COURAGE, BRAVEHEART

I’ve been away for awhile. Most things have felt hard. Really really hard. Even normal things like exercising, eating right, finding time to just BE with the Lord, relationships, work, saying goodbye to friends who are moving, all the political jargon, finding a job, deciding whether or not I should move, feeling motivated to do anything at all. And yes, that means even writing. 

Thinking about it makes me sad. I love these things. Each and every one of them. And yet I find myself floating further and further away from them and I’m not sure why. And some days I don’t know how to get back to being tethered to myself instead of floating aimlessly separated from myself. But I’ve been sitting with it. Brainstorming. Getting curious. Trying to figure it all out. And I think I found a big puzzle piece.

I recently binge-watched the tv-show MAID. A friend of mine is in it and I’d heard it was good so this past week, my boyfriend and I decided we’d start it. 

Damn.

MAID is about a young woman (25) who decides to leave an abusive relationship because she wants a better life for her three-year-old daughter. The catch is, the relationship is emotionally abusive and the courts (and people in general) don’t consider emotional abuse as abuse because you can’t see it. You can’t prove it. 

I suddenly realize my breathing has shortened. My heart is racing. My pulse is up. I just realized I’ve been holding my breath this entire last paragraph. I gently and slowly breathe out. 

You see, my marriage was emotionally abusive. And mentally. And spiritually. I was married to a man in a pastoral position with a challenging past and he used gas-lighting and manipulation and shame and scripture to control me. To keep me. To isolate me. To confuse me.

His mother was borderline, he was a narcissist, and his brother was downright cruel at times. It was a fourteen year roller coaster that finally came to a screeching halt a little over four years ago when I moved out and separated and then eventually filed for divorce. It was both the hardest decision I ever made and the only one I could make in order to find myself again. I had to. I was just a shell of a person. 

MAID has been hard to watch. It’s brought up so many triggers and reminders and traumas all over again, that in between the episodes of caring deeply about Alex and what happens to her, I would have to take breaks to literally collage and look at pretty things, giving myself time to check in with myself and come down from all the emotions it was bringing up from my own story.

Not many people know this about me. That this is part of my story. It’s messy and a lot of people don’t like mess. It’s hard and a lot of times people don’t know what to do with those hard details or what to say. And oftentimes, I don’t want to be seen as a victim or someone who allowed something like that to happen to her. The rule in my marriage was, out of “respect” (or control!) for my ex, he asked me not to share any of these struggles as “he had a painful past he was trying to work through.” So as a means of trying to respect and honor him and his wishes, I didn’t share these struggles. Or I did but only with certain people that he felt comfortable with or that I secretly told, without him knowing. It was complicated to say the least.

In the show, Alex is a writer (like me!) and her goal is to go to school for creative writing. Writing is her outlet. Her coping. Her safe place. And yet when she’s in a hard place mentally or emotionally, she can’t write at all. I find myself to be similar in that way. But I know how much I love it and I know how much good it does for my heart and my soul. I also know how scary it can be, and when something feels so close to you and like a part of you, you want to protect it at all costs.

That’s my writing for me.

So much was already taken from me, so much rejection already happened, that sometimes it’s scary to put my writing out there because I’m not sure I could handle rejection of something that is 100% purely just me.

So this week, I was encouraged to get back to it (Thanks Alex!) and find my voice again. Write what I want to write. Say what I want to say. Not alter things because I’m afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or that I might be displeasing in some way. Or that I might reveal something about my ex that is not my job to “protect” anymore. 

I write for me. And for others who may be in a similar place as me. We are all in this together just trying to do our best with what we have and to be the best we can be with this one precious life God has given us. So that’s what I’m doing today. I’m starting again. I’m writing because I love it. I’m writing because I can and because I must. I’m writing to feel. To no longer be wandering or floating aimlessly. To be honest and vulnerable. To be seen and heard and known because for a long long time I wasn’t. And I’m done with that.

So for those of you who haven’t met me yet…I’m Stef. I’m 38 years old. I’m a sister. A daughter. A girlfriend (to a hottie!). An aunt. A Jesus lover. A writer. An actor. Someone who has been abused. A director. A creative. A divorcée. A storyteller. A courageous Braveheart. A self-doubter. A tender and sensitive soul. A once-confident-girl who is slowly making her way back. A loyal friend. A helper. A goofball who likes to make others laugh. An adventurer. An avid reader and book lover. A thrill seeker. An oftentimes insecure girl. A nature lover. A hat wearer. And some days I get confused and have to remember who I am and what I like and that’s okay too. I’m just on a journey to healing and a lot of that starts here. With simple words on a page. Thanks so much for being here and for reading along.