Salty Plums

I grew up in a very religious household. Several times each week my Mom would sit with me and my sisters and study the Bible. When we were very little, it would be more picture drawing and more stories about Jesus. As we got older the messages would be more adult.
Our Bible studies would include stories that included the messages like masturbation was wrong in God's eyes and that we should be ready for the day when God would bring about a new Earth, in the form of Armageddon.  They also included attending meetings three times a week, for hours. The fellowship was what I always enjoyed the most. I fit in and made friends; but gradually my rebellion, will and guiding forces that put those feelings into me pulled my mind in other directions. By the time I was twelve I told my Mom that I did not want to attend. It has and continues to be a goal of my Moms to encourage me to attend since this time when I was twelve to now.

When I was eleven I was molested. When I finally disclosed this to my Mother a year later I was told that it was a "dream," and sent out of the room while my parents discussed it with members of our religion. It took me until I was twenty years old to forgive my parents for this incident. It changed who I was at that time. I was a teenage girl who did not know how to change the way that I felt or even recognize it. Needless to say, I was very wild and sexually promiscuous at a young age. Ditching school was a daily event--to hang out with friends.  This was at fourteen and fifteen years old. While I thought nothing of using drugs or sneaking alcohol I was still very bright. I excelled at school-making honor roll and participating in my schools journalism program.
When I got suspended from school in eighth grade for selling drugs at school the Principal told my Mom that I should be a lawyer and that I had saved myself from expulsion. I was also suspended for fighting.
When I was put on prescriptions(Zoloft, Trazadone and eventually Paxil) for my behaviour they made me even more carefree. I was eventually removed from school and home schooled. I know now at this time that my Mom did not know what to do with me, and in her mind she was doing what she thought was best for me the entire time. I did end up graduating with my class.

When I was twenty I forgave my parents for doing this to me. I decided that I wanted to have a relationship with them, and that I did indeed love them. From that point on, I knew that the decisions that I were making where mine and mine alone to make. I did not have the incident from my childhood to blame any more. I could not bring myself to forgive the religious organization, yet. I had no interest in the teachings, or the people.
I always felt guilty. I always felt like I was apologizing to God, no matter what I was doing. It was wrong, because I wasn't doing what I was "supposed to be doing". I was also very young, so at the time, I was not even able to process the feelings of guilt as being just that. It truly was guilt, and I was sure that I was sinning every moment that I was living just by leading the lifestyle that I was living.
The result of these feelings was that I had very low self esteem. Like I said, I see that now. I often wish that the me that I am now could go shake the me that I was in my twenties. It's funny, because life doesn't work like that. It happened and it can't unhappen.
I have my own relationship with God now. I realized that I had all along, and all along he was with me. Keeping me safe in situations that were not safe. I don't feel guilty for what I am not doing any longer, I feel free. 


This is part of my story.

04-02-14

I like to take the time to listen to the wind in the trees for a moment. To look at the world around me and really see it, really be in it.
It seems like when I am in the moment, just being, I notice so much more going on around me.  This morning I was sitting on the back porch. Just thinking and listening to the wind blow through the trees.
I am always trying to be in the moment, but sometimes all of the other crap in my head starts going off and before I know it I am not paying attention to the moment I am in, but thinking of this and that and the other thing.
The voices in my head judge-they tell me to judge myself and to judge others. The voice tells me what I am doing is wrong or right. I try not to spend too much time with this person in my head, this voice.
While I was sitting on the porch this morning, I noticed that our lemon tree was growing some new branches, about half way down the trunk. The new buds were bright green, a lot brighter than the rest of the tree. For some reason they made me think of new babies. Is all life the same? What if we all treated trees with the same reverence as any other life? If you think about it, they bring us life, they are the air we breath. Yet, we cut them down to make more things that we don't really need.
The wind blowing through the trees sounded like whispers, whispers that only I could hear-because I was the only one listening to them. Everything around me was alive, and meaningful to my existence. Everything came to life for me in the most beautiful way this morning in the moment.