Holiday With The Abuser

You can choose your dance.

How could there be a worse perpetual punishment? You are sentenced for life to spend every holiday from this day forward until you die with your abuser. The hammer thuds, wood hitting wood. Case closed! Next...

How does one come to terms with the diabotical extreme of two polar opposite emotions?

What could be the happiest of day, sweet memories, the gift of having friends and of knowing peace (this aim we celebrate, plan, await, and imagine) to be swallowed with the pain of abuse, the memory of horrors. The magical moments of innocent pleasure that pours from gratitude of relationships and material surprises entwined with paralyzing fear and anxious triggers of past trauma.

A squeal - the delight awakens us to a peek over the horizon of tomorrows knowing somehow they can be spent in love, happiness and peace.

But you are given the pill--filled with slivers broken innocence mixed with a hint of arsenic to deaden your memory and emotions. It must be swallowed if you enter the Act; Scene 1 is about to begin. The cast has gathered and all finding their places. The countdown as begun quickening the call to action... but you are not yet in place. Are you undecided?

Tremoring, you try, you are forcing the pill to be washed down with something a little more mind altering than spring water. It doesn't really matter if you remember, you just plan to go through the motions. Nothing more than the performance of a body-double will serve the purpose of the Holiday gathering.

How could you be asked, or expected to comply? For who? or What? or Why? (haven't you learned it is better to not ask so many questions, just move along ... step onto the moving walkway. The path will carry you into the next set. Play the part and move along... such a simple charade. 

Who owns you anyway? Who writes the screenplay that must be followed for the sake of world peace?

You have been warned. It is such a dramatic, critical role - no one else can fill-in. It just wouldn't be the same. You alone are called forth for the role of your lifetime that must be performed on-call year after year, holiday by holiday.

And the NEON LIGHTS FLASH ..... in the deep crevices of your soul. "CUT!" a loud cry shakes you partially awake from you stupor. And you remember,

You have a choice. You are not a robot. You have a mind, a will, a soul separated, living apart from being enmeshed with all others. There is no cosmic group will accountable to God. No one is allowed to play your puppet strings in life unless you walk out onto the set and submit to the part.

It is harder to think for yourself. So you pause and ponder,

No applause will be guaranteed when the curtain closes and the lights come up. No casting call expected for next years performance, no parade of thanksgiving, no gifts and no acceptance. And yes, no roses thrown at your feet. You will not be loved or part of the inner circle of belonging.

But still you get to chose, it is your life. Choices always result in consequences. Nothing is ever as clean and perfect as the script given to you, showing your part in black and white. Flesh of man changes the odds. No one is perfect. All are a slight variation of what could or should be.

You do not have to submit. You do not have to spend any time with your abuser. You have no written or unwritten obligation to keep.

Forgive, Release, cut the abuser free. Once he owes you nothing, You are free to walk.

Choose your next step carefully. If you so choose to be free, in confidence, move gently toward the narrow door. Within are possibilities unknown by those who follow the script.

Live. Laugh. Love. No regrets. No promises.