Image by LexnGer via Flickr
How do you know when you are healed?
I’m wounded, fractured, and fragmented, and I have put all the pieces of my self together and congealed them in the same way that the Doctor molded a cast to heal my son’s broken elbow. I have written a book piecing together all the shattered memories of my childhood in a tightly knit and patched up quilt that says, “I’m finally OK. Look. Here’s proof that I am healed. I’m fine. I have forgiven. I have let go. I am finally free.” But have I truly forgiven? How is it possible to forgive those who have ruined you? Am I free? How is it possible to be free of the past that still plagues you, has shaped you, and demands continual articulation?
My favorite line is fr0m “Grey’s Anatomy” when Christina Yang tells Meredith Grey something along the lines of “You know, knowing your problems and dealing with them are two different things.”
I know my problems, and I have faced my ghosts. I have diagnosed myself and have listed my disorders on index cards the same way I listed GRE vocabulary words and their definitions when applying for my Doctorate. I have educated myself, I have separated myself — physically, emotionally. And I have retraced my steps backwards in time, through the woods, over the mountains, across the expanse of the oceans and losses. I have looked at faces that had once been fearful and constant. I have grown, I have wept, and I have aged. I have mothered. And I love in spite of my fears. But I continue to fear, breathing heavily as I trudge through the muck of life’s perpetual capriciousness. She is unworthy of my faith, my loyalty — but it is my obligation to run in her race with blind and tearful misgivings. I will not cower. I will not fail. I will not be like my mothers.
I have intellectualized and rationalized, but the truth is, all that stuff doesn’t go away. The memories stay. The bad, irksome feelings remain and haunt from the silent films that continue to play inside your head — my head. Despite my healing and my dealing, I continue to be broken, patched up and put together by the shaky hands of a neophyte.
When do you know you are healed? How do you know? Or is this an undertaking that can never be mastered by the fractured?
Copyright© 2010 by Marina DelVecchio. All Rights Reserved.
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Marina, your post is so precious and begs an answer. I too have been through that journey of healing and must say that the answer does not lie within myself, nor does it lie within my fractured body. As long as I live in it (this body) I will be haunted by the memories, for that is how our computers (brains) store our days–our moments. It can only do what it was designed to do. But healing can only go so far on our own. That’s why our Creator left a space inside of each of us that only He can fill. He is the Healer, the Resurrection and the Life. Only believe. Cheryl
Cheryl, thanks for reading and commenting on my blog. Yours is a response I had not expected. Yours words calmed me and reminded me how I had dealt with all of it as a child; back then I relied on my faith. It’s definitely something to think about since so much of life is out of my hands and control. Thank you for your thoughtful insights.