Not Yet Out of the Woods

Apparently the "Road to Hell" is a great search phrase. I have more than 550 hits on a post I wrote that includes those words. I wonder if this is indicative of people's obsession with blame/guilt, or represents a sincere fearfulness of meeting a negative fate? It'll be interesting to figure out someday.

At the top of the blog, below the chicken photo, is a poll. There are five choices -- you can click one or more. Please take a minute to do the poll. I know a couple of dozen folks visit this blog every day. The poll is completely anonymous -- no one will know it's you, or what you chose associated with who you are. Please take it?

On another note, I am still processing this horrendously unpleasant marital dissolution. Every single time I believe I've reached a steady point, something happens that knocks my feet out from under me. It's getting almost comical. Surely I am doing something wrong - the Universe is teaching me a lesson. I just need to discern what that lesson is and grasp it.

All I know is, I am very tired of weeping. If someone had told me I contained this many tears, I would have ridiculed them. Hard. And I'm crying for me, not because of him. What do I cry for? I cry for the little girl inside of me who loved so much and trusted so innocently, and was betrayed. I cry out of anger and frustration because my defense mechanisms scream at me to shut down my heart and wall it off so it won't get hurt again, and I refuse to do that. I will NOT let his behavior change the inherent sweetness and goodness that is me, no matter how much it pains me to remain open. I will never again in my life permit another human being to change me into a frightened, distrusting, angry person.

 I cry for the little girl who was led deep, deep into a dark scary forest and abandoned. I cry because I am lonely. I cry because sometimes I wonder if there is something inherently wrong with me that makes me unlovable, because surely no one would hurt me the way he hurt me if I were lovable. Then I realize that is fallacious thinking. It doesn't even make sense -- but the thoughts do rear their ugly heads. I guess that's an issue from childhood, something I torture myself with out of insecurity -- a disconnect that is false and invalid. His behavior has little to do with me and everything to do with him. My value or lack thereof doesn't even enter the picture.

I know there is light outside this dark scary forest. I know somewhere out there, a bright sun is smiling on a world far from where I exist. I also know that I *will* find my way out of these woods. I have no way of knowing which side of the forest I"m going to end up on; I only know and have faith that there will come a time when I look around me and realize the trees have thinned out and there is the suggestion of a path to follow. And I hope and pray that somewhere along that path, I find another whose hand I can hold and continue this journey. Someone who will truly be the guardian of my heart. Someone whose heart I, too, can guard and keep safe.