Ouch, Ouch, Ouch,!!!!!!........

I have written the last couple of days some how 9/11 hit me deeply, and the remembering of it so fully this year hit a little deeper......and then it led to thinking of the amount of pain there is to carry in this world....and perhaps also thinking of it in terms of my own lifetime.....thinking what the last 50 years has handed me, the grief, the challenges, the pain......both on a global scale, and in my own life.......and I think maybe that is what I struggle with sometimes.....all of the pain I was handed that didn't really belong to me....knowing so fully that I allowed that often........I am not innocent.....I created space for it....also I don't consider myself a victim......I do however feel victimized in certain stories and places, especially with what was left in the wake of it all.....and most days those places feel more than healed over....the skin scarred but fully closed, fading each and every day......but every once in awhile I brush up against it, and it feels tender.......like ouch.......and I think the last few days has been feeling some of that......like why would they do that??? and "they" unfortunately holds several names....ones that walked in different parts of my life......and I saw a reel that hit in a powerful way the other day......it said "you knew you were really in love when you don't hate the person that broke your heart".......AHHH........that is so true, and I can apply that to a few places.....and the truth is no hate, no venom, no vengeance lives in me.....in fact wishing them all well is what lives inside of me......a place that wishes for them a change in direction.......a story moving in a different way......not repeating the same stories they have lived over and over......the one that hurt me.....I pray they change their heart, and soul, and find a new way in this life.......just as I have, living with healthier clarity.....I may never understand why all I experienced was done to me, not being a perfect person, at all, but being a super loving person, kind, and not a person deserving of what has found me.....and I suppose I have been thinking of that too....thank goodness that was my overreaching belief right??? That I didn't deserve all that came to find me.....because if I had felt I had, yikes:( That would have changed the whole story.....but I think marriage counseling taught me that.....I made all the changes, did the things that were supposedly my role in the infidelity story we were now living in, and he still was deceiving me and left....and now in the aftermath, and observing the story unfold the "whys" are clear and it wasn't because of me....not in a real sense, and then I learned so fully that people do what they do because of them.....that is true.....most projections, some wounds, and so much else......but I can honestly say, that as hurt and horrified as I have been by the people I have loved, people I felt were MY people, and the hurt I have held from them, I realized that I did really love them......because I could never return to them what was handed to me.......that is my power......how I respond.....high road is my road, and the one my faith calls me to, and meeting ugliness with more ugliness doesn't solve anything.....and it only adds to the muck......the people that have hurt me in this life remain in a quiet prayer in my heart.....a prayer that hopes they alchemize the pain in them, that caused the pain they inflicted onto me.....and when it gets too intense or I feel those deep wounds, and get up in the "how dare you" space......I remind myself of that....healthy and healed people don't harm others.....that isn't how it works.....so whatever wounds they wrestled with caused me to become collateral damage in their own war, and it was due to my own pain, my own demons that placed me in those stories, my own dysfunctional patterns, finding a stage to play themselves out on......and I understand that now too so completely....I wasn't protecting myself either.....and I got complacent in my marriage, and became somebody I no longer recognized.......and so much of so much......but the spots have been tender some as of late.....and I am listening to what they are telling me so I can heal further and further......not letting it all fester in the muck.......leading with love, knowing that is THE way.......THE ONLY WAY, and leaning into my overcoming.....I have been asked to do that a lot......overcome and endure.....and I have and will........so my prayer this morning is that those that have broken my heart are living in stories where clarity has found them too, an understanding of where their actions has taken them........and that they are seeking the way out.....you know as I typed that, I had a thought......I suppose in all those stories it was like we all survived some tremendous tragedy together.....not like 9/11 but you get the idea......like a moment of impact, an explosion, and in the aftermath it was up to us how we "got out".......what the "after" story looks like?? And for me........ as the dust and rubble settled, I will always look for the light coming through the darkness, and chase that........using it to find my way OUT........Amen:) Have a great day:)