Chapter 27

/ Samantha Elle

I find myself searching for the good of this time period. I wish I had at least one happy story to float away to so that I’m not bombarding you, dear reader, with gloom-ridden narratives, but I’m having a hard time…everything outside of me was falling apart. Everything was simultaneously building then collapsing into a day one year away that would change things irrevocably…everything was crumbling…everything but me…

(I couldn’t see that at the time. This is why I write…to attempt to understand things that don’t make sense. I write to see…)

How? I’m not sure. The pain of it all was still poignantly there, but I stayed put. I stayed with the pain. I let it come as many times as it wanted to, and I was glad to let it go when it wanted to leave…by no virtue of mine I should add. The monster in me would much prefer burning it all down…drinking and getting high and running away and not caring about anyone or anything…but I just can’t anymore. I have meaningful responsibilities now. I guess that’s the good.

When evil touches you, the world feels different. But like Betsy always said (which used to make me so mad), “Feelings aren’t facts.” It may have felt dark, but I lived each day with the deep knowing I had gained a few years prior…the sun is always shining even when you can’t see it. Knowing that the light was there too (somewhere), was helpful. It was helpful to turn towards it. It may sound very “out there,” but it’s more tangible than not…

“And though things seem bleak, still we must seek…”

I turn towards the light (or dark) through my actions every day with each decision I make. Maybe it’s most beneficial to acknowledge the things that take me further from the light/good/truth…i.e., even if I don’t know what to do, I always know what not to do. And as long as I keep not doing the things that I know to be wrong for me, I automatically open doors to things that could be good for me. And if something’s actually good for me, it’s naturally good for everyone around me…the highest good, the highest truth. Even in spite of myself.

I have caused enough suffering. When I hurt others, I hurt myself. When I hurt myself, I hurt others. Every. Single. Time. Without fail. It’s just that way. It’s a universal thing that makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s actually logical. Call it karma or whatever you want…it just is. How else could we learn? I have suffered enough by my own hand and I’m unwilling to pay that price anymore. And I don’t want to be the cause for any more pain outside of me either so long as I can help it. Unwilling to participate in any game that takes me down that road again…unwilling. Though this 3-D life is finite, I’m playing for the infinite team.

Even my relationship…our love was falling apart…to put it plainly, we sucked at our own relationship. We had this gift…this love that was so big that, I swear, our love alone could have saved this whole world. It contained within it (somewhere) the answer to every haunting question in existence. I just know it. It was true…a true, literal love at the core, but we would fail it again. At least that’s how it would appear…though as a disguised Jafar told Aladdin, “Things aren’t always what they seem…”

I was particularly aware now of life through my daughter’s eyes. Especially as it pertains to the way women are to be treated by men. Naturally, that starts with me. As her mother, I will be the standard and the example for her (for better or for worse).

My love was starting his final year of school. It was going to be a hard time for everyone. We anticipated this and talked about it numerous times. I can hear his voice in my head now, “Love, this is gonna be really hard, but we can do it. We’ll just get through it. We won’t break up no matter what. No matter how hard it gets. We’re not breaking up.”

Ok, my dear.

I believed him…I was worried though. I was worried about him. Alcoholic to alcoholic, addict to addict. The worry was more on the mild side then though as my daughter had nearly all my attention. The only thing I really knew for sure was that if I kept making regular attendance at meetings, I would be alright.

His children were on their devices every waking hour when I was around them. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. That was scary to me for obvious reasons. And, when my daughter was around, she would feel left out since she no longer had a device. My love and I had many conversations about our kids and technology. We had even seen with our own eyes the way they would flourish without it. So, I was surprised that this was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He had to focus on school and building his career, therefore, his kids would be raised by their iPads for the time being…it made me uneasy deep-down, but he was so sure of his path and so fucking stubborn too (yes, it’s the pot calling the kettle black).

