Make it...

....I almost didn't make it...this time, that time, the time before this and that time...it wasn't the slaps...it wasn't the head butts...it was not the strangling nor the punches, the dragging or pushing...no, it was, is, the insidious, ever-pervasive tension...you are taught, you see.

Taught with a quick outburst, quickly forgiven as a one-off...a two, three, four..6, 7, 8-off...

Explained away as surely as your own needs are tucked away in that very instant.

The first push to the ground after weeks and months of physical behaviours just skating under the 'too much' radar. The first head butt the follow-up to the balletic lift and thrust up against the wall but hardly romantic.

...I almost didn't make it....the threat of swift retaliation a weight of such proportions I catch a glance of my posture and stand in wonder at the straightness of my spine; expecting, believing it to be as it appears in my mind...bowed, bent, misshapen from the gross tonnage pressing, pressing down into the ground...

I promised to speak truth, to delve deep, to keep it raw and 'shoot from the hip,' as my big bro Bobby would say...I would speak truth with the hope that those who read would find help, a filament of hope, a way out...and for those who read who are not on that path, thank God, would understand it as just that...not a bid for sympathy, pity, attention, but to educate, to teach.

This life stuff, crap, garbage, sucks...it bites...big time. And it's messy, uncomfortable, awkward and difficult to talk of...truth be told I've been holding back, worrying over the wrong kind of thinking, not wishing to offend in any way. I contemplated these things on my way home from work this evening as I considered stopping for champagne to bring in the new year... to celebrate yet another year out and away from my own particularly personal version of hell. I contemplated answering one of the invites to spend New Years eve with friends...I leaned heavily to hearth and home and the peace, the comfort I had created there for myself.

I suppose this is my pre-new year conveyance and creed, my resolution to lead the life I've always wanted to, to do the things I love without fear, to write and create with my hands, to speak truth no matter how hard that might feel...

Life is meant to be GOOD...yes, it's meant to have downs to go with those ups but my dear friends, those trials and tribulations are not meant for always...

'And this too shall pass' has never been truer than these past months... I have come to see, to know, to believe with everything I have in the goodness of God, in the absolute high King of timing and planning and execution of events. I have seen supernatural protection...oh ye of little faith, you scoffers in the back row there...my pragmatic, realistic friends and family giving me the head tilt and eyebrow lift.

I would say to each one of you....'have you seen your own death before your eyes?' 'Have you shook hands with death, prepared yourself, said your goodbyes?'

I have it on good faith that many, many souls have been through much the same when faced with death, whether on the battle field or on the front lines, or in the midst of an abusive relationship...there is a moment, less than a split second when you sense the divine...when you KNOW with a certainty that defies all description that there is a God, a Creator...or Allah, Buddha...whoever you subscribe to...'the universe' or 'a creator.' It leads back to that divine presence dancing in your peripheral speaking love...speaking comfort in those last fluttering moments...

When you know these things, read these things, hear these things...it must change you...it must create a compassion for the lost, for the beaten, broken women (men too) walking, talking, living each day like the air is mud...each step a mile, each breath a marathon...

Be kind...be caring...

'But for the grace of God, there go I.'

Dear survivors...look...turn and look at the ground you've covered...take heart, take hope, it gets better, easier...the oxygen we breathe is just that, oxygen, not mud...the light is brighter, colours deeper...taste returns somewhere, somehow, oh how glorious. That laugh? Yeah, the first real one in months...not faked, real. Those little moments that warm the cold places still locked away...the love you see from your children, the love you receive from your grandbabies....life-giving moments that lure you away, then keep you away from the toxic, poisonous environment you escaped from.

You almost didn't make it...but here you are...walking, talking, living....loving, laughing, giving....

You made it....you. You made it out...and you're killing it, truly. Don't give up, don't give in to the voices that tell you different...that's not love, that's fifty shades of trials past, dark and grey and life-stealing. Listen to the kindness you need to hear...soak in the compassion you need to heal...gravitate to truth to keep you in the here and the now...worthy each one of us...

Walk now dear treasures...walk proud, stand tall in the knowledge of your worth...fearfully, wonderfully created. There is only one of you....live it.