I can't believe that this is happening. I never believed it could. Not really. I'd dream, and dream, and dream about one day, but I didn't think it could happen for us. I really didn't. It was like I'd hate myself for dreaming about it 'cause it's a crazy dream to think that we could have our own home, or that we could be safe, or that I could have beauty around me, or that I could just be me without getting in trouble for being happy or doing the things I want to do in life. At the same time, I'd tell myself over and over again that one day, one day, one day... Determined that I was going to do my best, 'cause that is all that I can do, is to try and hope and dream and in the years after I left the X, as my little dreams started coming true, it was like, fuck, my dreams are possible.
I'm a simple girl, I'm pretty content as a person. I don't want fancy furniture (other than what I can make myself or something second-hand that I can doody-up). I don't want a high paying job (even though that would be nice). I don't want alot, just to be, just to live in peace and safety and tranquility and create as much beauty and tranquility all around me. I don't want fame (fuck no), or fortune really (although fortune would be nice lol). I just want to enjoy my babies whilst they are growing up in our own home, do my art, study, get an ok paying job or ultimately run my own business (one that is ok paying), play music, study hard, work hard, dance, garden, fix up things people chuck out (and make them into awesome beautiful/practical things that can be reused, and just live. Probably to other people that sounds lame, like I've known people in the past who've told me that I'm reaching low, way too fucking low, man, I could do anything. And I'm getting to the point where I'm really realizing that I could do almost anything, but what I want to do is the above.
Things that are so simple and insignificant to others is magical and amazing to me. What other people take for granted, I hold onto for life and sometimes have been like a drowning man clutching at straws or a starving man eating from a garbage bin. I cherish the blue sky so much, so many years living in an almost perpetual darkness, no light inside the house, constantly dark and overbearing. The roses that bloom in spring, so many roses everywhere, that when I first moved here, I had many evil thoughts of stealing the roses from people's gardens (but never did it 'cause I didn't want to make the people who planted the roses to be sad). I felt like I was starving, starving for life, starving to just breathe the fresh air without three layers of black mesh in front of my mouth.
Desperately watching tv non-stop (at one point it was literally 10 hours a day of tv) 'cause it was all so new, so amazing, so beautiful, who knew that people could be so creative as to make such amazing shows, that people had so much humour, that people could be so artistic, so intelligent as to piece a movie from beginning to end. The emotions in tv, in music, that made me soar and cry and laugh. So much so fast. Walking outside without the layers of clothing was both exhilarating and felt like I was naked. Interacting with so many people at TAFE and university, so many different opinions, so many different ways of life, so many amazing and beautiful people, sad people, happy people. Learning, learning, learning.
Books, so many books, on topics I loved, feel like I'm in heaven every single time I walk into a book shop or library. I didn't know that there were books on almost any topic. I would borrow the maximum amount I could borrow on my card and my kids cards (15 books per card) and would read them all and return them the next week to borrow another lot. History of the vampire myths, parenting books, books on DIY stuff, books on the Kabalah, on child brain development, books on drugs and books on witchcraft, books on the tsars of russia, books on the history of south africa, anthropological studies, so many books on religion and philosophy, books on OCD (which really helped me overcome the worst of my OCD), books on escaping domestic violence, on fashion, on the female reproductive system, on ancient cultures/civilisation, erotica (women get enjoyment out of sex too
), on how to masturbate, on sexuality and sexual identity. How could there be so many books in the world?
Slowly over time, my starvation for life, for living has been slowly been filled, so I'm not so desperate as I was, but I still feel like a starving man, I still find myself amazed many times a day at all these things that other people take for granted, I still find myself in awe of this world so fucking hidden from me for so many years. Personally I find most people to be sorta odd in that they find things like getting excited when I buy new deodourant to be weird (lesson of the day, don't fucking tell people how beautiful the deordourant bottle is or they will look at you like you've lost the plot). Or when I talk breathing in to make me sound like I'm in my 100s to be so much fucking FUN!
Or when the kids and I dance in the lounge room together, it satisfies me so deeply. Or when it snows I get so friggin' excited and dance down the street whilst people turn and stare. Or when I watch my children sleep I feel so mesmerized, their faces are so peaceful, so relaxed and I wonder what they are dreaming about when their eyelids start to flutter in REM sleep. Or when I do my art, it's like this fantastic challenge that digs so deep within that it's like my emotions are coming out on the canvas.
Life is amazing, it's painful, it's cruel, but it's also magical and beautiful. How have I gotten to this place? I wonder how many rocky paths I've got ahead of me, but with getting through what I've gotten through to date, I know that I can get through anything, life takes guts to live through. How are my dreams coming to life? Is it the fact that the shackles of darkness and imprisonment and repression of so many years have been coming off? Is it that my eyes have finally adjusted to this new world and the light doesn't hurt my eyes so much? I just can't understand how so many good things have happened to me in my life.
Like I didn't think I would ever escape my X or my family. I didn't think I would ever get to eat the sort of food I like, even Aussie food (like vegemite sandwiches). I didn't think I would ever get to have air in my hair, or tattoos, or get to have my own plants that I get to nurture and watch baby flower buds reach to the light. I didn't think I would get to just live with my children in safety, in fact I never thought I'd make it out safety, thought I'd end up dying in the process, but I was going to make the leap even if it killed me. I never thought I'd get to do my art, never thought I'd get to use paint on my hands, the beautiful evidence of my art-work all over my art-shirt and in my hair and on my face and arms. Never thought I'd get to write, write, write as much as I want about how I feel and think. Never thought I'd make it this far. I thought it was just a dream, a silly foolish dream that I kept going 'cause if I didn't have something to dream then I would give up, give up and lay down and die.
Why am I so lucky to get to have my babies with me, safe, with every day having wonderful "small" joys (that are big to me) amongst the not-so happy moments? Every day, every day is one more step on my journey. Travail through the sorrows, through the nightmares, through the flashbacks and dissociation, 'cause there are so many joys to be found, small mercies, hidden amongst the boulders, and the boulders have seemed to have gotten less over the years, so that it's not constant boulders with the rare mercy, but rather now it's many boulders with many mercies.
I don't think any of them ever thought I could be happy, that I could have even a quarter of these joys, these mercies, or beauty in my life. Laughter. Freedom. Safety. Tranquility. Peace. Hope. Joy. Life.
Sometimes I've wondered, thought that maybe I'm really back with my X and have gone totally mentally insane and have hallucinated this life I have now, it seems too good. I've wondered to myself over and over again over the years, how on earth can my life be this good? How come it keeps getting better slowly over time? How on earth did I escape? How come I'm not still back there? How come I get to live in an apartment with my children with a telly and music and dvds and plants and paint and story books to read to them? I don't feel like I will ever be good enough to deserve all of this, to deserve to get to just be, to get to eat whatever I want, or that I get to live in safety without getting hit, that I get to have sunlight streaming through the windows, that I get go outside the house when I want, that I get to have friends, real friends, not people who I have to be friends with 'cause someone else tells me that this woman you can be friends with but not that woman.
I feel so incredibly humbled and in awe at the journey I've made. I can't understand, I look back at that woman who lived back there, and see a ghost of me now, how did that ghost get to here today. I'm humbled and awed that I get to just be, to live here, to not have to cower in fear every day when hearing certain footsteps, 'cause we are safe, we are free, we get to dance, we get sing, we get to get our own home.
I get to fly.
Topic: Broken Birdie Flying - Blog of this Ex-Muslim