There is a Light that Shines

Last week at school pick up, an older black, Caribbean woman came to me and put her arm around my waist and asked me to walk in with her.  She was always kind with a sweet smile, so I gladly gripped my arm around her and walked with her.  She said to me, "You have such a wonderful spirit.  Coming from you is such a radiant light and it makes everyone around you feel so warm and welcomed."  I thanked her rather sheepishly, trying to duck her, so uncomfortable am I with any kind of praise or compliment.  She held me closer and said, "No really."  I brushed her hand gently and told her to have a wonderful weekend as I ran off to collect Lily. 

This morning, an older woman from Morocco who speaks only "hello and goodbye"English met me at the car as I was unloading Lily and scrambling with her sister.  She said to me, "For you." and gave me a package with yummy cinnamon crepe-type pancakes.  She smiled and pressed them into my hands and then spoke to me in an Arabic language that I was sadly unable to understand.  We both smiled at each other and I hugged her and thanked her, smiling and bowing to her as I strapped Virginie in her stroller to go meet Lily before the bell rang.

I write this not to tell the world how special I am.  I believe that anyone who really knows me understands that I have not gotten there yet.  I share these stories because I have realized that I have made wonderful, beautiful friends in women who also do not see their light, their strength, their value.  People are telling me that I am gold while I still feel like shit and these other women do too.  In fact, I know far too many incredible, talented, artistic, creative women, single, married, with children, and without who struggle every day with who they are, not only to other people, but to themselves.

In recent weeks, I have become close with a young woman who is beautiful, smart, generous, and who is raising two young boys.  Before the children, she had a job outside of the home, loved to travel, was curious about other cultures, thrived on new experiences.  She loved fashion and dancing, music, pop culture, all of which still get her excited.  From looking at her, you would not know what she endured to make it to this place in her life, a place where she still juggles her sense of worth.  Her husband who is quite generous of spirit and very loving is emotionally available and supportive, but there are times when her past fears, abuses, and hurts are triggered and she is sent reeling.  In those moments, she is brought back to a time, not just mentally, but physically (tremors, sweats, panic), when she was alone and abandoned.  In spite of all the good in her life at present, she recalls that time when she fought the fight for her life alone.

I call her my "Baby Doppelganger" because I think we have similar traits and in younger photos, we look alike.  I also call her this because I too have a dark life in the shadows of all that sunshine that threatens my rather shaky foundation.  I have built my family, my community on the me that radiates and loves.  The me that I was when I arrived on the planet, the true me.  But the blackness, the loneliness, the terrifying isolation that feeds on the underside seems to threaten.  The cruel voice in my head that tells me that I need to give more, that I am not enough, that I am lovable for what I have done for people, not who I am, that the abuses I suffered were somehow deserved forms a weak firmament.  As a young girl and teenager bleeding for some comfort, some compassion to ease my aches, I could not imagine that there were others who felt this miserably.  I would certainly never have gone to a girlfriend and shared.

Another friend, a talented professional, also raising two boys, practically glowed the first time I saw her.  She is a beauty but you would be foolish to tell her.  There is no chance she would ever believe you.  I ran into her today at the playground and she was clearly in pain.  Her life was changing fast and she felt herself a failure.  Holding up the facade for so long, trying to outrun a difficult, painful childhood had caught up to her and everything she thought she knew about herself was called into question.  She felt like she was starting over and in some ways she will be.  That is actually a gift and in the long run I think she will see that.  My heart aches for this kindred spirit and I know that it must be nearly impossible for her to envision a positive outcome.

Ignored and insulted little girls become women who must navigate the world without the proper tools.  In a patriarchal, chauvinistic culture, they have already been short changed and ill prepared for all that will befall them.  They will become lovers, girlfriends, wives, and mothers who never stop to speak for themselves, who work tirelessly to make others happy, who serve endlessly, and some of us will smile through it while others will cower and hiss, lash out before they can be hurt.  When you add some sort of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse to their development and then as a society ask them not to speak about it, not to acknowledge it, attach a full dose of shame to it, it becomes very hard to unlock the pure light and pleasure of being alive.

I feel lucky in that there has always been a voice that told me that I was more than the sum of those shit experiences.  I have always attributed this to God.  I have always felt that without a divine presence, without a sense that real, pure love was available for me, I should just give up (and I mean that in the darkest, coal black, desperate way).  There is healing in being able to give love to Lily and Virginie, but quite frankly, I still have so much work to do to heal my broken heart and spirit.  I am not sure my partnership can support this process as it was built on what I'd hoped I was and not on who I truly am.  So much unspoken, so much unforgiven, so much unacknowledged hurt and pain.  I will not pass that on to them directly but if I do not seek to speak the truth and let my own light shine, they just may very well learn from my cowering.  Easier said, than done.  First we must reach out to each other and acknowledge each other.  See and be the light.


(c) Copyright 2012.  Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.