One Corner at a Time

I am a hoarder. I am not a dirty hoarder, filling my home from floor to ceiling with other people’s trash. I am not a hoarder of items acquired over the years. I am a hoarder of things past, of shadows in my mind; I am a hoarder of transgressions against me, of guilt ridden trips to a place I call “Yesteryear”. I have been excused from my families lives; I have been wiped clear of their memories. I have swept my broken heart under the proverbial rug in an effort to move beyond the clutter left within the walls of my wounded soul. I have picked myself up and dusted myself off and have become a better person than they could have envisioned in the wake of their departure.

I have forgiven, but I have yet to forget. To forget would mean to allow the same hardships back into my life. I do not dwell on the loss of those whom should have never walked away, those family members who were entrusted to love and guide me, those friendships I could have never seen broken, no matter how many times they were dropped. I have cleared them from the pain drawer of my mind, one corner at a time. In doing so I have been able to continue my walk without them, I have been able to create a new world, a new truth and a new life for myself.

The winds blow and past hurts do tend to peer through the cracked door from time to time. It occurs to me today that this is only because I have kept others in my life who do not have my best intentions at heart; I have held tight to relationships and hoarded the hurts they have caused in the recess of my soul, hoping my love for them could eventually bring to light the friendships and/or family loyalty I have felt for them all of these years. The question occurs to me, how many times can I allow someone to hurt me through their obvious lack of loyalty where I am concerned?

As I sweep out the old, cleaning the cobwebs from my life and the hurt from my heart – I have to also question if I am perhaps a tad-bit sensitive because of issues I feel I have worked though emotionally, when in fact they are still hunched over monster-like in the depths of my darkened mind. I guess only time will tell. Only the changing tide within can wash away the deception. Only I can clear the air of my present and future by packing up those things I have hoarded, one corner at a time.

©KLynn Miller
July 15, 2012

When the Wind Blows

Our lives begin with the breath of God and we are full of promise. The future is ours and the world is in our hands; we are life. We do not get to choose our families, our social standing, or our child-hood experiences. We are molded and we become – different from what was initially intended by our Creator. We each have a different walk, an individual road we must find and establish as our own. The lucky ones are guided gently by loving parents, by a family, a village filled with villagers carrying only our best intentions in their hearts.

And then there are the others – those left to their own devices, to learn, to fend for themselves, to grow on their own. Their families are riddled by alcoholism, drug addiction, lawlessness. They are beaten, molested, given drugs for their silence and abandoned. They are the future and sadly, their future seems bleak. Some rise above, some drown in the sorrow and some stay stagnant – neither failing nor succeeding in a life once filled with so much God-given promise.

I have tried so many times to reinvent myself, to wash off my past, to move beyond the long arms of depression caused by not only my own choices, but by transgressions against me at the hands of those villagers who were entrusted with my care. I have stood strong in the face of adversity, only to fall face first into the pits of my own, self-imposed emotional hell. It does not take much for this to transpire; one moment I am fine and life is perfect and then the wind blows and though life is still as perfect, I do not feel emotionally so.

It has been years since depression has grabbed me and taken control of my life. It has been years since I have allowed myself to wallow in self pity. I was well on my way to completely reinventing myself and living the life I know I was intended to have and then the wind blew. That was in March and four months later I still have been unable to take a control on my emotional well-being. I had so many good things going on, so many dreams I was close to fulfilling and so many Prayers finally being answered – and yet here I am, filled with such a deep sense of despair I am unable to relinquish the hold it has on me.

Just as in the darkness of years past, I know I will shake this off and I will be well on my way to reinventing myself once again. One thing which is most important to me is this blog – it is the one step I need to take in order to get back on track with the parts of me I wish to retain. Writing has always been my release, but my desire for To Motherhood and Beyond; The Unforeseeable Journey was not to share the bleakness that was my past. My dreams and wishes for this blog were and are to share the possibilities, the possibilities of success we are each born to achieve. With this being said I think it is time to move onward and upward, to new and brighter things. To Motherhood and Beyond; The Unforeseeable Journey – yes, it is time for my departure from melancholy and my ascent into a future free of guilt and afflictions from a past best left forgotten.

©KLynn Shelton Miller