The Birthday Gift
A Revelation| Healing
Some signs are from the beyond. You don’t see them coming and they hit you just at the right time. This birthday was one such revelation for me. The clarity slapped me wide awake from my love-tinted slumber and exposed my perception of people to the real raw deal. It showed me my worth in someone’s life. Or rather, the lack of it.
How many of us spend a significant amount of our lives in a loveless, careless empty relation in the name of love? We have always been taught to hope, even after things go wrong, to forgive when someone makes mistakes, and to be kind in our approach. What we haven’t been taught is this- how much hope is too much, how long shall we keep forgiving when someone mistreats us, or how to handle a situation when our kindness becomes harmful.
This year I suffered a massive emotional abuse by someone close. I suffered to a breaking point where I was only used as a trash can outlet. I was used only when needed and left completely drained out. I am an educated and independent person, but I still endured so much pain and abuse. Why? Because, somehow my brain and conditioned upbringing had trained me to endure, to be the understanding one, to overlook the flaws, to forgive and give chances, to be kind and be the bigger person. So much of what we go through is because of wrong lessons taught in childhood. Well, not entirely wrong but half-taught. Often we don’t know how to accept a dead end and while we keep trying to find the light in an endless pursuit of good hope, we end up hurting ourselves even more.
From clutching my phone from midnight of my birthday to midnight the next day, my heart full of love and prayers was only left broken. Again. This had happened on previous occasions, but I now blame myself for giving far too many chances and thereby setting an example of what behavior can be allowed, and little by little things only got worse. I am hurt for loving someone more than they deserved. However, I don’t know how to love less. From being left at read to being ignored after calls to being shunned on my birthday, I don’t know how I came to this point of ill-treatment from someone I thought I loved.
Love is not endless emotional abuse. But sometimes it is disguised as abuse and we accept it in the name of love. We have one heart- how many times should it break for us to know our worth? Sometimes we need protection from our dreams and hopes. We need protection from our kindness when we let someone into the inner chambers of our mind and soul and give them the power to hurt us. With love comes the price of grief. The larger the love, the bigger the grief and the higher the price. We give ourselves without healthy boundaries and so we are taken for granted. I once read a poem that said, even medicine becomes poison, after its expiration date. I think the same is true for love. The concept that love was meant to be eternal and forever is somehow lost in these times.
This Birthday taught me that I was of no worth in someone’s life, who meant so much to me. When someone deliberately chooses to avoid all confrontation and does not even have the basic decency to end things gracefully, you know you have been in an emotionally abusive situation for far too long. When micro-cheating on social media creeps in, you know how vulnerable and foolish you may have been. There is no age for naivety. We can all get caught up unaware in these situations any time we let our guard down. We all give too much to the wrong person, but often the wrong people teach us the right things.
Healing comes in waves and stages, but the first step is realization and acceptance of the finale. We must close the door and save ourselves. No heartbreak is easy and no wise words can really console us from grief when the boulder strikes, but we can learn. We can weep our eyes out wipe our tears and hug ourselves tight. We can give ourselves the love we never received. We can buy those flowers and make something of our lives, even if no one’s there. It might seem absurd, but sometimes healing from trauma is embracing the absurdities of life. We must continue to learn from the infinite patterns until we are liberated from their cycle. Look at the trees growing from concrete. Look at my rose plant, growing fearlessly after the rain savaged all its leaves last week. Look at the stars shining even when no one’s looking.
A haiku for my thoughts on healing from wounds.
a new green leaf spurts
breaking the storm raged stem cuts
life begins from ends
This is my response to the “Healing Competition” run by Catharsis-Chronicles. This took courage and several tear-soaked edits to write, but I’m glad I could share my experience with you. After all, we are in this together. Much love to everyone for reading and your kind support.
