Destiny Doesn't Chatter

There are always pivotal moments in everyone’s life when your life takes a turn which changes the course of it forever.  I have had several, some of them my life took a turn for the worse, and some have resulted in remarkable events.  Sometimes you get a feeling in the pit of your stomach which way it is going to turn.  I think it is amazing when you recognize those moments as they are unfolding.  It is almost as if you are able to watch your own life as you are experiencing it.  Some of those moments happen indirectly, there were things in motion in someone else’s life that impacted yours to a great degree.  Some of them happen as a direct result of another person’s actions or even their lack of action.  The most precious moments occur as a result of something you intentionally put in motion.  The most profound of all pivotal moments occur when destiny calls.  You respond to the call, knowing whatever happens next will be amazing.

I have always hung a welcome sign out for destiny.  Destiny visits me every now and then; and sometimes I get bored waiting for her arrival and create trouble for myself.  I don’t always recognize her when she arrives.  She likes to trick me by appearing in different forms, sometimes she appears as an event, sometimes she appears as a choice I must make, and sometimes she appears in human form.  I accept her however she chooses to present herself, but it sure would help if she would give me the courtesy of wearing a name tag.  Life would be much easier.  I guess that’s where wisdom is supposed to help, but being human does not always guarantee we make a wise decision. 

Before I was even born to this earth, I chose a path my life would follow.  My spirit holds the knowledge of all the ages and set a course for me which would have the best chance of obtaining the knowledge I would need to continue to develop my soul.  I chose my parents, such that they were, in order to gain from them something I needed.  I did not choose the abuse I suffered at their hands, though my spirit knew given the free choice we are gifted as humans, the abuse characteristic from my parents was a possibility.  I was also gifted with the tools I needed to survive.  I was gifted with the strength I would need to heal.  I was gifted with the wisdom I would need to know how to heal, and I was gifted with the eyes of heaven so my soul would not fly away before destiny had been fulfilled.  I was surrounded by people to help me on my way, people who did not understand the powerful position they held to my growth.  Sometimes it was the passing by of a stranger which would steer my heart toward the capacity to love.

My Fat Grandma was one of those integral people.  She was morbidly obese, but she loved me unconditionally.  She never had an unkind or cross word for me.  One day, I was swinging my jump rope in the kitchen.  In those days, jump ropes had weighted wooden handles.  She warned me not to swing the rope like I was, because I might get hurt.  She went to the bathroom and what did I do?  I swung the rope and one of the wooden handles hit me sharply in the mouth.  I started crying.  It hurt me, I disobeyed Grandma, and now I was going to be punished.  I wasn’t punished.  She wrapped me up in her arms, surrounded me with all of her fat, and gave me comfort.  One thing about Fat Grandma, when she hugged you, she hugged ALL of you at the same time.  I don’t know if she knew what my Grandpa was, but I do know she saved me from him.  This Grandpa was my mother’s father and he had sexually abuse my mother, the extent of which I do not know.  I rarely spent the night at their house; Grandpa was not a pleasant man even on his best days.  Somehow, I was spending the night at Fat Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  When there is abuse the extent to which I was exposed to, even as a very young child you instinctively recognize the monsters.  Grandpa was a monster.  I was lying in my bed when he got up to use the bathroom.  I listened as he thumped and shuffled his drowsy walk from the bedroom, through the living room, across the kitchen, past my bedroom, and into the hall leading to the bathroom.  I heard the stream of his urine in the toilet.  I listened for the sound of the toilet flushing and the sleepy thump shuffles back to his bed.  Except the thump shuffles stopped right outside my door.  I held my breath in terror, waiting for the thump shuffles to come closer.  I heard my Grandfather’s rattled snorts in his breath.  I waited, knowing I was trapped.  That was when I heard my Grandma’s voice say “Bob are you coming back to bed?”  My Grandpa grunted and thump shuffled back to his bedroom.  I was safe for this night.

Mr. Taylor, my fourth grade teacher was another one of those people who surrounded me to ensure I would be able to tell the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong.  When I forgot my mittens one freezing January day, my hands became frostbitten.  Again, I was afraid of being punished because I was told repeatedly by my mother not to forget my mittens at school, but I forgot them at school.  Instead of being angry with me, he took my hands in his to warm them.  He ran my hands under warm water until they stopped stinging.  He never had a cross word for me, either.  It would be Mr. Taylor who would drive home the meaning of prejudice as well as all the horrors that word carries with it.  He was a black man teaching in a small town in the seventies.  Some people were not kind to him simply because of the color of his skin.  He would pass through my life without understanding the gravity of the impact he would make on it. 

