PRELUDE TO HER DARK MIRROR

     I’ve lost all fear of being betrayed. I have lost all fear of being abandoned. I have lost all fear of being homeless. I’ve lost all fear of having no place left to turn and no place left to go. I’ve even lost all fear of death itself.

You dressed me up because I’d snubbed you. You dressed me up in a cowgirl outfit and made me dance with you because she’d gone to the dance hall with someone else.

With another of your many affairs, you took me out and bought me a tight-fitting outfit, again at a cheap dress store, because Lilly would be at the study-group, get-together with her husband, and you wanted her to see you had a beautiful woman at home.

You threatened to blow up my world if I threw you out, and yet years later you threatened to make me homeless. And when you had a new girl to whisper to. the same words you'd whispered to me, "I’ve got you, baby, I’ll never let you go"—you threw me out, knowing I had no place left of my own. After all, you had been the one to help me get rid of my things, and you'd helped me to give up my home. Yet you still made me go, though I’d never done the same to you in all those years—all those times I when I should have.

I’ve hidden in closets to escape your wrath, and I’ve taken refuge behind locked bathroom doors, praying you wouldn’t break in. I’ve sat in despair while you forced my bedroom door open, in spite of all the furniture I had placed in front. I’ve lied to cover bruises, and I’ve bled internally from the damage you'd done, and you weren’t done with me. No, you couldn’t be done until you could make me out as the bad one, the crazy one who wouldn’t leave you alone. You knew I loved you, and you used my love to bring me down.

Well baby, I’ve crawled across glass for every ounce I’ve gained since then, and I’ve lost all my fear along the way. I’ve come to know that if I hadn’t been so afraid of being betrayed—I’d have never been afraid of you at all….

Most of all—you will get to watch me be wildly successful at everything you sought to destroy. You will get to watch me be the successful author you said I’d never be. You will get to watch as I live wonderfully—every dream you tried to trample into dust. You did your best to shatter those dreams, so I think it’s fitting that all the things you swore I sucked at are the things that raise me up. Every time you turn a corner and find me there, doing well, I want you to remember the very last thing you did to me—when I was down and out…. 

I’ll forgive you some day like I forgave you all the rest. Keeping grudges only gives you power, and you don’t have that right…but I will never give you the love you so willingly threw away. And I feel sorry for you—because you’re the one who’s going to miss my love.

Isn’t it funny how we never appreciate what we have—until it’s gone?

Bet it drives you more than a little crazy that I have the peace you’d never let me know. And when I laugh, I'll remember you tried to take that too. Too much joy always seemed to irritate you. I will live each day with joy, knowing that if you hadn’t thrown me out—I'd still be right there shaking, watching your face, all twisted with hate, and listening to every disgusting word you’d scream….

You didn’t deserve all the years I stood beside you, even while you brutalized the love I never tried to hide. Still, you have spared me anymore of the rage that eats at you—and for that I’m thankful we finally, really are—through.

You never deserved—me. And baby, I’m finally home.

Where do you go from here?

You might be asking, where do you go from here? How do you get better, when all you want to do is crash and burn.

When my world fell apart, I spent nearly every minute of every day keeping myself from driving my car off the cliff, into embankment that met the Mississippi river. When people asked me what it would take to make myself feel alive again, I contemplated trying to swim from one bank of the Mississippi to the other, to force myself to fight for my life. Taking my life was not the legacy I was about to leave my children, and it wasn’t that I truly wanted to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. So, I threw myself into writing to survive. I had already written a historical romance, and while I revealed a pale version of something inside me, buried within that fictional story, I wanted to write something paranormal so I could reveal even more.

Stephen King said that fiction is the truth within the lie, and I began to put those hidden kernels into stories that were otherwise completely fantasy, but I didn’t stop to do much in the way of marketing. Oh, I tried. I went on Facebook and Twitter. I went on Goodreads and other places like Goodreads.

Eventually, I burned out, disappearing from online, but kept writing. I would write, put them up, and write some more. It's how I survived. My health suffered severely from the state I was in, and I ended up in front of doctor after doctor. I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos and Barrters Syndrome, both things that are genetic, and I was born with, but now these things that had always given me symptoms went into full swing. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and suffered body aches that constantly made me feel like I'd been beaten, but also made me feel like I always had influenza. I was diagnosed with POTs where my blood pressure fell below 70 while my heart rate skyrocketed, which explained why I always felt lightheaded and wanted to pass out. My heart was always irritable and threw PVC's, but now often felt like it would completely stop and start again from the complete lack of electrolytes I was losing, and I landed in the ER with bigeminy heart rhythms. I had less that one mg of Magnesium in my blood, and the ER doctor told me I likely had less than that in my cells. I was put on potassium-sparing diuretics and potassium packets. I was put on high doses of magnesium, and while I improved, there was still something missing. Recently, I was put on a medication for the POTS and it was like the lights came back on. And while I still have constant flare-ups with the pain, and I still want to pass out when I stand up, my head actually feels normal.

I never thought I would feel this way again.

It’s been a long time, but slowly I've recovered myself, first mentally and emotionally, and now physically. I've healed the devastation that drove me over the edge in the first place, and I will share that story over time, and while I may not be healthy, I feel like I stand a decent chance, where I can now live with my physical symptoms, instead of just survive them. I’ve been doing more than writing to survive myself. I am marketing again. And while I have a lot to overcome with my books, with the mistakes I've made with them, I'm in a place where I can actually enjoy the journey, mistakes and all.

I will share my journey with you, and that’s what my first non-fiction book is about, Reclaiming Your Sacred Woman. I hope you will join me as I figure out how to share my story, and not just bury pieces of my thoughts and beliefs in my fictional stories. Don’t get me wrong, I love my stories, and feel this amazing elation when others share my joy, and I love them even when others don’t. I look forward to meeting any who would like to join me, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next, as I figure out where I’m going from here. I look forward to getting to know you all, and I hope those I built friendships with before I disappeared, will forgive me. I tried many times to come back on here and do the work I wanted to do, but I just couldn't at that time. Now, I can:)

Thank you, friends.