As a first hand participant in a love story that had its share of nosedives, I know better than to believe that love and pain are mutually exclusive. I also know that the world’s standard for love will have me summoning the magical intervention of Disney princesses and fairy Godmothers instead of recognizing my trauma responses and how they play a hand in the partners I’ve chosen and/or how I show up in relationships.
To be clear, this is not written in attempt to victim blame or relieve abusive partners of accountability. However, this is a call to self-reflect on whether your default setting has you predisposed to foolishness. It seems wholly unrealistic to enter a union expecting wellness when your habits, mental space and capacity for engaging in the key components of a relationship stem from a broken and unhealed place. Ask me how I know.
For the first time, I contemplated beating Zora. I needed her to know that not only did she try it - she disappointed me. She scared me. She acted outside of the good sense God and intentional parenting granted her… Zora, in all of her “four and a half” years of age, lacked discernment. I’d been praying for the ability to recognize when I’m operating within or beyond God’s will, and there was my baby girl running freely in disobedience, demanding the grace I request on the daily.
Without saying, “my reality is more than I care to process,” I neglect it by way of acutely orchestrated “reality” television. I tell my brain to take a break and allow the chaos of these self-sabotaging co-stars to comfort me. To make me feel ordered and aware. Woke, even. I’ve been seeking a place of refuge from my own thoughts, and I’m slowly learning that they should, instead, be my safety net.