Another day. Another parade of chores and choices I'll mistake for mine. Hours passed inside the Dawn suit bring fatigue from overuse of muscles both physical and cerebral, hunger for what's just out of reach, and laughter when I'm lucky. Mop the floor, make love, mourn the lost––a creature of habit, I embrace one instant, lean away from the next. But every now and then, glimpsed from a vantage point burned clear of fog, I no longer want to pick and choose. Every now and then, it's enough that each moment unfolds, fulfills its promise and flies into eternity.
1. I no longer ask why.
2. My retirement account is too small to worry about losing. 3. My husband is willing to use headphones while he watches television, when I want to go to bed at 8:30. 4. My husband doesn't make fun of me when I go to bed at 8:30. 5. I don't need willpower this week, because we polished off the apple pie last week. 6. Telemarketers haven't found my cell phone number yet. 7. I bought a replacement peace lily without feeling guilty about spending the money or killing the plant. 8. There's no way to speed up awakening and no way to slow it down. 9. Dad overruled Mama when they named me, so I became Dawn instead of Mabel Geraldine. First I suspected. Then questioned. Then listened. And learned the reason I could not remember my childhood was this: My father was violent. He abused his kids.
I went through the expected emotional, therapeutic and intellectual reactions. Came out the other end, calm. Except for this: I couldn't put the words Dad and abuse into the same sentence. And then surrender happened. I did not choose it. The floor caved in beneath my feet. I plummeted through shock, rage, grief, relief because finally there were answers, and then through grief again. And again. Presumed I'd surrendered right down to the sub-basement of acceptance, but a sink hole opened up. There's no hitting the bottom of surrender. There's only this: a space of irrational inexplicable affection. |
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