and the Moon said to me
my darling daughter,
you do not have to be whole
in order to shine.
-Nicole McElhaney
I am giving myself permission for the first time (maybe ever) to sit in my bed and to write. I'm going to write until I feel better. I am going to write because I love writing. I am going to write until I've said what my soul needs to say. I'm going to write until my pain doesn't have a safe place to live inside of me anymore. I will not nurture it and keep it from the emotional unearthing and healing I've craved and have desperately worked towards.
I was raised as most of us were. As long as things look good on the outside all is well. In fact I made an 18 year long career out of it. Yes, you may have guessed it, I was an Interior Designer for most of my adult life up until recently. I would carefully pick color texture and textile, choose furniture and fixtures while designing perfect room after perfect room, for perfect homes, for perfect families to live in perfectly. It didn't matter what chaos was reeking havoc and happening internally, I could always always make things look beautiful...until I couldn't.
I have had a fixation on the moon for as long as I can remember. I was stopped in my tracks as I read the following exert from A Sisterhood of Thorns and Vengeance;
and the Moon said to me
my darling daughter,you do not have to be whole in order to shine.-Nicole McElhaney
You mean I can shine even in this phase I'm in? I don't have to shine completely full all of the time? Everything doesn't always have to be beautiful? I can write my story even if I'm still hurt and not yet healed? I can write even if it isn't in the form of a published book I've always told myself I would write someday? Someday when I have time. Someday when I feel full and whole. Someday when it won't hurt the members of my family because telling my story would include them.
Something happened to me this month. I watched a couple documentaries that really opened me right up and left me feeling exposed. I felt like everyone around me could all of a sudden see that deep gaping dark hole. It's a hole big and dark enough that if I don't choose NOW to fill it with the truth and the light of healing... I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stitch it closed. I watched; Leaving Neverland and Abducted In Plain Sight and even though my story doesn't have the sexual abuse that those survivors had so bravely lived through, I saw so much of me in them. I understood why they didn't speak up. I could see why they would protect their abusers for so long. I understood how they could change the narrative so it was socially acceptable. But mostly, I saw in them strength and the beginnings of healing. It's been a long time where I've truly deep down felt strong and it's time.
One of the survivors said something about forgiveness and healing that resinated in me very deeply, "forgiveness is a path you take not a line you cross." I think I have been waiting to cross some invisible line so I can speak my truth. I've been waiting for it to not be or feel so ugly. I was waiting until I could turn it into something beautiful before I ever dared to share it with anyone.
"Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side he never shows to anybody." -Mark Twain
Well life isn't always beautiful and NEVER is it perfect. I've actually been on a path of healing since I was 19 years old and could take a good honest look at what I lived through. I've been on that path this long (I'm almost 40 now) and have not yet crossed a line where I feel like the moon in her fulness ready to shine completely. What I saw in those documentaries was so much bravery in being broken and still being willing to share even if it is ugly and remained unresolved. They dared to share the dark side of their moon and in that they found the buds of healing.
I’ve been intrigued by the pull of the moon for most of my adult life and now I feel I'm being forced to become aware of the other side of the cycle, the new moon. A less showy shining phase of the moon. I have historically only noticed it because I was able to see so many stars in its’ absence. The belief is that the new moon offers a time of powerful intention setting and that the growing moon will enhance the power of that intention and bring it into the light.
So this is me being brave and broken enough to focus on my new moon hopes and intentions.
I hope by writing these words down and getting them outside of my body I just might free up the pain I've been holding hostage and keeping safe all of these years.
So here is the dark side of my moon.
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