Murraytalk

The more that I write about my journey the more I have to protect my thinking and not let the thoughts of my past begin to consume me. Last week I allowed my thoughts to go in a negative direction, thinking of my sister/niece stealing my mother's home and money. She was raised as my sister and my mother cared for her and loved her as her daughter, but once my father died it became apparent that our love and family were not important to her if there wasn't a chunk of money waiting for her at the end of the rainbow.  I had to cut off all communication with her this year because her actions are unacceptable to me, and thinking about her choices caused too much restlessness in my soul; and you all know that I cherish my peace.  What I'm getting at is that sometimes we have to walk away from those that we spent our entire life loving unconditionally. She was the one that I always protected. I removed her from the chaos as much as I possibly could when she was a child....

Last week I started cleaning out one of my many file cabinets and came across a folder of poetry that I had written over twenty years ago. I had forgotten how much of my healing had come from my poems. They're a combination of Eminem and Mother Teresa depending on the day and the mood, but all of them speak my truth, and truth is what I had been searching for since I was a young child. I heard the saying, "The truth will set you free" enough times to know that I wanted that internal freedom. Although, I never received the truth that I was so eager to receive as a child from my parents and aunt, (each of them took it to their grave)  I had to accept that I would probably never know the truth of their lives. I would never know what past hurt they endured and carried that molded them into the people that they became; and maybe that's best. As Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"  Probably not, so I'm good with the not ...

"It is only possible to live happily-ever-after on a day-to-day basis" -Margaret Bonnano I mentioned in my blog last week that there was only one time in my life that I couldn't fake a smile or climb out of the dark hole that I had fallen into. It was one time because from that experience I realized that happiness was something that I had to cultivate on a daily basis. It wasn't possible for me to live years of dysfunction and live happily ever after by walking out the door of my childhood home. I didn't want to keep reflecting on any misfortunes that had occurred in my past. I had come far enough and had acknowledged that stuff happens to everyone. I knew that my experience was nothing in comparison to what others endure. I'm not giving my parents a get out of jail card for situations that should have never happened. I just needed to move past it so I could close all of my open wounds and become a happy being. "The word 'happiness' ...

Happy, positive and determined had become my new way of living life; at least that's what I thought. But, we all know that life isn't that easy. I was positive in my thinking, but I always seemed to leave the window open just enough for a negative thought from my past to slip in and challenge my thinking. The majority of the time I was able to dismiss them, but I had one week in the late 80's that put up a good fight. It was difficult for me to climb out of bed each morning and function, and harder for me to smile. My smile had always seemed to get me through the worst of days, but this time I struggled. A good friend of mine, June, stopped by one day as I was lying on the carpet lifeless watching the kids play. She kept asking me if I was okay, and I tried hard to sound convincing that I was, but I wasn't even buying it. For the first time in my life the fight had left me and I didn't know how to get it back. This was my suffering, and it was just there. I had...

I know that I flew through 18 years of my life in just a few blogs, but you got the picture of what my home life was like. I lived through it and survived it, so I'm not very good today at making it sound as nightmarish as I did when I first started sharing my journey. I'll never deny that it wasn't good for any of us mentally, but I've healed, grown, and moved on. There's no going backwards for me, so hanging on to anger from it isn't my focus. That part of my life challenged me, pushed me, educated me, and made me who I am today - I'm thankful for it! My Epiphany It was in my twenties when I received my epiphany that I needed to work on my attitude about life. I had always told myself that the one thing that I would never be in life was my parents. But, one day as I was yelling about something senseless I knew that I was becoming what I didn't want to be. At that  moment I took ownership of what a shitty person I was. I was cynical, judgmental, a...