Heard this before? The rest of this sentence is, “when you’re busy making plans.” It exemplifies the futility of setting goals, planning an end toward which effort is directed, daydreaming about what you’re going to be when you grow up, deciding whether you want to grow up. Whatever it is you want to be is going to be overrun by a master plan set to music by a force somewhere out there………….or maybe not. How many of you have worked toward some goal you have plotted over, schemed over, obsessed over only to wake up at the age of 45, found yourself in a state of misery and thought, I wanted to do this?
When I was three my folks bought me my first and only birthday gift (my birthday was in December and every year thereafter I was told that since my birthday was so close to Christmas they really couldn’t afford to buy me anything ), a book called The Golden Book of Words. Enthralled with the pictures and the funny little marks next to them I stroked my fingers across the pictures and asked, “Momma, what’s this book about?”
“It’s about words.”
“What are words?”
My mother, writing a letter to her mother, nibbled at the end of her pencil, and thought for a moment. “They’re letters, like in the alphabet I taught you, strung together to draw pictures and tell stories.”
“Can I write words someday?”
My mother put the pencil down and stared out the window, her brow knitted almost painfully as she responded in a pensive voice. “Yes, and one day you’ll write sentences, and your sentences will becomes stories, and your stories will paint pictures, and the pictures will take you anyplace in the world you want to go.” Her brow had smoothed over now and her face had settled some as she added. “They’ll hide any pain or yearning you have.”
It was the most meaningful conversation I’d ever had with my mother and I planted it deep in my mind where one day it would take root. Then I pronounced, “When I grow up I want to be a writer. Then all I’ll really need is words.”
When I was twelve I made the decision I wanted to be a nun. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a writer. I knew that nuns could write too so I would be able to do both. I had been thinking about it for years. I had a passionate attachment to the Mother of God. To me, she was real, and I communed with her all day long, brought wildflowers to the Virgin Mary altar at St. John the Baptist Catholic church and rushed to her whenever I had a problem. Spending my life devoted to good works, to hours of praying the rosary and the Stations of the Cross, to being at her side and therefore in the light of God and with the glory of Jesus was all I dreamt of, all my passionate heart wanted. I knew my father would be overjoyed. He was a devout Catholic and he had a sister who was a Benedictine nun. My mother was a convert so I knew she too would applaud my decision. Going to the convent after the 8th grade was the normal first step in becoming a nun and I had just graduated.
My heart in my hand, my voice filled with joy, I told my father I wanted to be a nun and would like to go to the convent as soon as possible. I waited with happy anticipation for his response.
“No, you will not go to the convent. You will not be a nun,” he thundered.
I thought perhaps he had misunderstood. “But I want to be a nun.” My voice shook with confusion.
“The final answer is NO! He followed with a strange and frightening look on his face.
My world ended. With no purpose in my life, without the happy expectation looming in front of me the only thing I saw was a black void, years and years of my joyful plans thrown away as if they were so much garbage. I became severely depressed, wandering around in a state of mute misery. I begged the Mother of God to tell me why but all I ever saw was a sad and knowing face in front of me.
A few weeks later the following, an excerpt from my book, Let Me Hurt You and Don’t Cry Out, happened.
“In a tiny bedroom, a young girl lies, swirled in dreams of innocence. A shaft of moonlight beams through worn drapes, exposing yellowed wallpaper and stark metal bunk beds. Nestled asleep in the lower bunk, she draws thin, coltish legs closer to her chest as her breathing deepens and her eyelids flutter. Wispy brown hair scattered about her face, frames small bones and delicate features. A rosary creeps from under the pillow, its beads still warm with prayer, the cross dangling above the hardwood floor. Under the bed, a multi-colored mutt named Rusty hiccups his way through his own nighttime visions as he twitches in time to a windup clock that sits in protective watch on the dresser.
As slumber guards the scene, the handle on the door turns, creaking in protest. It opens slowly, shrouding the room in a hazy light. A tall man, gray slivering his temples, casts sharp shadows that spill into the corner. He watches for a moment as she sleeps, then enters, closing the door in a surreptitious manner.
Her life will never be the same.
Now I knew why my father would not allow me to go to the convent.
It was the beginning of five years of horror, five years of physical and sexual abuse, and five years of mental and emotional torment. Then I ran away from home. For the next twenty seven years I went from one abuser to another; I woke up in psychiatric wards after suicide attempts; I wandered from one therapist to another trying to find the answers; I spent time in a womens shelter; I suffered severe insomnia and lived on anti-depressants and sleeping pills; I became addicted to sex, my self-esteem so low I could barely look in a mirror. Somehow, by the miracle of God, I raised four of the most wonderful children anyone could ever have.
One day, at the insistence of my family doctor, I entered recovery. I wrote of my experience knowing I had no hope of a happy ending. I was married to my third abuser, a man my therapist said was so abusive I would never survive. I prayed to the Mother of God constantly. Then, one day my recovery was over, my abuser was gone, my first book was completed. I had found my happy ending. I began a second book, : REPAIR Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse. I started a movement for recovery from incest & childhood sexual abuse. I recently sold my fourth book and my international movement, The Lamplighters (at http://www.thelamplighters.org) has 70 chapters in 13 countries.
I don’t wear a black robe and spend hours at prayer in a convent. But my purpose in life is being fulfilled. Despite the darkness of my life I kept a tiny flame alive. I nurtured it and brought it to life. Today I have written fifteen books. Today, I am what I was meant to be. I am the happiest person I know.
(For those of you who are regular readers of my blog site I apologize. I have been on vacation for two weeks and family events were so numerous I had no time to write a blog. I’ll be back again next week and thank you all who follow my words.)
