Reflections, The Night Before

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

The Night Before….

Surely this must be a dream from which I will awake, and feel the warm reassuring breath of the man I love next to me.  I will watch as the moonlight illuminates his chest moving quietly up and down, and reflect on the sweetness of his kiss, the heat of his skin on my finger tips.  Solid, unwavering, steadfast.

Surely this dream cannot be the life I have known, have accepted, have lived years suspended between passion and pain, holding on to only fleeting moments as proof love exists; a life lived as someone else while emotion lay buried beneath layers of secrecy, protected from the harshness and uncertainty of a barren landscape.  Surely I am not she who hides in the dream… frightened, frozen, tentative; watching, waiting.  I do not want to know her pleading, resignation, hopelessness.

Surely whatever darkness I dream is far away and cannot hurt me.  I will awake to hear the crickets in the cool fall air and be comforted by familiar surroundings.  He will stir and draw me close, gathering me securely in his arms.  We will slumber, entwined, peacefully.

Surely the morning light would reveal what is true and good.

03ct09
© Copyright 2009 LdJohnson  All Rights Reserved

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Dreams

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Lisette d. Johnson

     Sleep is difficult. It is not the sleep itself, it is the dreams, and waking.  I try to stay awake until I am so exhausted I drop immediately into what I hope will be a dreamless sleep.  Some nights I am just too tired and fall asleep early. Ten or eleven. Those are the worst nights.

     There are nights I awaken to absolute quiet, and darkness. I am disoriented and I believe, as I did when I first awoke in a very dark room at MCV, that I am dead.  Following surgery, as I came out of the anethesia, it was only after I felt a hand squeeze mine that I realized I was not dead.  Now when I awaken to the same darkness, I try to remember the intensity of that touch. I breathe.  I go to check on the children.  I thank God we are alive.

      There are nightmares. I awaken screaming.  He is standing next to me, or over me, with the gun to my head. They are so real I can touch him. Other nights I awaken, and the final scene replays in my mind. I see him at the end of the bed. The look in his eyes. The apparent sudden realization evident that he had everything and he squandered it; a sudden final pain that I would no longer be part of his life which proved unbearable to him. The quietness of the night magnifies his presence. It is unsettling, though I have grown used to him being here and simply choose to ignore him until he leaves.

      But tonight, tonight was the most brutal of dreams.  At once both beautiful and painful, the dream he is alive. As always, I am elated to see him, running to him, excited and smiling. I feel the excitement and love I felt when I would see him, then the disappointment of his anger with me, whatever I had done (I did not know) that displeased him, and then the inescapable feeling of desperation, of hopelessness.  The reality of what our relationship was. Feeling the life drain from me. At some point I realize he is dead and I am both relieved and overwhelmed with sadness. Relieved to not have those constant feelings of conflict, of living in fear, fearful of living.  Saddened he could not love me fully, could not let me love him; and the pain of the acceptance it would never change. I awaken crying.

       Sometimes during these last hours of darkness I dream warm arms enfold me. My nighttime fears are not gone, but I am comforted, no longer alone to wrestle them.  I am reassured I will see the first light of day, a rhythm uninterruptable even by the darkness within me; it will begin soon.  I know the darkness will end.  I wait.

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2010 by Lisette d. Johnson

It is Christmas Eve. I am sitting in church, early as the children prepare as acolytes for the midnight service. I await friends I’ve asked to join me as I write on my blackberry. 

I am always in awe by the architecture of our church, by the stained glass above the altar that inspires me every time I take communion, by a choir of amazing voices accompanied by a skilled organist. Tonight, however, it is the simple experience of the peace of being here that leaves me in awe.

I have received the gift of knowing how it feels to just ‘be’ this Christmas. To realize I am free. To know I do not have to answer for my faith in my own home, defend those with whom I worship, choose between a person and God, to make excuses (lies) to other people when I no-showed rather than participate in another power struggle (argument).

I have opened the gift of being joyful, and it gives me great pleasure to share it. The gift of being truly loved for who I am, not who I am expected to be as an ever changing and unachievable standard. The gift of happiness.

