No Longer Broken

I can't believe the year is almost over. I've been reading other writers' blogs this past week and admiring their new years resolutions and thought of my own resolutions this year--big, lofty goals, some I attained, some I came nowhere near getting to--and decided that for 2013, I am going to focus my attentions elsewhere. I will still write and hope to interest a publisher in picking up my novel, A House Made of Stars, but more so, my goals are going to be to focus on my family.

As most of you who regularly follow my blog know, the end of this year has been exceptionally difficult as I had to say good bye to one of my family members here and in the following blog posts. It was a hard decision, but more and more, I am seeing how necessary it was, not only for the protection of me and my family, but for me to find out something about myself--that I can be strong, that I can stand up, that I can say no.

It was necessary, too, for me to help other people who need it. If I am going to be strong enough to help someone in the same situation I was in, I had to have been strong enough to pull myself out of it. And I'm not going to lie--it was terrifying. I had never stood up to this person before and there were repercussions, ones I didn't want. This person has such power in the household that everyone still living there does what he wishes, even if that means never speaking to me again.

But one person still stands in that household, one person who has always been a shining example to me on what it means to be a strong woman (this person is also the inspiration for one of my favorite characters in A House Made of Stars). And she is being crushed for standing with me, and it hurts my heart when she calls me and tells me things that are going on over there.

But I am standing up for her, too. She is coming to stay with us for a while and then will be leaving that house for good. She will be free, and I can't wait to hold her close and build back up everything they have torn down in her. I want to show her that this person doesn't have the power to bring her down. I want to show her that she is strong--stronger than I ever was.

When I had gone back to read old diaries in preparation for writing A House Made of Stars, it had spawned recurring nightmares that would intensify every day that I wrote the book. They came every night, sometimes several times a night, especially when I was deciding to break things off from this person. It was exhausting, both for me and my husband, but my husband would always wake me up and ask me what I had dreamt, then holding me close, so that my head was on his chest, he would pet my head as I would go back to sleep.

We thought of ways I could pull myself out of my dreams. I didn't know how to do this except by crying out and jolting myself awake, but as these dreams came back, I would recognize them, and he would tell me to take control of it. While I never could control the dreams, the dreams themselves seemed to change as more time passed.

My most recent one is one that has stayed in my mind for days. At first, it was the same as all my other dreams. This person was on a rampage in the house and I was trapped. I was young and afraid and still felt this choking fear in my dream. He saw me, and this made him angrier. When he started to come for me, I tried to wake myself up before he could get to me.

But I couldn't scream. I couldn't wake up. So he came closer. Something was in his way, a shiny, wooden globe I had never seen before, and he picked it up and tried to break it.

But it didn't break. And this made him angrier and he tried again. It still didn't break.

When I woke up in the morning, I remembered it, and when I told my husband about it, I realized how different this dream was from the ones where things did break, where he hurt me and my family.

He can't break me anymore.

And when I see the woman who has showed me what it is to be strong, I will show her that he can't break her anymore, either.