Freedom: Confronting Myself

When I dare to be powerful -- to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. Audre Lorde

I am daring a lot these days. The greatest dare is to be free. I have left a marriage that defined me in ways I am only just discovering. I am daring to have faith that my son will "forgive" my disruption of his world, even as I know that I am opening a new and better world for him to explore. I am daring to explore my strength, develop my vision and to explore what it is for me to be without fear.

Resting in the grooves of an oppressive person or environment has served the delusion that I must be free of Him. This gigantic presence I've tried to appease over the years lest I be demolished, was and always has been simply a man. I invested him with such power and now that I have stepped away I bear the scars of submission to that illusion and know I will have flashbacks like any veteran of a war, but I am now reacting (when I do) to the past.

I have moved on. There is no destination now. I wander groundless and exist in the love and support of a family I could not have imagined. I have fear, but I also have courage. That courage showed itself in my ability to leave and live. In the end the great confrontation is with myself. I have freed me and now can look in the mirror of this world without any filters.

Hands

My hands are a lot like my mother's and a lot not. The contours similar, but these hands do not reflect the harsh work that she did, strong detergents and cleaning agents that were part of her work. Yet, they are a part of her, a part of my lineage.

I come from a long line of women, who like me, have lasted enough to see how time has massaged us. Those so-called wrinkles, feared by so many women were embraced by my All Mothers. An indication of our endurance through pain, sorrow, and despair with laughter, food, hugs from children and other women and even occasionally a man or two.

I have softer hands because my All Mothers gave me a life with less hazardous choices. I have these wrinkles because I have lived through time with focus and serendipity. I bow to the love of my All Mothers, I bow to myself.