Dear Jil
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard ringing phrases in your ear. You know, words that just keep looping in the ears, repeating themselves over and over again.
As I thought on what to share with you this weekend the words of an African proverb kept ringing in my ears. The proverb says in essence that the market is shutting down and the sellers must pack their wares and go home. As I ruminated over the strangeness of those words, looking for contextual connectivity this interpretation came to my heart.
There’s an issue you’ve been carrying in your heart for years now – a relationship issue. Perhaps you had a breakup of a long standing relationship; you feel you wasted your years- you’re full of regrets. Or you went through a divorce last year or some years back. Your marriage crashed, after years of mental agony. Or you got pregnant for someone who then turned around and repudiated responsibility, amazingly! Or you got pregnant for someone you thought you were exclusive with only to discover otherwise. Or you got pregnant, and while he acknowledged paternity he then broke up with you. Or you got pregnant for someone who confusingly accepts biologic consequence but repudiates responsibility for your state! Or you got pregnant for someone who made promises, but who then vacated the promises and vacated your life.
You’ve been dealing with pain and anger, self recrimination and bitterness. You habour tears of anger, beneath your surface. Your eyes get wet when you think about your treatment and sequence of events. You feel like crying but the tears will not form in significant quantities. Sometimes you swallow the saliva of impotence. And sometimes the lava finds a crack and you lash out. You don’t mean to, but you can’t help it and you don’t care.
You’ve been rolling over the issue in your heart’s mind, from year to year, like a perpetual fixed deposit. You can’t seem to let go of the cocktail of pain and anger. Can’t let go, even after so many years.
Surprisingly some people have judged you without knowing the facts; without even hearing your side of the story. You’re been castigated by the pernicious, the haters… And so you want justification. You keep replaying your justification in your head. You keep arguing with invisible accusers who are real but not real. There’s no one to engage. Your accusers prefer to diss you out of accessible context behind your back. They won’t confront you to give you an opportunity to state your case. Cowards they are!
That puts you in a limbo of some sort, a gluey viscousity- a medium in slow motion that can’t really hit whatever it is. You’re in this suspended animated state of existing, not moving forward though the years carry you by. You sense the busybodies condemning you don’t actually want the facts. And how many will you explain to? And how many have you explained to? They listen to you but it’s just fodder for gist.
You sense they’re not really for you, that you’re not getting through and it feels weird. Even your so called “friends” joined the circus of highwire condemnation. They bounced your history with them. And the people you expect will stand up for you have become political, ducking support. And your ex? He keeps playing to the gallery, with subtlety instigating the court of public opinion against you……feeding lies and misleading half truths to the republic of haters. He is now the victim! It’s a vindictive PR war.
Your traducers have found a common cause. They are now a federation, though ordinarily they have nothing in common. It’s a mixed multitude out there- the envious, the contemnors, the scornful, the haters, the malicious, the grudge bearers… The real pain for you, the nagging pain is a strange denial of opportunity to state your case. And so you keep addressing people in your heart, talking to imaginary people, trying to convince enemies who laugh at you.
Like a barrister in a law court you’ve been making your case every waking moment, walking through the aisles of facticity. If you pause to think you’ll realise this argument, this justification exercise has been going on for years!
Even when you’ve moved on the federation keeps dragging you back, to answer unending charges. Silent accusations- like a grey atmosphere is hanging over you, is all around you, inside your head. And when you did get a chance to state your case to one of them every answer you gave generated additional accusation.
The truth is, you’re wasting your time with the mixed multitude – the federation of accusers and traducers. You’ll never get the justification you want, the justification you deserve. These people know the truth in their heart. They just choose to take a stand against you. It’s malice aforethought.
And you wonder: Where were all these people in your years of suffering?! They had turned a blind eye to the obvious. The fact is, some are actually projecting their problems unto you. People with relationship issues sometimes do that. And it can be jealousy at play. You can’t understand jealousy. You just accept it. Jealousy is not a rational emotion. You can’t counter jealousy with facts. That’s like stirring a large pot of soup with a screwdriver.
Some hate you because you had prison break- you courageously broke out of your situation. They’re stuck! And if you’ve moved on and now have a wonderful relationship or marriage they view you like you got away with murder. Deliverance is not celebrated by all. Neither is progress. Stop seeking justification from unjust men. It is God that justifies.
Shut down the stalls. Don’t ever discuss the issue again. Not even with your friends. The market is over. Only make sure you’re a good mother to your kid(s). That you can’t compromise. But it’s time to totally put the past behind you, to truly move on. Shut the stalls of attempted justification for life. If you want the wound to heal stop peeling at the scab.
The more you talk about it the fresher it becomes, like a pain from just yesterday. If you’re not careful it will go on for life. Witness how old people still talk with bitterness about a painful divorce. You don’t owe any one of them an explanation on your life. You only owe your God and God is NOT condemning you. Let bygones be bygones. Stop meditating on the issue, seeking how to even the score.
Sometimes we have unblemished visions of our lives- no breakups, no divorce, no child out of wedlock… Our pain is sometimes the fact that this vision became blemished, turning us into subject headers of discussions. Sometimes the very fact we’re being discussed brings pain. Until this incident you didn’t know how private you were.
Let it go. Let him go. Let her go. Stop discussing him. Stop discussing her- what he did to you, what she did to you. You’ve got to learn to let go of hurts in life, or you’ll become petty, mean, stubborn, hard, sensitive and vindictive. I wish you love, and I wish you all the happiness you deserve.
Your mentor, LA
©Leke Alder2014