“My dear, why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can’t you get it the first time?” ~ Maya Angelou
Wonderful question, in hindsight.
Another example of history repeating itself. But, just as we live through what others have already experienced, we did not experience it ourselves so we have to have our own experience…
Why do we have to learn lessons the hard way? Why must they literally smack us, shove us, and rub our noses in harsh reality before we comprehend them?
Stubbornness? Self-doubt? Conditioning? Good girls forgive; turn the other cheek; sacrifice their happiness for that of others; stay small, quiet, submissive…
Do we hold onto hope that our fears will be proven wrong? Repeat the cycle of pain we’ve experienced since childhood, hoping to re-write history? “I am not going to change, Mommy, Daddy, until you treat me differently when I was six years old.”
But that’s not going to happen, is it? We cannot go back in time. All we can do is change our circumstances in the present moment.
So if, in your present moment, your abusive partner tells you he doesn’t love you, believe him. Don’t wait for the 29th, 100th, 1000th, 2067th time. Believe him…the first time.
If he says he doesn’t think you deserve to be treated respectfully; that you’re a disappointment; that it was a mistake to get involved with you; that he’s seeing someone else; that he has other women waiting for him…believe him.
Not because you DON’T deserve to be treated as a worthy partner, but because he’s showing you, telling you who he really is. You may not be able to erase the time you’ve already spent with him, but what you can do is turn the page, grab a pen, and write a new moment, a new beginning, a different ending.
Reclaim yourself. Put up a barrier, so that when he opens his mouth to desecrate your unique divinity, his words fall apart in mid-air and the letters fall scattered to the ground, where they will be trampled upon as you walk away…pushing them into the dirt; a burial. In the dirt, where his words belong. Along the dirt path, until you reach the new.