Ebs and Flows
While packing up all of my things to move to a new apartment, I’ve had an opportunity to sort through things that, over time, I’ve forgotten about. I was flipping through an old sketch book and I found a painting paired with a poem from a couple years back. As I read this poem, I was flooded with emotions. Today, years ago, I was sexually assaulted, and this poem was something I wrote in attempt to make sense of the guilt, pain, and confusion that I’ve battled ever since my assault.
Over the years, through the help of a strong support system I rediscovered what love, intimacy, and joy could look like in my life. I learned that I could in fact rectify my body, my boundaries, my purity, my strength, and my sexuality. However, as I read my old fears out loud to myself I couldn’t help but feel this nervous tingle in my stomach. “What if I never truly healed from this?”
You see, I’ve always strived to be really open about the things that I’ve struggled hoping that my story could in some way help someone else. But as this day approached, I felt a long forgotten heaviness in my chest causing me to clam up any time I tried to talk about what the guild I was feeling with friends. I was so confused. So, looking down at my sketchbook, I started to meditate on how the road to redemption, while full of moments on the mountain top, has moments spent in the valley.
Today, even though I didn’t quite feel ready, I reread the poem again. I was surrounded with peace and grace; I softly whispered to myself “you have been redeemed, you have freedom from this”.
I used to feel like I could never experience rectification for the things I had went through. I believed that every single day, I would spend meditating on what had happened to me. That any time I was laying next to a partner, I would look into their eyes and see his face looking back at me. And while some days, this is still feels like the case, most days I feel more strength, healing, peace, self love, and forgiveness than I ever imagined possible. Healing can be painful. Healing is a process. Healing can sometimes feel endless. Healing can be difficult. Not every day is easy, and if fact, most days aren’t. But healing is beautiful, healing is possible, and healing will come.
If you feel like you’re in the valley, just remember that not all of your journey will be spent there. That every hard season, eventually passes. That our doubt and worries and hesitations, while very real, aren’t always rooted in truth. And while you may not always feel like you’re making process, you are. You are moving forward. You are climbing the mountain. You will reach the top. This is just the beginning, you are so worth loving, and redemption is at your fingertips.
