Reclaiming My Self

I have been working lately to reclaim my sense of self, without quite realizing it. I've been moving heavy furniture without help whenever possible so I can clear out the things that had belonged to my husband & his family. I want everything out that isn't of me & my taste. I'm reclaiming my space. Moving the things on my own is important to me because I have a great need to be as self-reliant as possible, to do all I can without help. I believe that comes from all the years that I was told how I'm nothing without - - - - fill in the blanks. First it was my mother, to a small degree my first husband (that wasn't his fault though, it was unintentional on his part), then to a huge degree & quite on purpose it was the message of my second husband. Also, my beloved grandparents, who were both parents & grandparents to me, were very hard workers. They've passed on but I know they watch over me, & I want to make them proud. I want to make my children proud, make myself proud. One thing I'm proud of myself about is that I recognize things that are simply beyond me. Only for a second did I try to lift the very heavy TV, verified it was too heavy, & entirely gave up. I am so learning patience these days! But I'm also being clever about getting help. The guys who delivered my new mattress & box spring (I sold the king size Tempurpedic from the marriage) were kind enough to lift the TV for me & place it on a stand. They even moved a heavy dresser out from under it, which I actually could have done. When I sold the grandfather clock, the guy who bought it helped me move that & a lighter dresser out of my living room into a convenient place until it sells. So I haven't had to ask my neighbors for help yet.

I've had something to prove to myself as a result of the choices I made in 2000 - mid 2010, the years I spent with my ex. When we split I felt dirty & tainted, like an accomplice to his crimes. Although I wasn't, I made a series of choices that led to self-harm & I was again an enabler, which unwittingly opened the door for his crimes. That's a lot to face & live down. No one close to me blamed me except me, by the way, & they've all been supportive. Even, to his credit, my first ex husband! These days I proudly acknowledge the work I'm doing to reclaim my self, my life, my space. I'm proud of what I'm able to do to help others, either through Reiki or my knowledge of herbs, essential oils, cats, people, etc. I'm proud of all the healing & internal work I'm doing, the emotional & mental work. And I'm proud of the way I'm giving to myself. One of the things I'm doing is clearing & setting up my space room by room, including cleaning, & keeping it that way. I bought I nice bed set at a great price - a comforter to use as a bedspread & shams - & I'm making my bed every day (something I never considered important before). I've decided I'm worth it. I like not being distracted by a house that isn't clean. Before, I liked to keep things put away so I could find them again, & take care of them so they'd stay good, but never wanted to take up time with cleaning if I didn't have to.

I'm back to being excited about every little thing in my life. It makes me feel so good to walk in my bedroom & see my grandparent's bedroom set with my favorite things on it. I love seeing the bed especially, since my ex broke it & said we'd have to hire someone to fix it. I fixed it & put it together myself. It's handsomely covered with my new zebra striped set. It doesn't go with the rest of the room but it suits me. He was over sized & had to have more & bigger. I'm shrinking back to my undersized self & like small & cozy, so that's part of my reclamation. Today I actually drove home from Pittsburgh (1 hour, 45 minutes) with a student-sized cherry desk on top of my Honda Civic. It's gorgeous & the guy was selling it for very little! He loaded it on top of the car & strapped it down, but I got it off the top of my car all by myself & carried it in. Not bad for a little woman who's 55 & doesn't work out! I'm selling the 2 big office desk sets we got for a failed business. They're heavy, take up a lot of space, & have memories. I'll also get more for the desk set (just as I did for the bed) than I've had to pay for what I wanted in replacement. That makes me feel very clever. The cherry desk is just my style & with persistence I made it happen.  I'd tried buying it every time it appeared on Craigslist for 2 weeks, never got a reply. Finally I tried cutting & pasting the address directly into my email service rather than sending through Craigslist & got an immediate reply. Turns out he never got any of my other emails about wanting to buy it. I wanted it from the moment I saw the photo. It's one of the things I've been talking about with patience lessons these days. (I'm also learning better ways to work with Craigslist!) I'm not sure there's a message in this blog, as there usually is. I felt like writing it, so there's probably something for you here. So take what "speaks" to you & figure out why, what brings about an emotional response or causes you to think. Maybe you have some reclaiming to do, too.

I now have to acknowledge the 2 most powerful, beautiful, strong, independent, courageous women I know - Pam & myself. For all the support, love, & understanding given to us by our friends & family, only she & I know all we've faced & gone through. 12 months ago she & 10 months ago I stepped away from destructive men who would have eventually killed us one way or another (she just reminded me that I also saved the life of my mother). She'd become very ill from the energy drain & domination of her husband & in some ways, so had I. Despite that & our ages (I'm 55, she's a few years older) we've gone on to use our brains & some brawn, & have done many things we didn't feel capable of, had been told we couldn't do. Plus we've both chosen a spiritual path of giving to & healing others & ourselves. We've grown & changed so much over the past year! We've refused to stay stuck, to try to go back to old ways, to be defeated, to repeat old patterns & mistakes. We've done all the hard work of facing ourselves & how we got into those situations, & what we needed to do to change & move on. We're both in the process of reclaiming & rewriting our lives. No less to our credit, we've done it together. With all my heart I love you, Pam. I don't want to imagine what the journey would have been like without you. Folks, the truly funny thing about all this is, we've never even set eyes on each other! We live across the country from each other, "met" on Facebook through a game, have done all this just by phone, email, & IM. Now, I know I just "tooted" my own horn but honestly, after all the years of being put down by the authorities in my life, sometimes that's just plain necessary.