Annual Update: The Seven Year Switch

I was devastated, broken, sobbing on the floor, begging for my mama, and in between sobs, in a moment of silence I saw something.  Maybe I had drifted into sleep for a moment, but it seemed like I saw it before my waking eyes.  I saw a beautiful room decorated with garlands and bouquets and glowing lights.  There were lots of little round tables covered in white linen cloths.  Every chair was filled by a toddler, a little girl, a young lady, a young mother, all in white dresses of different sorts.  They were all old friends, even the very young, and they were chatting and waiting....they were waiting for me.  

I stood in the wings, watching them all for a moment.  Then all talking stopped and they all turned to look at me because they all were me.  They were me at every age and phase in life and they were waiting to hear how it all turned out.  It was time.  I crossed those long awful steps to the podium, every footfall echoing in the now silent room.  I looked at every face, hopeful, expectant; I opened my mouth to speak and the words stuck in my throat.  How could I tell them?  In the midst of all this pain and loss, how could I look at all their innocence and hopefulness and tell them that their dreams would burn and their hard work was fruitless?  

Frozen at the head of that room, tears forming, my throat closing tighter and tighter.  Just when I thought I would shatter to pieces, I felt a hand slide across my shoulders and draw me in for a firm squeeze.  I turned and as I turned I heard a voice say, "It's Ok.  You can sit down now."  She sounded like me, but not quite.  Her voice was surer and stronger, and so peaceful that it calmed me.  Just as I turned to look into her face the vision broke.  I was still lying on my cold cement floor, curled up in a ball, tears soaking my cheeks.  It wasn't much, just a moment, but it was enough to give me hope that there would be a time when I wouldn't cry every moment and there would be a life beyond my grief.

This year marks the seven year anniversary of it all.  Seven years; and I am still standing.  Seven years and it suddenly feels like someone has flipped the switch.  The other day something happened which would have had me running for the hills seven years ago, hiding from the fight, hiding from the confrontation.  Now, on the other side of all this hurt and loss, I faced it, I fought it, I won.  I faced it because even though I have lost some of the best parts of myself in this fire, I have also lost some of the worst.  Fire doesn't just burn things away; it purifies;  it refines.  I have lost my trust and innocence, but I have also lost the part of me that obsessively cares what other people think, the part that worries how I am perceived, the part that avoided confrontation and called it "keeping the peace," the part of me that feared losing anyone or anything.  I feared a lot of things actually.  I was a coward, actually.  

I have spent the past seven years hating this brokenness, bitterness, grief.  Then this new awful thing happened and I found that I had the strength to handle it because I was broken and made stronger in the healing.  I was burned up in the fire and refined as gold.  Don't get me wrong, if I had my choice, I would still not have chosen this path for myself.  But, I didn't get to choose.  And the fact is that warriors are not forged in times of peace, but in battle.  Strength doesn't come through a go-lightly life but from carrying a burden so heavy for so long.  I am not the person I was.  I am someone else.  Someone who values peace but isn't afraid to fight, someone who can love fully and let go freely.  Someone who can look back on her younger self, wrap my arms around her shoulders and truly say, "It's Ok.  You can sit down now."