The weather was a little tricky. It finally stopped raining and now the sun was trying to peek through the clouds again. Good thing I thought, as I put the plates one by one in the kitchen sink, that way the kids can go out and blow off some of that energy I laughed to myself.
One by one, they ran back out and grabbed their skates. Jordan grabbed the basketball, and the two young ones grabbed the hula hoops. Breakfast seemed to have flown by as they laughed, making jokes about each other, and letting me in on what was going on in school. Jordan had wanted to be the main comedian at the table and Amanda wanted to beat him at winning that spot. She tried with everything in her to win it, but it soon became very draining as the joking became arguments.
As I walked over to the screen door holding the dishrag, wiping the plates off I looked out watching my kids play. How exuberant they were about life, which brought a smile to my face. I heard my trinity laughing as she ran after her sister, with her braids flapping the side of her face as she quickly flicked them to see where she was heading, as Amanda hopped on the bike and took off, leaving her behind. Oh, how pure and innocent she is, I thought as she ran faster down the sidewalk.
“Trinity, be careful,” I called out after her as she laughed even more, with one hand holding her hair and the other waving in the air, pleading for Amanda to stop.
I saw Amanda ride up and down the street, laughing as she was trying to ride as fast as she could from her sister with the cutest smirk on her face. I gazed down the sidewalk to glance at Jordan playing basketball. Oh, how he could dribble and do the most amazing turns. He was always trying to teach me some kind of trick he came up with. I would just laugh as I tried to imitate the move but came nowhere close.
Christina walked back toward me slowly as she noticed the smile on my face. She was the girlie-girl type, who rarely wanted to do anything that involved outside. I just knew she wasn’t going to do too much playing. When I would say, “Go play outside,” her idea was sitting on the porch with her cell phone.
Looking at this scene from my lenses now, I knew that I couldn’t have done this healing, to have this peace and joy that I keep within, by myself. I knew this had to be done by a higher power. It had to be someone looking over me. At times, I should have died from overdosing or been killed when that bullet was shot at my head, but I am still here. That in itself made me smile a bit harder. I was at peace with what I had been through. I understood the foundation for my life had to be formed in order for me to stand here today.
I have learned life is like playing with building blocks. I can’t put one on top of the other without making sure the foundation of the previous block is firm and sturdy enough to hold the next block. If I couldn’t follow that one instruction in life, I would have continued to think that I was building and going somewhere, instead I would be burning my energy by collecting blocks that are falling just as quickly as I have placed them, wondering why I continued to feel like I keep going in circles in life, feeling as if I have been here before or have done this before. I would have been burning my energy out on collecting blocks when I have not mastered where I was. One thing is for sure, when my foundation is right, God will build on it. I don’t have to go looking for blocks, because the blocks come to me. I found out that I did not have to go looking for a man, I didn’t have to go run after money, and so on. I had to learn to work on my foundation and those things came to me in due time and in the right season!
The higher I started to build, the more pressure was on what’s already been planted, so I had to make sure the foundation was strong enough to handle what I was trying to place upon it. I could have never obtained peace without understanding my roots. I had to check my foundation; because something was off. It was not strong enough or capable to handle what I was trying to put on it.
So how did I get over being a single mother, raising kids with no education, being a high school dropout, father issues, molested, could have died twice, drug addiction, drinking issues, being homeless, and so on? How did I strip away the past and walk in the newness of who I really am? I would be asked so many times from women I encountered.
I had to go back to the origin—back to the issues that began, the domino effect, the issues and the people I had replaced God for, as my foundation, where it all began! To go back to my origin, I had to be willing to touch the wounds that were still bleeding. That was the problem for me. I didn’t want to deal with the past, I was afraid to touch what was causing the problems. All the while, I was avoiding my own healing, rather than going in for surgery to fix the issue. I settled for putting a bandage on it to keep it from leaking out, to hide the issues, hide the pain, and hide the tears from the public eye. So year after year I consumed my time with bandaging my wounds.
Some women may need to take time alone to meditate, take a vacation, or even seek therapy. I had to muster up alone time to digest that I needed healing. I had to go back in and deal with some open wounds, wounds that hurt, wounds that caused me to become envious, angry and bitter. Wounds that allowed me to stop living. In that alone-time, I had to take the time to deal with whatever needed to be dealt with.
I had to know that the thoughts of the past will arise, but my mindset toward what has happened to me will shift, and what used to hurt me won’t hurt me any longer—what used to make me angry won’t make me angry. I soon began to peel off the old man so the new me can shine forth. I have a stillness and peace that the joy I have gained can’t be tainted by situations from the past. The love that I have can’t be swayed by what has happened to me or will happen to me.
My attitude about life reflects how I see life now. That’s why it was very important to deal with this part, my foundation. I had low self-esteem for the longest time that sprang from father issues and being molested, men I let in and out of my life, and so on. I always felt I wasn’t light enough, my hair wasn’t straight enough, and my eyes weren’t blue enough.
