Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds

Won’t you help to sing

These songs of freedom?

‘Cause all I ever have

Redemption songs

– “Redemption Song”, Bob Marley

A year ago, I was working on the final edit of my memoir. I was turning 50 a few months from them and had been feeling compelled towards this project. It felt like an appropriate time in my life to take this on, so I did.

I did not know, at then, that I was headed into a major realignment of my life. I did not know I was on the cusp of a severe depressive episode. I do wonder if I sensed these things somehow, because my memoir seemed to form itself around the pivotal points in my life and the depressive episodes that often followed them.

I would write a different memoir for myself, now. Some people that got quite a bit of space in my memoir last year have shrunken down in significance. I would now focus more on the periods of growth that followed the depressive episodes than the episodes themselves. I have traveled that distance in one years’ time. Far enough to see my life differently.

I have been reading the works of Stephen King since, well – since I was too young to be reading Stephen King. When the topic of favorite authors comes up, people often shake their heads at this and say – not for me. He is a writer of horror. Accurate. His books center around evil incarnate. A person, a car, a hotel. Some person or object that has gathered the evil of the world then picks a fight. The opposition side is usually a much smaller and insignificant force of good. A single person or group of people called into battle against evil. In each case, good does win – but always at great cost and sacrifice. It is never like a final scene from a movie where everything goes exactly right in perfect timing. There is a great price to be paid in this. The hero – an ordinary person who realizes they are outmatched, practically no chance of defeating evil – but happens to be the only one who can. They need to at least try.

It is not banished easily, the toxicity of life. We do not wake one day deciding to be the person we wish to be. If this were possible, the world would be full of healthy, functioning people. You can’t wish it to happen. You can’t purchase it. There is no pill you can take. You cannot meet someone who will fix you. You can’t baptize it away. All of these things can inspire you to change – but peace comes only to those willing to pay the price for it. You might not have realized, at the time you undertook it, how high that price could be. There is a realization that you are outmatched, but need to try anyway. You’re the only one who can.

Achieving peace is a task that can never be fully completed. Life is changing constantly around us. The moment we feel we have everything managed; a new variable will appear. I cannot claim to be a woman who has figured myself out. I cannot to claim to never feel the short knife of past hurt in my heart, or that these never catch me unaware. I cannot claim that I never feel discouraged or feel I am failing at something I thought I could do. I cannot claim these things, nor will anyone else. The ground is constantly shifting beneath our feet.

We are all adrift in the ocean of life. At times, we are in the same storm, but we are never in the same boat. One year ago, I was unable to appreciate the time and energy I constantly spent bailing water from the bottom of my boat. It was always rising, through so many leaks and holes. Rising at such a rate that bailing took up most of my time. I was unable to consider where my boat was headed, much less have a destination in mind. I was tasked only with the effort of trying not to sink.

This boat had been swamped in maintaing a perception of myself that wasn’t quite true. Of worrying what another people were saying and thinking about me. The steady leaks of you are not worthy, you are not good enough, your best efforts are not enough, you are chosen to suffer you are marked for pain, you have failed at everything caused the water to rise around my feet.

I always had a desire to fix these things within myself, don’t we all? It wasn’t my lack of desire that held me in place, though. It was the sheer weight of it. It took already more energy than I had to spare to manage these beliefs in addition to the bare minimums of my life.

The healing has seemed, at times, unbearably slow. My therapist and I worked on a single traumatic memory for six weeks. It took all that time to process it down from a fatal injury to a rug burn. One of my dear friends healed herself from a similar situation. Hers was ending just as mine began. I remember her telling me that, at the time, she felt like she was not making any progress. That all her efforts, in the depth of it, did not seem to transfer into progress. Afterwards, in the hindsight, she was able to appreciate her effort more. She was able to see they did, eventually, provide her the traction she needed to work her way out.

I see the same in my own life. I remember how futile my efforts felt. As insignificant as a feather against the weight of my suffering. In the ‘after’ I think – how brave you were. How strong. You got up day after day on too little sleep. You put your gym clothes on and went to exercise. You wrote down a simple goal each day so you could feel good crossing it off later. You kept going to therapy even though if felt like it was insignificant too. You got yourself up off of couches and floors, hoping the next day would be better. When it wasn’t, you didn’t give up. You tried again. I am amazed at my strength.

Peace cost me the large amount of energy I spent trying to please the unpleasable and trying to earn love from others. It cost me my lifelong destructive coping mechanisms. It doesn’t mak sense, the way we cling to these things with the belief they are the only thing getting us through. A year ago I was unable to determine what it was I even needed. I am now able to say – I need rest, I need to cry, I need to exercise, I need to do some deep breathing, I need to turn my phone/tv off, I need to be alone, I need to go and do something.

Throughout my life, I have looked to others to validate my worth. I have needed to be told that I was doing a good job, that I was beautiful, that I had lost weight, that I was strong or even that I was a good person. When these validations weren’t offered, instead of asking myself if I was being devalued, I questioned if these things were event true. I would increase my efforts to gain what I so desperately wanted, then felt resentment when my efforts still seemed to make no difference. My peace cost me situations and people that I had invested years in. Even though I was better for it, these were painful choices to make.

Here’s what I gained, though. Myself. I have had a lot of crazy things happen to me, but I have never been truly alone. There are those I am very close to, those I care for, those who care for me. I have come to the realization, though, that as long as I have myself, I will always be ok. My best friend is actually me. The person I love to spend time with is me. The person who tells me I can do it is me. The person who tells me I’m beautiful inside and out – this is me too! This the the peace I paid the price for. Knowing my worth and trusting myself above all to tell me the truth. It was worth all it cost me.

I have traveled a great distance in the past year. The change is evident in this blog. My posts from January (which is when I started this site) are raw, full of broken glass and jagged metal. They are full of seething anger and cold strength. Fourty years of swallowed anger coursed through my fingertips, filling these pages. Softer now, more philosophical, 100% more likely to stop and take in the beauty of a scene. More grateful for the love that is shown to me.

Redemption. A second chance be a better mother, a daughter and friend. A chance to do the things I have only talked about. A chance to have dreams again. A chance to be so much more ME than I have ever been. A chance at authenticity which I never gave myself before.

A second chance to be a better advocate for others, a chance to inspire, a chance to reach out to other women trying to heal. A chance to love harder, to be fearless when given a choice between my peace and other person. The chance to be more thoughtful in the ways I show love, no longer seeing it as earning anything.

A chance to see frienships in each opportunity. A chance to fall in love again, at 50, with a wonderful man. The fact that this wonderful man is already your husband making it all the sweeter. A chance to be creative and to practice random acts of kindness. A chance to reclaim the confidence I had as a 7 year old. To hold the hand of that little me who believed she could do anything.

Won’t you help me sing these songs of freedom? It’s all I’ve ever had. Redemption song.