My Grandpa on my father’s side would be another person who would ensure I stayed strong in the face of impossible odds.  Grandpa taught me I had choices in life.  He also said I may not like the choices I had, but I did have choices.  That lesson has served me well over the years, though I did not always make the best choices.  Between Mr. Taylor and my Grandpa, I would have men in my life whose actions offset the men who would come to bring me harm, so that all men would not be judged by me from the actions of a few. 

I married a man I thought was wonderful, because he showered me with attention.  He wanted to know what I was doing every second of my life, who I was with, and what I thought about those people.  He showered me with gifts, and wanted to spend every waking moment with me.  He called me frequently when we were apart, because he missed me.  If I was in danger at my home from my father, he would drop whatever he was doing to come get me.  I would later come to find out the very traits I thought were wonderful were big red signs of an abuser.  I don’t recall him ever laying a hand on me before we were married.  The physical abuse didn’t begin until after the marriage license was signed.  From my point of view, he was a better man than my father.  I accepted the abuse from my husband, because it was all I knew.  Except it wasn’t all I knew.  By then, the actual memories of my Grandpa and Mr. Taylor were deeply buried in my subconscious, tucked away where I couldn’t find them.  There was a tiny part of me screaming out from the deep, dark recesses of my soul saying something is wrong here!  Being the stubborn person I am, I did not want to admit I made a mistake marrying this person.  Even so, I knew I was in a pile of trouble.  I just didn’t know how to dig myself out.

Of course as destiny would have it, there would come a time when I could no longer ignore the clear and present danger I found myself, and my two daughters in.  My husband told me often he was going to kill me, but hearing the words so frequently they carried little weight.  I didn’t believe he was going to kill me.  My father had told me he was going to kill me, too.  It was just something men said when they were angry, it wasn’t really going to happen.  One night, my husband looked me in the eye and said with a cold, chilling, calmness “I’m going to fucking kill you; I am going to get a gun and blow your fucking head off.”  He was angry, but not the explosive all over the house kind of angry.  This was a type of angry I had never seen before.  He had a look in his eyes when he said it I had never seen before.  I believed him.  He was going to kill me.  I was terrified of leaving him; I had no job, no marketable skills, and no foreseeable means of supporting my children.  I had no money, and no way of getting any money quickly.  I had nowhere to run to, either.  My mother had already informed me I was not welcome at her house if I chose to leave my husband.  My father saw no reason I should leave my husband.  He did not drink or use drugs; he did not cheat or gamble away the money.  He went to work and funneled all of his paychecks into supporting the girls and I.  This was a good man.  I tried to explain to my dad why I wanted to leave, but his response was “You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.” 

I left with the belongings I could fit in car, and the $35.00 remaining in the checking account.  I went to The Battered Women’s shelter.  Although I was leaping off the cliff, I knew I had to do this.  I didn’t know where my life would lead, or the struggles I would face, but this was a definite.  I was leaping off the cliff.  It was one of the single, most terrifying moments of my life when I realized the gravity of what I had done.  I had left my husband and I was homeless with two little girls.  I had no money, and could promise them no certain future.  Elton John had a hit song on the radio at the time, “I Don’t Want To Go On With You Like That.”  I was just another set of boots on his welcome mat.  It became my leaving song.  Whenever I doubted my decision to leave the marriage, Elton John sang to me and I knew I had made the only decision I could have. 

In the shelter, I met a woman who would become my best friend for many years, and help bring out the fighter I was as a child.  The defiance I held in front of my parents had long been beaten into me.  I mean beaten into me because it was still inside of me, but very deeply buried and well hidden.  My parents had not beaten it out of me as they might have thought.  It had to go into hiding so they wouldn’t kill me during one of their beatings.  My defiance angered them.  We had a song to sing, too.  Bon Jovi was topping the charts with “Living on a Prayer.”  That song rang true to home as I spent each day living on the wings of a prayer.  When we were afraid or about to do something we were frightened to do, we remembered Tommy used to work on the docks, the union went on strike, and he’s down on his luck its tough, so tough.  You gotta hold on, ready or not, you live for the fight when it’s all that you’ve got.   Tiffany would be a pivotal person in my life.  She would help to teach me to fight, and she also taught me I was not the judge in judgment.  Sometimes, I still forget I am not. 

