I would like to add to my last post I feel its just as important to acknowledge healing and recovery, a difficult and at times a daunting journey, but one worth fighting for and equally worth speaking about to give encouragement and hope to those who need it in order to say goodbye to the past
"I hold the key of power" he taunted, he knew her weakness, her wound.
Looking at the key in his hand, at him with sad eyes, a sadness of heart for one who appeared so weak and powerless before her.
She remembered the key, the rust that fell as she opened the door so many years ago, yet that was past, she knew this beyond a doubt. Held gently within her hand was a key she had found in that room.
She had explored there, examined, reassessed her place in this world and smiling she remembered the healing that took place within that space then, turning in peace, walked away with the key to her future.
A woman leaving that space holding the hand of the small child; merging into one as they walk through the door.
Edna St. Vincent Millay - Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see... Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
"You keep it" She smiled,for she knew she had no need for it any longer
AFTER A WHILE
After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child
And you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
that you really are strong
and that you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
with every goodbye you learn...
©1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall
