How does one describe a fluid process in static time?….because as stated on the front page, who the “me” is when I look in the mirror is a work of evolution and rediscovery.

Starting with What Once Was….a wife, mother of 4 children whom I homeschooled, painter, reader, writer, cook, laundress, cleaner, gardener, homesteader, environementalist…all of that was my surface. What most of my world didn’t know was that I was also abused from the beginning of my marriage; not “punch you out” kind of abuse, but rather, continual water-dripping verbal insults, fits of anger and manipulation, control, lack of intimacy, and an occasional drag down the hallway by my hair, slam into the door jam, or throw down to the floor.

What Became….all the things that were supposed to make it better: my own self-control while angry, getting out of debt, having enough money, more time alone all came to be over the course of a 13 year marriage. And at the end, the abuse got worse. There was an ever-widening divide between the external stresses and the inner corruption. Hiding it from friends and family became more difficult as he became bolder, with less anger build up to trigger it. And then one day he pushed me into the garbage with my Dad standing outside, just feet away. I faced the largest humiliation I could imagine, if my Dad had opened that door and seen me that way. And I knew….I could not take it another day.

And so one night, after he had not let me sleep for two nights straight, nor eat without constant harassment, he left for a while to go do God knows what. I grabbed my children out of their beds, took enough clean laundry to last a week, and his bullets, and left.

Much has happened since then, so much of it not what anyone would call “good”. But slowly and subtly something else is happening too….a metamorphasis is occurring. An uncovering of the woman I slowly allowed to be buried, a healing for children who’d forgotten how to relax in security, a happy mother, and a peace that passes understanding is coming over me in the midst of a very storm-chased life. There is light on the horizon and I need to write about it’s dawn upon my soul. Sounds cheesy I’m aware, but it is what it is.

For reference: When I mention my children, they are Thinker (11), Dancer (10), Dreamer (7), and Butter (3).