 So here I am. Me and my blackberry and my friends and my God in my church with my children and my church family. Thanking God for more than the gift of Christ’s light in the world. Thanking God for peace. Thanking God for the chance to finally understand what it means, to know it, to be in it.  Amen.  Merry Christmas.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The Farm

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Lisette d. Johnson

After Thanksgiving, I went to the farm.  It was a cold, but sunny day.  It was where it began. Long before we were involved he took me there.  I envisioned my visit with trepidation, but felt an almost obsessive need to go there.  To come face to face with whatever demons in my mind were there.  Hoping for closure.

 I went to the house, now abandoned, and walked on down to the river.  It was a long walk. Instead of feeling fear there though, I experienced some peace; serenity. I’d been thinking about how impossible it seems some days. I had hesitated to go because that was so scary to me. I feared I would collapse under the weight of it all.

 It was a turning point. It isn’t going to be automatic. I’ve got to make a conscious decision every day to choose happiness, to get out of bed, and do the next thing until it becomes second nature.  My children, my family, my friends who love me all deserve more than a selfish act where someone else has to pick up the pieces. They deserve more, and I deserve more than the weight of someone else’s pain and selfishness. I deserve love and happiness and honesty and kindness, and to finally be able to trust.  Until they are mine I will have to keep making the choice consciously,  every day.

Some people may think I’m wallowing in it, feeding on it; some may not understand how I can get out of bed every morning with the pain.  Some people think I should be over it, move past it, put it behind me.  Some people understand the enormity of it.  Some people will think its a lie, others know what they saw.  Some will attempt to discredit me, others will support me.  Some people will hate me for sharing it, some will love me for it.  Some will lift me up in prayer and encouragement, others will want to silence me.

It is of no concern of mine.  I am the only one who knows the breadth and depth of what happened.  I stand alone with the truth every minute of every day. I look in the mirror; I see what was left and I am the one trying to rebuild a life out of the wreckage.  Emerging from years of hatred for who I am, hatred that culminated in a final act so senseless.

 I am still frightened, still frozen, still hiding, still waiting; but trying. In small steps, trying to walk. Some steps are misplaced. Many steps.  And I will likely stumble along for a while. But I am walking it.

‘He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy’.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Who, me?

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Lisette d. Johnson

Part 2

I felt like a total idiot on so many levels.  I couldn’t come to grips with the aha moment of the lie of my life.   I was so embarrassed by this revelation that I…… changed therapists!!!  Yes, I chose another therapist who I imagined was going to tell me what was wrong with me and therefore fix my relationship.  Because surely it was me who was causing my husband to behave the way he did towards me. He didn’t behave that way towards other adults (although he did to our children but we’re throat deep in denial here) so it must have been something in me that caused it.

I knew to ferret out what was wrong with me was going to take some time and serious expertise, so I chose a therapy partner who was a psychiatrist because surely a mere masters level licensed counselor was not equipped to diagnose and treat someone with my level of craziness !!

I tasked my psychiatrist with waving his magic wand and curing me.  He tasked me with doing the work while he coached. I tasked him with coming up with my beyond help diagnosis, insisting he surely had enough information to tell me there was something seriously wrong with me. He continued patiently to guide the process of uncovering, layer by layer. Very dense layers.

Part of that heavy lifting off of those layers has included trying to understand why I hung in with a man who was not only not satisfying my needs, he was continually breaking down my ability to take care of them myself.

Another come to Jesus moment has occurred, also embarrassing, certainly worthy of stuffing  in the closet, shutting the closet door and throwing away the key.  I was getting something out of my relationship!  I had a roof over my head, food on the table, a father  and home for my children; albeit a fair weather father and not much peace in that home.  But everyone can understand the security in those basic needs. Emotionally, however, I was also getting something; what I thought I deserved.  I wanted him, wanted the relationship and he was clear to tell me all the sacrifices he made to be with me.  I felt like he made all those sacrifices and I got what I wanted.  As the saying goes – I made my bed, I had to lay in it.

Guess what other revelation I’ve since had ?  You can sell the bed. You can burn the bed.  You can buy a new bed. Most importantly, YOU DON’T HAVE TO LAY IN THAT BED !!!!  EVER ! You are the person keeping yourself in that bed !

So, ladies, let the closet door of your life fling wide open, stand in front of the crowd buck naked and start walking.  Once you start it’s okay to look back.  Just don’t go back.

“She wasn’t where she had been. She wasn’t where she was going… but she was on her way.”

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments