One day when the din is quieted, and the trauma has settled softly and fallen through the cracks, as I’ve jumped and laughed and cried and meditated and talked and clenched and surrendered and broken through.
One day when the voice of sadness and horror and fear and breaking glass dampens so the sounds are almost unhearable.
One day when the rage of knowing things no one will ever know, things that kill, that live, that thrive in the darkness, past the black mold and deadly poisons. Once those things have become more known than wrangled, more simply seen than glared upon, much more accepted because they are not in my garden and I can’t do anything more.
One day when the ripples have exceeded the shore and headed back in, but they are too weak to rock my boat and I realize I won’t actually fall in the water or out of the boat.
One day when the tightness of my muscles is because of strength and not a result of holding tight-too much of the day and night, from hoping I won’t fall into the abyss, from thinking if I clench tight enough, I might be ready to save myself the next time he rips through me.
One day when the love I have been afraid to feel, the happiness I was afraid to wear, the joy I was afraid to let bloom, is able to open, even for small moments at first, it won’t feel like the circus, like winning the lottery, like springtime or fireworks.
One day, today, it felt uncomfortable, like rising from a grave in bandages, like peeling one strand of graveclothes from my head. It felt weird, like the needle that doesn’t hurt, but you can still feel beneath the skin when they draw blood. It felt as if I were walking for the first time, all stumbly and awkward and I still knew exactly what I wanted it to feel like. And I wanted to feel SO very different from what it was. It felt so very odd and quirky and almost sad. I almost pitied myself the joy I felt. It was almost as if it wasn’t mine! It was as if I should quit the awkward march on the catwalk because my feet were still bound.
But I’ve done the work. I knew what it was. It was the walk I had to take, even if I crawled half the way, bandages falling from my healed wounds, tears falling from my eyes, actual self-esteem falling from my mind’s eye.
If I quit walking, well, I would never walk. If I didn’t feel stupid, I would never feel great. If I didn’t feel so very far behind, I would never be ahead. If I didn’t say who I am, call it out, and love its essence fully. If I didn’t allow myself to be seen for who I am, to open up, to cry when it feels like no one does that in this situation… well, I wouldn’t be able to ever walk in heels, with the music playing, sashaying in beat with the exuberance I have always fucking had.
One day, today, I found myself in a place I have worked so hard to get to. And it felt like shit. And I am fully fucking ok with it. And next time, it won’t feel as weird. And the time after, it will feel less weird.
One day, not today, I will walk differently through love and acceptance and joy without thinking, without pausing, without remembering. It wasn’t today, but today I walked or crawled and took the death of trauma with me. And we shone like the sun. To me. I showed signs of all that fucking healing.
And if any word on this page feels real or full or like the place you’re living, well, you and I, my dear… We’re moving on.
Today, one day, this day, we are moving on. Not the whole race, not the final lap, not the ending, not the panacea, just the next fucking step, the catwalk, the first show of incredibly ferocious fragility, the roar of self-esteem and awkward reality and, my love, here’s the thing.
We are definitely not at the beginning.
Fuck Trauma.
Elegantly,
Christine Corbridge
Martinimediations.com