Another person would enter my life and change it in a profound way.  I would fall madly, deeply in love for the first time in my life.  I didn’t love my first husband.  I met him when I was 15 and thought the puppy love and infatuation I felt was love.  By the time I married him, the infatuation had disappeared, but I felt I had no other choice in my life than to marry him.  Gordon was my soul mate and I recognized him immediately.  The problem was, we were not destined to be together in this lifetime.  I believe it was an accident we crossed paths at all.  Life happens that way sometimes.  He taught me a lot about myself, and about listening to what destiny is telling me.  I knew we were soul mates.  It didn’t make any sense to me why we couldn’t be together.  Soul mates defy the odds and live happily ever after.  Destiny tried to tell me differently, and in the name of fate and destiny, I hung in this relationship far longer than I should have.  I needed this experience to teach me the difference between recognizing destiny and following what my heart wanted.  It was a hard and painful lesson when I realized I had to let Gordon go.  I know now I have many soul mates and they come into my life in different forms.  Some are meant to stay awhile, for they are bearing gifts I need in this journey.  Some are meant to remind me of who I am, who I once was, and who I am yet to become.  Soul mates are a marvelous creation.

Jennifer entered my life when I was pregnant with my final child.  She would become the softer side of me.  The fact she and I became such close friends defied logic.  We held nearly opposite opinions about everything.  We had little in common.  We had a couple of near arguments in our many discussions, but somehow, we always pulled back before feelings were hurt.  She would also become my moral compass, so to speak.  The one I had inherited from my parents didn’t work very well.  She was a much better role model and was one of the few people who could get me to understand the error of my ways at times.  I listened to very few people.  I listened to Jennifer. 

Marty entered my life and I fell in love for the second time.  He is a soul mate as well, but this time I learned not all soul mates are meant to be in your life forever.  Instead of following my heart and holding on to what I loved, I let the relationship grow, develop, and run its course.  It was still painful when it ended, but I was at peace with it when it did.  I learned from Gordon to accept what destiny had to offer, and not try to force my own desire upon it.  I am grateful both men were a part of my life, and even more grateful I was able to experience love despite the abuse I have been exposed to.  Love is a gift everyone should have, even if it is not meant to remain throughout your entire life. 

My second husband entered my life and the time period he was in it nearly destroyed me.  The events which occurred were not all of his making; he was in my life at the time they were presented.  Multiple events marked this period in my life, and I have not fully processed or come to understand it all as of yet.  Evil was a part of this time period, and though I knew evil existed, here it was pervasive on many levels.  This time period would shatter my faith into a million shards, and cause me to denounce the truths I have known for centuries.  I would emerge from this period more broken that I ever had been in my life.  Considering my childhood, that is quite a statement.   I was never as lost as I was then.  Still, I had the gifts in hand I would need to continue in my life.  I was at a pivotal crossroad, and the choices I made at this juncture would determine what was to be the rest of my life.  I am a fighter, but I was a broken fighter so I entered into a cocoon phase.  I had to shield myself from any more pain. 

Yet, my spirit would not be tethered inside a cocoon.  My father-in-law would step up to guide and support me in ways I never could have imagined.  While he was there, I was safe.  Again, my spirit was not left alone to fight the demons in this world; I was presented with the gifts, tools and people I would need to live my life.  I only needed to accept them.  I remained in my cocoon for quite some time.  The damage from the previous years was great.  While I was safe in my cocoon, it was also an empty and lonely place to be.  You cannot live your live inside a cocoon, so instead of living my life, I observed it from the safety of the prison I created for myself.  I wasn’t exactly happy, but I wasn’t in any danger, either.  I built a new life, one I was proud of, but I stayed tucked neatly in my cocoon.  I forgot who I was.  Destiny stepped in again to drag me out of my prison.

Destiny is not something who appreciates being turned away when she comes knocking.  She has a way of getting in no matter how many times you tell her no one is home!  Over the last couple of years, strange things have been presented in my life.  Pivotal markers in my life were being relived and presented to me in the same order I already lived them, but as a record speed.  Friends who had not been in my life, returned in the order they had been presented decades earlier.  Jobs I had worked at, and the people I worked with again returned in the order I had already lived them.  It was a very strange Deja-Vu in the very real here and now.  It was Destiny’s way of reminding me who I was and I needed to get back to me!  One friend, Karen, returned to remind me of the deeply spiritual person I used to be.  I needed to reconnect with it.

In the space of just over a year, I lived many years all over again.  I lived it again without the pain and stress previously experienced.  It really was just a way for me to remember who I was and to allow me to get back to it.  I may have been broken, but I was not destroyed.  Though I had denounced my faith, my faith had never denounced me.  It was always there, waiting patiently for me to remember.  Evil can do a remarkable amount of damage, but it cannot destroy good if there is even a glimmer of it remaining.  Reliving my life reminded me I had a path to fulfilled, a destiny of my own I needed to realize.  And that brings me to the present. 