I used to hear all the time in AA, “There’s nobody too dumb to get sober, but there are many who are too smart.” There is danger in thinking that I know everything…in making myself important in an egoic way. All the knowledge in the world proves useless without some humility…some understanding that as a human, I’m fallible. What good is talking the talk if I’m not walking the walk? When I start lying to myself, not listening to others and not wanting to help or be helped…warning (!).

“Honesty, open-mindedness, willingness” comprise the ideal attitude (thank you Alcoholics Anonymous)…

Most things external to me felt…hopeless. My job was a lot. As a single mom, my daughter was in before school care, after school care. She was away from me more than she was with me and that didn’t sit well with my soul anymore. She needed me more. I needed me more. I was yearning for a life that I loved where my child was safe and generally loving life too. The way I thought a kid should live.

I was beginning to become disillusioned with my relationship as well. We had been on one date in one year and when he found time, I wasn’t who he gave it to. When I would bring it up, I would leave the conversation feeling worthy of a strait jacket. We had something really great in theory, but in real life? I felt very much alone. And even though he had all the right words and all the best intentions (I think so anyway), a colossal disconnect was coming about…not all at once though. It came in fairly manageable waves then…but steady building…tsunami-style…

I was going through the motions of what I thought I was supposed to do, but was perpetually quietly asking, “God…are you there?“

At one point, there was a chance that my daughter’s case would go to trial, and we would have to travel to Idaho. Though this was quite the daunting prospect, a dream DID emerge…On our way home after the trial, we would stop somewhere in Montana…where we could ride horses and gaze in awe at the big starry sky and vast mountains. Montana…there was something about her…and she just kept calling…

This dream kept me going…a dream to symbolize the end of that chapter in our lives and the beginning of a new one…what that new one would be, I had no way of knowing then. Nonetheless, something in me was stirring…

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8 thoughts on “Chapter 27”

  2. Samantha, God is always there in each step you take. Yes, some are hard indeed…but…how can we appreciate a lovely sunny day, unless we get a week of rain. A rose in bloom, without a winter of silence. A heart in love, without that contact lost. They all build us, give us a wisdom, and that amazing part that I still shake my head in seeing. How we can go through so much pain, but in doing so build so much empathy, compassion and love. Yes, there is much anger and a million other emotions, but that fine tune antenna called our hearts asks us to take one more step, find that starry night in our dreams and create them.

    Yes, there are many cold wet puddles after those walks in life…but…there are many open fire snuggles to go with them. Each and every one are guiding us with hope, and that soul search for a love and happiness ‘out there’. But it isn’t until we dare that search within that it is found. We reach that part in life where we have truly had enough, can’t take another step without tears of frustration and even anger. Where you look up into the sky and scream with all that you are. But that is what He is waiting for, for you to reach this place and dare what you have avoided all your life. The answer to all of your life rests in that one place.

    In your heart, is a child’s heart, and in it is a place locked tight, it is that one spot you dare not tread because it holds a pain, a child’s pain of how you felt rejected in some way, a love blocked to those you thought you looked up to and loved. But their actions seeded that doubt, a fear of being hurt…and ever projected onto others all through your life. Blocking all those ‘others’ from being anything that would touch on that heartfelt horror.

    And the answer is very easy to find…what do they do that upsets you more than anything else, a way of being treated or spoken to that hurts more than anything else, causes break ups, makes you avoid it like the plague. And if you look at all your relationships, it is the common denominator in them all, even if coming from a different direction.

    There is one way out of it all and I found it in the most incredible way. Spirit said to me…’do you want to know what unconditional love is?’…and of course I said yes, bouncing around on the bed like a child…gimme, gimme, gimme! And Spirit said…’I (God) wants you to go somewhere in your heart, not around, nor under or over, but through…your fear!’…well, I of course said speak to the hand. Then Spirit said…’in there is an understanding, and like any worry in life…we stress, chew on them, put them off and a million other things, until one thing happens to them all…you dare to face and understand them…and you then let them go. Look at everything you have understood in your life…they don’t bother you anymore…because you have faced them, understood and let them go.

