in the last century that we have seen a shift but I know that the shift is not complete and where I find myself today is a perfect illustration of how disproportionate things are.
Why?
Because I’m afraid to speak my truth or even to say a single word to acknowledge what is happening in my world that has me so knotted and tangled up in a mess that I can barely put two sentences together.
The life I planned on living and the rocker I planned on growing old in are no longer there and the promises made a thousand times have been broken.
It’s not just the questions of what I will do now or where is home…
It’s not just wondering what I will need to do to survive…
It’s knowing I sacrificed my career, my independence, and my happiness on the altar and I gave my all and knowing the same was not given to me…
It’s knowing that however the chips fall, women are always scrutinized for their truth in ways men are not…
It’s knowing that even indirect truth like this puts me in danger…
Mousetrap.
You roll your dice.
You move your nice.
Nobody gets hurt except the one caught in the trap.
the kintsukuroi life 
Still praying for God to intercede and lighten your burdens.
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Thank you!
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😦
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❤️
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❤️ I’ve missed you.
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Ah yes, I am also seeing that the world expects certain things from me now. So totally different than I am willing or ready to give. Dreams that disappear. Why are we held to different standards and how to cope? It will take years to figure that one out. I also lost my long ago dreams of rocking chairs at sunset together on the porch. How to push on? Everyone just says time and prays. Well, ok, but the hole that’s left will never totally heal for me. Maybe it will feel a little less horrific, but I know I will never forget therefore never stop feeling. I don’t want to. I do want to go on with life. I believe they are beginning to be two different entities. A before and an after a dot on the timeline. I am only able to hope you are able to put some stepping stones over your “hole” in you heart and relearn how to fly. I am finding it’s not a state, but a process.
Once again, so many words. My hugs, shoulder, always my love, Auntie Joan 🌹❤️🌹
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You’re right. We get judged and told how we are supposed to grieve and that we are supposed to move on already because someone has decided it is time.
But we cannot get over what happened in our lives. They are a part of us. They wrote the pages we became. We cannot get over it and just move on because that is asking us to get over who we are and leave the pages of our books I acknowledged.
My hole?! Who knows.
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