Facebook is a remarkable beast.  I have nearly 500 friends, maybe a hundred of which I actually know.  Of those hundred, there are a handful I routinely talk to.  Of the 400 people I added to play a game with, there were a few people I connected with on a spiritual level that defies logic.  I know these people from a previous life, and here I get to reconnect with them again!  Facebook put into motion the next step of my journey, one I never imagined I would embrace.  One such kindred spirit is Rachel.

Rachel and I first started talking because I was having an exceptionally bad spell of asthma.  My daily status updates were the color of my skin, indicating how difficult the day was for my ability to breathe.  She was amused at my ability to laugh about it, considering she knew all too well the suffering my humor was mitigating.  She has suffered with breathing difficulties as well.  We talked about our shared condition, but each of us sensed something much deeper.  We finished each other’s thoughts and sentences.  We share similar experiences in our lives, though the details and outcomes were quite different.  She is young enough to be my daughter’s age, yet there are people who are in your life and physical age is not an issue.  It would seem our souls are the same age.  About a year ago, I was talking to her when I had one of my “visions.”  It is like a tape recorder that suddenly goes off in my head, showing my pictures of the past, present and future.  Since we have the gift of free choice, my visions do not show a definite future, only a possible one.  It showed me living with Rachel.

I dismissed it as ridiculous since I would never leave my girls, and I didn’t have the resources to make such a move.  Rachel doesn’t have the resources to carry me, either.  I had these visions several more times over the last year, and I always dismissed them.  It simply was not feasible, and I would never leave my children, though they were grown.  I never mentioned these visions to anyone.  Meanwhile, Rachel was having premonitions of her own.  A few months back, she mentioned to her husband I would be coming to live with them.  She didn’t mention this to me, either.  I continued to struggle to look for work, with nothing opening up.  I was growing increasingly restless for change.  I knew a big change was coming, but I did not know what form it would be.  I also felt whatever the “something big” was, it was going to be wonderful for me.

Destiny was getting tired of waiting for me to take the initiative.    So she did, in the only way she knew how.  She set into motion the events, resources and means for me to move.  She did it in the space of about 48 hours!  When Destiny kicks into gear, you either ride along or get run over!  I’m in for the ride.  This is one of those defining, pivotal events in my life.  I am profoundly sad at the prospect of losing my life here.  Everything I have ever known in my entire life is here.  For the first time in my life, I had made a life that was good.  I had a nice place to live, furnished with all nice things I purchased myself.  I made a life I was proud of.  I had lost everything I owned when my marriages failed, and had to start a new life all over.  Twice!  I started all over twice before!  I never imagined there would be a third time.  I am 48 years old and packing up what little I can take and moving across the nation to start over in a place I never imagined, with people I have never met, and without my precious daughters. 

Had you told me two weeks ago I would be doing this, I would have told you it was crazy!  Yet, here I am.  Destiny has provided me with the motivation to go by forcing me out of the apartment I have now.  She has provided me with enough financial resources I can get there if I spit in the gas tank, and she has provided me with job opportunities but most of all, there is Rachel.  I don’t know why I am supposed to go to her, but I am certain I am.  The reasons will unfold in their own time, the important thing to recognize is everything has been put into place; I just need the courage to follow through.  I am peaceful and calm with leaving here.  I know it is what I must do.  This is called faith.  I have faith if I follow the course set out for me, everything will work out as it should.  Already the wheels of faith have found a life of their own!  Excitement is in the air and it is growing by the minute.  I am being connected with people who will help through this enormous life event, and it would seem this has become a steam engine train unable to stop if I wanted it to.  I don’t.

The next weeks and months will be a mountain of conflicting emotions and challenges.  I will not face them alone.  I will have everything within my reach to provide for what I might need.  I am terrified, nervous, and immeasurably sad for this life I am leaving, for the children I will miss.  I know I must go to Arizona, not just to be with Rachel, but for an integral piece of growth for my spirit.  My children need me to leave as well, so they too can grow. I can’t explain why I know my children need me to go, but I do.   It won’t be easy for any of us.  At the same time, I can’t remember the last time I was this excited!  I am fully out of my cocoon and ready for the next stage of my life.  I feel the same grief and fear I did when I left my first husband and entered The Battered Women’s Shelter, but there are huge differences.  This time I am leaving of choice, to follow a path I am meant to travel.  This time I am leaving with resources by my side to help me on my way.  This time I am leaving with a destination in mind.  This time I will be leaving surrounded by love, and the support of those who love me.  This time I am being warmly welcomed when I reach my destination. 

Destiny has opened the door and I am wise to walk through it.  For every ending, there is a new beginning.  My life as I knew it has come to an end.  My life as it is meant to be has only just begun.  I even have a new song to sing as I set out...I'm on the Edge of Glory!  I couldn't have said it better myself!

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