    Your fears in those relationships is that unknown, never knowing why but always seeing those actions of others as a direct hit at you. But if you dare to go back and understand that child’s pain, it takes away the fear power has over you, it removes it completely. Here is an example of how this truly works.

    You have done something really wrong, your brother (or sister) is threatening to tell mom and dad. Your petrified of them knowing so you will do anything to keep him/her quiet. For a long, long time, years even you have had to put up with them threatening you and that secret coming out, you have acted in ways that are just not you because of how it is holding you, in thoughts let alone what it does to you physically and in your mind. Until one day you say ‘enough, I can’t do this anymore. You have been dragged to hell and back over it and it has twisted your life beyond meaning. So, it’s time. You gather your courage and go tell your mom and dad. They are aghast, shocked and unbelieving. BUT…it is such a huge, huge relief to finally say it…and let it go, the weight lifted is beyond words. And your brother, he has just lost all of his power over you…all of it. And in looking back over your life you can see the trail of broken and twisted actions you’ve made to avoid this pain…but…it is the making of you, made you into that person who has now had the courage to face you, see underneath all the waves this life makes and finally see the truth and beauty in your heart and act on it by being that truth, that love of self…and then speak from that place.

    Our lives are just that, that journey of going through a life maimed by that fear, a lie with the weight of the world holding us to it. But on the day you have the courage to face and understand that child’s painful heart, will be the day you let that weight go.

    Your not going to believe this…but Spirit wants this comment posted…again 🤣

    Anyway, it is a long journey Samantha, but a very heartfelt and beautiful understanding at its end. May your heart finally reach that courage to take that step back into your childhood, find that pain from those you loved and looked up to, and understand it is the pain you have ever carried with you. See the why it felt so painful to that child and understand it is but the crying of a child for her mom or dad, the reaching out for a love never found. It’s answer will set you free, release its power over you in its understanding…and finally release a heart from its pain ❤️🙏🏽

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    • Oops, sorry Samantha, I forgot one of the major parts of my example above 🤣 When we do something very wrong, in my example, we ‘know’ what we’ve done. In real life we don’t know what it is we think we’ve done, or the reason for ever feeling unloved, rejected, the world is against us etc. And that makes it so much more frustrating and drags it on for such a long time. A lifetime. There is no finally telling mom and dad…because we don’t know what it is. But believe me, when we see it, it is so powerful. I broke down and cried my eyes out…but the relief is something else, beyond words, and something so powerfully beautiful in its understanding that comes with it 😀❤️🙏🏽

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      • The greatest gift the pain of my story has given me is the ability to connect with others. Going straight to the depths of darkness has shown me the path to the freedom I’ve always longed for. Knowing my story inside out allows me to understand others, but to also accept that which surpasses understanding. Going beyond “my story,” beyond “myself” is the liberation, but first, I had to get in touch with the ALL the ugliness and pass on the lessons. It seems a worthy and exciting life for sure! Thank you, Mark! Also, I think you should share your first comment here. There’s a lot of good stuff in there that could really help someone ❤

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      • Thank you Samantha, when we do finally see it as a gift, it then changes us truly. We have reached that peak in our lives and truly begin to ‘see’ its meaning then, in all we do. Spirit nudged me about posting it all so I’ll do that today. And something I shall say to you, and I don’t know whether this is a support or a further horror…probably both. But this event is a lot more prevalent than most people think. I would say that at least 65% of the population has had a sexual attack of some kind, not necessarily through these app contacts as you had been through, but they in themselves are more prevalent as time goes by. It is just the horror of the encounter tends to add to its silence, simply because we are already not comfortable with ourselves and having endured something on this level that will add to it. You have taken great courage in facing and then sharing a journey that needs to be spoken. Take a bow, for you and your daughter ❤️🙏🏽

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