An Aha! Moment

The list of titles was intriguing: “Channeling Grace” “Illuminating the Afterlife”“Meditations to Live to Be 100” (ug. Not sure I like that one so much. Who wants to be 100?) “The Power of Slow” (note to self: order that one.)

And then I saw this: “Fearless Love” by Gary Renard. In the description I read “Q: Fearless love seems reckless. How do you find the courage to love fearlessly?” “A: Remember what you really are: Immortal Spirit. This might appear reckless to those who identify solely with their body, because as a body there is much fear of damage and death. Immortal Spirit is free of fear and therefore free to be…fearless”

“Fearless love is not love the way the world commonly thinks of it. It’s an all-encompassing kind of love that is innocent and unflawed. It excludes no one and includes all.

A flash went through me and I realized that somewhere along the road I’d come to a new chapter in my life. I’m not completely sure where this chapter goes, or even when it started, but I know for sure that it’s new. And good.

For years I was able to recognize that I was terrified of love. Not so much of love itself, but of losing love. The typical “Fear of Abandonment” that I was able to name and understand. Afterall, I’d lost my mom when I was 16, my dad when I was 24, my oldest brother the year after that, along with my grandpa. I was pretty experienced at having love yanked out of my life. But I’d experienced that in more subtle ways, too.

My mom was an alcoholic. A lovely, tender saint of a person, who found her way to the big, green, gallon jug of wine every afternoon. By dinner time and after, she was pathetically licking her lips over and over and over, saying “I love you.” “I love you.” “You are a good girl.” “I believe it you.” “You have your head straight on your shoulders.” “I love you.”

It made me sick. Because really, if someone loved you so much, would they be hiding away under the ugly mask of alcohol every day? It took me years to figure out that the contrast in what I was hearing and what I was experiencing, was very confusing for a young girl. It took me a lot of discerning to figure out that her drinking was her problem, and not mine.

A year after she died, my dad remarried. While I was happy for him, the chaos of introducing another (crazy) family into our household was insanity for me. I had to put my real feelings on hold while I was forced to acclimate to a new life. A new family. We weren’t the Brady Bunch. It felt more like intrusion to me.

Our stepmother didn’t know us, and she didn’t understand us. We were a loud and boisterous clan of ten that worked as one. Although only two of us were at home, we still were a group, but only two of us were experiencing the ugliness of what was going on at home with the (unwanted) addition of a new family into our space.

Everyone outside was saying “Look how happy it all is!” “How wonderful!” … but inside that house happened things that were foreign to the way we had grown up. When we my brother and I had the courage to speak up we were told that we were bad. That we needed to be accepting of our new family and our new (crazy) stepmother. We were reminded that our father was happy again and that what we were being was unaccepting and judgemental.

There was nothing loving about any of that, to me.

It was no small wonder then, when a beautiful young man asked me out, treated me like a princess, introduced me to his solid family, and swept me off my feet, I was head over heals. I could escape the insanity at my own house and was accepted into his where I was introduced to worldly things. A beautiful house on the lake, an international famlly, cultural foods, new arts, and an affinity for the finer things in life. It was a fairytale come true.

We dated about a year before we were engaged, and although by that time most of my family and friends had seen through him and knew it would be shortlived (or hoped, at least) - I was enamored. So, I worked hard to forgive and forget each episode of infidelity I experienced. Afterall, he loved me sooooo much, and I loved him more than anything. A young girl’s folly.

Of course that too came crashing down on me eventually. And in the midst of all of that I, like my mother, learned that alcohol was an amazing mask for all things uncomfortable. So I lived that way for years…

Going through the motions.


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Ah, the cliffhanger.

I don’t have time to write more today. The real meat and potatoes of this story, like I wrote in the beginning, is my newfound realization. That deserves more attention than the few minutes I can take right now - but I’ll be back.

In memory of Paul Harvey, who passed away last week, I must recall still “the rest of the story…”