posted
Well I leave tonight at midnight to drive back home. I'm nervous and scared.. mainly because I know that this will be the last time that I see Max. It's good but it's a bad feeling. I still love him, but yes, things will not work out. I just need some encouragement right now. It's a 12 hour drive, I work 3-10 tonight and won't get a nap in before my trip. You've been so helpful to me (and everyone else) throughout my hard times. Thank you. Please just give me some encouragement... please? Posts: 294 | From: Minneapolis | Registered: Jan 2002
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I presume that there is a point, once you reach Chicago, that you'll be driving on 94 through to Minnesota?
(I do ask these things for good reason, I promise. )
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63668 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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Ah, you're likely coming up 90 then: of course, that'd be faster from TN. Bummer. I was going to direct you to an inspiring place to take a short rest near Madison.
There goes that plan!
That one toast, it might help to recognize that this is the last stretch in a REALLY long journey, one that you'll soon be finished with. It's always a nice thing about road trips in that they can nicely symbolize a lot of things, and make everything feel a little more tangible.
You can do this: you already have done some of the hardest parts, and you're this close to there. (And when you get back in MN, if you want me to hook you up with a couple of women in the city who could offer you a break and some support now and then, please drop me an email and ask: I'd be glad to forge a connection or two for you, okay?)
I'm going to post something here that, if you have a means of printing, it might be nice to have printed out for yourself. If not, just keep it in your head. It's one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets, Marge Piercy: I've had a copy of this in some form pinned up somewhere everywhere I've lived for over 20 years now.
Let it be about you. And know we're thinking of you and rooting for you.
A strong woman is a woman who is straining. A strong woman is a woman standing on tiptoe and lifting a barbell while trying to sing Boris Godunov. A strong woman is a woman at work cleaning the cesspool of the ages, and while she shovels, she talks about how much she doesn’t mind crying, it opens the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up develops the stomach muscles, and she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.
A strong woman is a woman in whose head a voice is repeating, I told you so, ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch, ball buster, nobody will ever love you back, why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why aren’t you dead?
A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise a manhole cover with her head, she is trying to butt her way through a steel wall. Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong.
A strong woman is a woman bleeding inside. A strong woman is a woman making herself strong every morning while her teeth loosen and her back throbs. Every baby, a tooth, midwives used to say, and now every battle a scar. A strong woman is a mass of scar tissue that aches when it rains and wounds the bleed when you bump them and memories that get up in the night and pace in boots to and fro.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen or she turns blue choking. A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong in words, in action, in connection, in feeling, she is not strong as stone but as a wolf suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
What comforts her is others loving her equally for the strength and for the weakness from which it issues, lightning from a cloud. lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse. only water of connection remains, flowing through us. Strong is what we make each other. Until we are all strong together, a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63668 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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Well I made it up here safely, no accidents or getting pulled over (phew!!) and things are great except for today. We got our first snow! It's very cold and slushy... barely good enough to drive. The poem you posted was wonderful, really made me think.
Both sides of my family know about what he's been doing to me, and they have told me that he's not welcome to my dad's or grandma's Christmas dinners. I feel bad for him for not being able to participate.
Until next time, have a Merry Christmas Heather and a wonderful New Year.
Posts: 294 | From: Minneapolis | Registered: Jan 2002
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I'm so glad you got there okay, Ashley. And as I said, if you want me to hook you up with some good people in MN for support, just let me know: I'd be glad to.
I'm also glad to hear your family helping to keep him away from you. I understand you feel bad, but remember: he has chosen to do all of the things he has done to you, and -- when all's right with the world, anyway -- choices carry with them consequences. He chose those, too: if he didn't think he did, or didn't expect them, that's only because he expected to get away with his abuses. He's not the victim here or the one who needs protecting: you are.
I hope your holiday is wonderful for you: appreciate its freedom, however tough and long the transition to it has been.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63668 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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