Bully

I have been bullied.
There is some one in my life who torments me almost constantly; the harsh hurtful words of this person ring in my ears endlessly. When ever I express any amount of weakness or struggle I find myself the recipient of hate; a hate so violent and intrusive that I have learned to grow around it. This hate, and the words it spreads, have become such a normal part of my life that they have grown roots into my core. I believe it, the things this bully tells me. I am too sensitive, I am weak, I am a cry baby, I am ugly and un-loveable, I don't deserve help, I made myself this way, I'm fat, nothing looks good on me, I am helpless, I can't do anything right, my kids deserve better than me, I bring everyone down...this is just the beginning of the list of things I hear. The hardest part is I can't seem to find a way out. The tormenting never stops. I can't even try to talk about this issue without fear of what I'll hear.

I am sure that if you are reading this you are getting concerned for my wellbeing; some days I too fear for myself. The problem is, I can't escape this bully because the bully is me. I am my worst tormenter, I have myself captive and no matter how hard I fight it I can't seem to get away,
because everywhere I go . . . there I am.

Some things you just can't know

I read a book recently called "So B. It" by Sara Weeks and there is this great quote that kind of sums up how I've been feeling lately about the ache to "know" something.

"If truth was a crayon and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it - dinosaur skin. I used to think with out really thinking that I knew what color that was. But that was long ago, before I knew what I know now about both dinosaur skin and the truth.

"The fact is that you can't tell squat about the color of an animal just from looking at it's bones, so nobody knows for sure what color dinosaurs really were. For years I looked at pictures of them, trusting that whoever was in charge of coloring them in was doing it based on scientific fact, but the truth is they were only guessing...

"Another thing I found out right about that same time is that not knowing something doesn't mean you're stupid. All it means is that there's still room left to wonder. For instance about dinosaurs - were they the same color as the sky..? Or were they maybe the same shade of brown as the dust..?

"I'd be lying if I said that given a choice, I wouldn't rather know than not know. But there are some things in life you can just know for no good reason other than you do, and then there are other things that no matter how badly you want to know them, you just can't.

"The truth is, whether you know something or not doesn't change what was. If dinosaurs were blue, they were blue; if they were brown, they were brown whether anybody ever knows it for a fact or not."


This really resonates with me. I really like the idea that whether you know something or not doesn't change what actually is.
Like if there is a god out there, my believing or not believing doesn't change what is.
Somehow I find it comforting to realize that there really are some things that no matter how hard I want to know, I can't ever really be sure. Like dinosaur skin, or god, or what my life would be like today if something had been different when I was a child. Of course I still wonder and day dream about these things...but some how the ache to "know" has been a bit tempered with this realization.

there are some things you just can't know.