finally

I've been putting this off.

The first month, I told myself I was in recovery. November has always been cruel to me anyway, so I didn't need much of an excuse to hide from myself and everyone else. The days were getting shorter and even though the weather was milder than usual, I needed to be safe. So I laid low. And I didn't write.

By December I was feeling more like my old self. I was tired of being exasperated. I allowed myself to feel deeply, profoundly relieved. I began to gain awareness of the fact that they did not deserve me and that while I had indeed been abused (and this is not just hyperbole or popular me-speak) I had also been freed. It was up to me to let go of all of it, everything. I allowed myself to feel angry at people who lied, demeaned and I-want-to-spit-I'm-so-pissed micromanaged the hell out of me. I felt it and I let it go, at least ten times a day, and then I did it again until I got tired of that too. But I still didn't write.

I prayed. I went to Mass almost every day. I took photos of things, mostly trees, but sometimes dogs, small people, rocks and flowers, things like that. That was praying too. It was mid-December and it was time to be busy, so I shopped and wrapped and cried less often and started to feel more sorry for them than I did for myself. I sat in an almost empty church on a Tuesday morning, and for two and a half hours I prayed and finally, I wrote something. It was in longhand and lots of things were crossed out. I reread it only once, the other day, and I liked the part at the end where I said I would wait at the well until I knew what to do next.

Now it's time to do what's next.

I've been putting it off, oh hell yeah I've been putting it off. I've been CLEANING OUT THE LINEN CLOSET. I've been prettying up the house with things like vinyl stickers of branches with three dimensional birds. I've been buying little crafty things like birdhouses that need to be painted and I've even colored in one of those coloring books that I got for Christmas, just like every other middle aged woman in America.

Oh dear God Cathy, will you just do it?

I thought about writing a fairy tale, and I still might. Joey thought about taking a course in Understanding Fairy Tales, and it was offered at a fine university, so that's a real thing, y'all. My story would (or will) begin with a Beautiful Princess who didn't know she was beautiful, of course. She ended up trapped in a castle with an Evil Ogre, but she remembered the Secret Box she had hidden away, you know, the one with all the awesome powers in it, and she used it get herself the hell out of there. The end.

So while I'm figuring out what to write about and how to do that, I'm going to go back to taking back the things I gave away. My words and my faith are mine. They will both do me good, and good is what I deserve and demand.

I've been putting this off.