fairy tale ending?

 Friends, I don't know what this blog is supposed to be... 

I want to inspire you with ideas and beauty. I also want to be REAL. Life is just not all happy, or decorating, or taking photos and writing fun articles for magazines all the time. And I can't fake it. I don't post much of what happens anymore because it's just so very hard to just go through it - let alone finding words to write about it. 

But once in awhile, God just really lays something on my heart or hits me SMACK in the face with it, and I know that I have to share. Maybe you're there, too. Maybe you need to hear this, or know someone who does. I don't know... but as a sweet woman who recently sent me an encouraging verse via facebook message said, "I just have to be obedient to what I am asked to do". 

And so on my journey of 'walking by faith', that is what I am doing with this blog. It's not here to 'monetize' or promote me, or to get me discovered and published, as many blogs are. I'm not looking for an opportunity - I'm looking to provide something for YOU. I have no idea if I am doing that... but I'll keep on with it until I hear God tell me otherwise. 

So.... here we go.

Real. Honest. Life. Faith. Hope.

I've shared before that I often discover something as I am reading that just brings me to my knees. I stumble across words that have been heavy on my heart, or swirling in my mind, or that I have uttered in a prayer... I think of these as 'whispers of my soul' because I have never shared them, and no one else knows about them. To read or hear them outside of my head and heart is shocking - and illuminating.

In an episode of one of my favorite television shows last night, I heard words spoken between two characters that had me sitting stock still, staring at the screen, wondering how on EARTH the writers could have done that... because the words that the female character spoke were the exact words that have been on my heart for eight months now. They burn like embers there, slowly cauterizing the still-gaping open wound that was inflicted in the space of a few hours one day last fall. 

That's not entirely true... it had all built up over time, wearying and beating down and scaring and hurting everyone within range of my husband and I. It was 32 years of fear and pain and loss and hurt and anger and guilt and regret, and so much more... we should have seen and admitted the truth. But we were experts at hiding it and pretending it didn't matter. I was an expert at believing that if we could just reach that next step, the next dream, everything would be ok. Then it all came out in choices, words, actions, expressions, and intent within the ugly, horrifying space of eight hours. It began at noon, and everything about our lives was destroyed by the time the sun set that night.

The pain settled into silence, the regret and guilt into anger. The truth in my heart became a cry of anguish, wanting so badly to escape - but was locked away to protect me from a repeat of the worst day of my life. I was the walking wounded for six months.

I wish I had spoken those words that were in my heart when I told him goodbye, six months to the day after that final damage was done. But I knew that I couldn't stand to experience that awful darkness of hopelessness and pain all over again as I spoke of it... so I gave him a short reason why this had to end, and walked away. I will never get the chance to say those words, but the writers of the show got it as close to perfect as I could imagine...

He: I didn't believe you, I didn't stand by you...

She: You know, I will never forget that moment. The moment that the world sort of blows you backwards, and the ONE person that you thought would always be there to catch you - he wasn't there.

He: But look at what was going on! I'm human, I fell for it....

She: Something keeps... pouring poison between us. And what I don't want is to have all the good memories replaced by moments like that one - when I looked at you, and I saw that you didn't believe [in] me. [In us]

He: But I LOVE YOU!

She: ...and that is what makes it all so very sad. 

[I believed in YOU. I stood by YOU. I fought for you and was strong for you when you couldn't be. But you discarded and abandoned me when I needed you to be strong for me.]

The characters are Mary Margaret and David, who are actually Snow White and Prince James (Charming) in the ABC show 'Once Upon a Time'. They now live in an alternate reality sans magic and don't remember who they really are. 

Somewhere along the way in our 32-year storyline, the magic left us, and we forgot who we were, too.  When I saw that truth so very clearly on that September day, sitting alone and cold in a dark place that I had been forcibly banished to by the one person I trusted most, my broken heart bled out. Then to protect myself from ever feeling that hopeless and unloved again, I locked it up in its own little box (just like Queen Regina does with hearts on the show). 

Then I knew what I had to do, and did it:
I closed the book and ended the story.

And in so doing, I grew up.  

There's no Prince Charming showing up on a white horse to save me - I've finally figured that out. I had to save myself. There's no magic spell to break or cast, no fairy dust to sprinkle around to fix things. I had to look the truth and my fear straight in the eye, and walk into them. I had to be brave and strong for myself instead of always for everyone else. Hopes, dreams, and even love cannot solve serious problems on their own. Oh, how I wish they could.

You see, I grew up on Disney Fairy Tales, 'Wishing Upon a Star', and believing that 'Dreams Come True'. Jimmy Durante sang a line in a song that went 'Fairy tales do come true, it can happen to you...'

This is one fairy tale that ended right in the middle of what should have been - and looked a whole lot like - 'Happily Ever After'. And as she said, THAT is what makes it so very sad.

I still believe, though.

 I pray and wish on a star every night 

that there will be healing in my heart and in this family one day. 

I'm just trusting it to God, instead of Walt Disney or the Brothers Grimm.

____________

sadly, the real and final ending of the fairytale
is something I will never understand, but have to accept:

Bob Kennedy passed away suddenly on November 22, 2012 
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