Those emotions didn’t just appear out of nowhere. I didn’t one day just look in the mirror and not like the body I was in. I had to realize that the mirror was not the root of my issues. All those emotions sprang from deeper-rooted issues that was attached to psychological programming to hate myself, based on my skin color, hair texture and the shape of my body. The mixture of the dysfunctional thinking caused me to react that way, to deny the beauty inside of me. I had to dig inside and see why I disliked the very thing that distinguishes me from everyone else—the texture of my hair, the bronze in my skin, the fullness in my lips, and my voluptuous hips. I smile now as I dance around in the mirror, swaying from one side to the next, moving my hips back and forth. Going back to my foundation at that time, I learned to fall back in love with myself, by myself all over again.
There was a void in my life because a deposit I needed for my overall growth into a functional adult was neglected to be filled. I was deprived of significant impartations that I had to deal with later in my adulthood. Many women like me understand what it is like to fill voids with people and habits that rob you of who you are.
I didn’t let my past kill my promise, but instead let my past illuminate my promise. I didn’t understand it then. I thought my life was a plain old train wreck that I had to continuously have to wake up and live again. I didn’t understand that the tears I shed would help other women. I didn’t know being molested would help set another woman free. I didn’t know having a child when I was still a child would help another young girl. All I could see was my right now, but I pushed through and let my promise prevail. I couldn’t allow myself to keep stopping and starting things in life when I thought about my father issues. I couldn’t continue to keep getting angry at the world or toward the men who entered my life, making them pay for what my father did or what being raped did to me, telling myself all men were the same.
By going back to the foundation, I had to tackle the deep rooted issues and learn to reprogram my mind. Instead of dying in my mess, I used
my mess to bless other women and young ladies. I found out that there is nothing new under the sun. Just like I didn’t have a father, someone else on the planet doesn’t as well. I was not the only one who was molested, was pregnant at seventeen, had dropped out of school, and was beat on and beaten up by life. Someone else went through the same things or is going through the same situations. Someone else cried because their father wasn’t there. Someone else is still a single mother and needs to know how to make it, to stay strong when sometimes staying strong feel like it’s not an option. Some woman somewhere need to know how I got over drugs, when for a moment drugs were my life. I have come to find out that life is not just about me—God is too clever for that, and my mess will bless someone else.
I had to ask myself how could I move forward if I stayed fixated on the past. As much as the cartoons portray a man who has eyes in the front and the back, I know that is not reality. There is no way I could look toward my future and stay glued to my past at the same time. I could no longer allow what happened to me be the reason to stay where I was. I couldn’t continue to throw myself a pity party whenever I wanted to by basing it on how I felt that day. I couldn’t let my issues rule and reign in my life. I had to get to a point where I said, this is it. It happened; now what. I will keep hitting the stop sign, wondering why I can’t go any further than my mind is willing to take me, if I kept allowing myself to stay fixated on the past. I had to let what needed to be healed get healed!
When I revisited those wounds, it wasn’t to relive what happened but to do surgery on it, to let healing take over. And the first thing I had to do was to forgive.
T. D. Jakes said, “Being unforgiving is like a cancer that keeps eating away at you, killing you from the inside out.” And that is exactly what happened to me. I was killing myself, allowing what I had no control over take me out, assassinating my future. Forgiveness was not for danny, It was for me. I never understood that until I wanted change more than I wanted to breathe.
I remember when I had to forgive danny, just to think of that man made me angry, as well as all the issues that sprang from that horrific night—self-esteem issues, being afraid to be around other children, which later developed into social issues. The list goes on and on. I could no longer hover over what happened. I had to accept the fact that it happened, and that it was up to me to move on from that tragic situation. I’m not saying I don’t have flare-ups, but I learned to recognize them and deal with them accordingly.
When I hovered over those issues, unforgiveness took place, and then I soon became the issue. People can smell the issue a mile away. They can see it on my face, can sense it in my smile—the smile I tried to force—and see it in my walk. I cannot allow room for unforgiveness to fester in my mind and roam around, playing with my emotions, up one day and down the next. One week I think I can make it, and the next week I’m hopeless, with no vision.
I had to will myself. Yes, it hurt and yes, I may have even cried, but when I understood the blueprint (the will), I knew without a shadow of a doubt that everything is working out for my good. God knew that it would hurt me, God knew that I was going to cry, but contrary saw the millions of women who needed my message. If I didn’t get a grip on it, I would have continued to allow my past to interfere with my daily activities.
I could no longer live with hate toward a man who didn’t even know me, who hadn’t read me one bedtime story, who hadn’t told me one “I love you,” a man who didn’t send one birthday card. What was my anger going to do for him? I realized, I had to take control of what was trying to take control of me, and I could no longer allow it to take over any longer.
Year after year, I tried to heal from the outside in. I took on many jobs so that I would be too busy to think about my issues. If I bought myself this and that, I would be able to look in the mirror and love myself. If I dressed like this and dressed like that, I would be okay. Men would see me for one thing, and I wouldn’t have to worry about my issues.
