Time for Change

I went for a walk early this morning. The air was crisp and it was peaceful. The colors on the trees are changing. Autumn is here.

Living in the Rocky Mountains, I get to see the seasons change and usually the change is abrupt. It seems, one day the sun is radiating the warmth of summer and the next, the cold front has moved in and altered the landscape. It always takes me by surprise, as if I was holding on too tightly to summer and didn't want to let it go.

I think that is how a lot of my life is. Especially now. My world has changed and yet, somehow, I feel reluctant to change with it.

The last five years, my family watched from a distance as I changed. They say the change was abrupt, but to me it came so gradually, that I didn't realize what had happened to me. But I do remember the moment when I realized I no longer knew who was staring back at me in the mirror. The person I saw was hallow, defeated, depressed, and extremely anxious. She was someone who was wrong, who was to blame for all the problems that were happening in her marriage, someone who couldn't do anything right, and someone who felt crazy. I saw no beauty and no confidence.

My old self couldn't believe what she was seeing, but my husband's voice (someone who I trusted and loved and had committed my life to) and actions were in my mind telling me I was broken and needed to be fixed.

I remember trying and trying to do things right. To get it right. To make my husband happy. I complied with all his demands, yet he still said it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I couldn't earn enough money. I couldn't keep my temper under control enough. I wasn't meek enough. I didn't honor my husband the way a wife should. I didn't listen and obey him enough. I didn't keep the house clean enough. I wasn't responsible enough. I wasn't thin enough (and yes he did say that outright! I also didn't have big enough boobs--he would have preferred DD to my smallish B's). He wanted me to be the 'Madonna and the whore'--meaning the trophy wife, mother, career woman, housekeeper, pious spiritual giant AND a slut, stripper, swinger, bi-sexual, porn star.

I will admit, I could never be both extremes and that was a problem. I also do have a temper and, like a child, threw a few tantrums. But I was always trying to be better. To be different. To be more of what he wanted.

Now, being away from the abuse, I see things differently. I see my old self emerging--slowly. But I find myself resisting the change. I know it's changes for the better, but I still have the voice in the back of my head saying 'you are broken and need to be fixed'.