The more I tried to heal from the outside in the more I found myself in debt, trying to compensate for what I needed on the inside. I tried to buy the finest clothes, wear the nicest shoes, and have the best house on the block, not because I could afford it but because I was trying to find healing in material things and seasonal people. So I went through life patching up my past with clothes, cars, jewelry, and so on. I didn’t have much growing up, so I felt every dollar that came into my hands had to be spent on what I lacked as a child. The debt in my bank accounts was the fruit of the underlying issues in my life.
I had to go to the Originator, the Beginner of Beginnings. I couldn’t do this on my own. I needed a higher being. I needed someone who knew me inside and out—the Creator of the creations. I had to reach a point where I had to deal with what needed to be dealt with, and that was me.
Chapter 8
Getting out of the car that day after leaving the hospital, I dreaded going in and hearing my mother say over and over how wrong what I’d done was. As she opened the house door, I looked in, as if questioning if I wanted to enter. Taking a deep breath, I slowly walked in, eased my way to the couch, and sat down, looking blankly at the television show that my mother had clicked on as she entered the living room.
“So what is your next step, Dana?” My mother called out from the kitchen, where I heard her preparing lunch, slamming pots and pans on the stove to organize everything she was going to use. “Hmm, where is my skillet?” she said to herself and then yelled, “Dana! did you hear me?” over the racket in the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” I replied calmly, thinking I was just trying to get over the fact that I could have been dead and wasn’t quite in the mood to be asked about future plans yet. I was trying to wrap my mind around what I was going to tell my boss about what had happened, hoping she wouldn’t use this as a reason to fire me, knowing I needed the money. Christian was not helping and from what it looked like, he had no plans of helping.
I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.
“Hello,” my mother answered. I could hear the normal chatting between her and the caller until she blurted out, “Yes, Dana is here.”
Now who can this be? I wondered. I was not in the mood to talk to anyone and certainly didn’t expect to.
“Dana!” My mother yelled over my silent thoughts.
“Yes.” I answered, my tone letting her know I was not up to talking.
“Dana, the telephone. Do you feel like talking?” she screamed out.
I didn’t know if that was a joke or if she had really just blurted that out on the phone. Even if I didn’t feel like talking, she made it obvious that I need to get up and come to the phone whether I wanted to or not. I realized it was no longer an option as I got off the couch and tarried into the kitchen.
As I walked to the phone, I could see that my mother didn’t look like a happy camper. I gently took the phone from her hand with my eyes still on her face, contemplating the hello on the other end.
“Hey, Dana.”
It was Christian, which explained the look my mother had given me as she held out the phone.
“Yes,” I replied.
“How are you doing?”
I rolled my eyes and placed my hand on my hips, thinking I could no longer do this and this conversation was going nowhere. I softly told him, “Don’t call me anymore if it doesn’t have anything to do with the kids, I can no longer go through the ups and downs with you Christan. You have let me down time and time again but this is the last. I hope you have a good life, but please don’t call me unless it’s about the kids I repeated.”
He paused for a while.
Too agitated to listen to anything else he had to say, I hung up while he was stuttering, trying to come up with an explanation of why he had not been around. Shaking my head at the nerve of him to call me after his on and off pop ups he made, I turned and walked back to the couch. Feeling my mother’
s eyes glued on me, I smiled inside, feeling lighter, as if a weight had been taken off.
Now that I have done that, I can really move on, I thought. I had never said that to him before because I didn’t want him to leave me alone. I didn’t want him to stop calling me. I didn’t want him to stop caring, even if he truly didn’t. I didn’t want him to stop pretending to show that he cared.
I wrapped myself up in the throw blanket my mother had sitting next to and dozed off, smelling the chicken and cornbread mother had cooking in the kitchen.
As I sat watching Christina smile at me while she twirled her hair back and forth, trying to fix the curls that managed to frizz up. I remembered how good that moment felt when I began to deal with my deep rooted issues, which then allowed me to remove the fruit of my issues out of my life. Christian was considered a fruit of my deep rooted issues. I had decided to choose peace over chaos, choose to live for me and not for my issues, choose to no longer allow people and issues drive my life.
I giggle when I think about how me and a million other women have so much going on that they forget to comb their hair or shave. It even gets as bad as forgetting to brush their teeth as they run out the door, hanging on to keys, lunches, purses, and kids who seem they can’t manage to walk on their own. They have so much going on around them that they don’t have the time to deal with the surface things, I would call it. I had to get to the point of understanding that dealing with myself is not only about appearance or the “surface things,” but it also requires dealing with the inner me. and the wounds I covered up by keeping busy, working day in and day out, the tears I held back when cooking dinner, the late night tossing and turning over issues I never took the time to deal with.
I use to think that I was doing good because I had those outer things in order. The kids are eating, the house is clean, hair and nails done, and so on. Yes, all those things are great to have in order, but what good does it do if the inner me is not ok? Dealing with “me” requires a daily check-In, and also a checkup. The check-in is the outer work, and the checkup is the inner work. That’s what I did when I finally told Christian that it could no longer go on. I had done a checkup on myself and found that he was a hindrance to my overall growth and happiness.
The Product of a Broken Heart Page 8
