Letter To My 36 Year Old Self: Love For 30 Project

If you are interested in Joining the Love or 30 Project, please email me and I will give you all of the details to guest post. Mythirtyspot[at]gmail.com.

Photo: Bits of Truth

First I’d like to send my gratitude and love to Erin, the creator of My Thirty Spot for the opportunity to share my experience being in my 30s. What an amazing place for us to honor ourselves in this sacred space in our lives. {Deep and humble bow}

I decided I wanted to do something different with my post. This year has been terribly difficult, in so many ways, grasping at the strings that have held me together for so long. My fingers are tired and crampy from the YEARS of doing all I could to ‘keep it together’. They want to let go, and in doing that… continue the process of unraveling that had begun some time ago. As a way of coping with where I am, I decided to write a letter from the future, to the 36 yr old Kerilyn that is me… now.

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My darling Kerilyn,

I want you to know I see you.

I see how hard you are working.

How hard you have worked to keep yourself and those around you believing that everything was okay. That your world didn’t stop. That you are strong. That you kept your eyes on what was in front of you, not what was behind you. I see the empty smiles, the obsession to be “normal”, to connect with other broken souls and the constant drive to NEVER GIVE UP understanding why life is the way it is. I see how hard you are struggling to LET GO, to not take life so seriously.

I also know how tired you are.

I see how much you are beating yourself up because you can no longer keep yourself at a manageable level that will have most people, loved ones, new friends and old friends, including YOURSELF… from seeing the person you really are inside. A SURVIVOR. *I know you don’t like that word, my dear; but for now, Let’s go with it.

You are a survivor Kerilyn. You have survived.

Yes, I know you believe very strongly that everyone has their own ‘stuff’ to deal with, that you are no different than 99% of the world and their problems, but for ONE SECOND, my dear girl, PLEASE let’s focus on you.

Here you are, about to turn 37 years old, and for the LIFE of you, you cannot figure out why you STILL can’t relax. Why you can’t be happy where you are. Why you’re SO sensitive, emotional…. Dare I say jumpy at the slightest sudden noise or movement. Why you don’t understand why you can’t love your husband the way you’re “supposed” to. Why all that you have accomplished is not good enough.

Well, my love, I’m here to tell you. It’s not going to be easy but I promise you if you can hang on… it’ll be the answer to what you’ve been searching for… for as long as you can consciously remember.

It’s because, as a teenager, you shut off a part of your heart, your soul as a way of coping with the fact that you had NO idea what was happening. I mean, you had NO idea that at 18 yrs old, your first semester in college, that you would be violated and forced to do something you didn’t want to do. Something you didn’t even know could be done. ***Yes, you were naïve, thinking you were invincible, that no one was going to tell you what you could and couldn’t do, doesn’t change the fact that it WASN’T OKAY what he did.

IT WASN’T OKAY KERILYN. YOU HEAR ME?

And then when you reached out and asked for help from an adult, someone whose job it was to help people – you were told it was your fault. That there was nothing you could do.

At that moment, something changed inside you.

You stopped trusting yourself. You numbed out.

You went away.

You knew you had a future ahead of you, so you had to do whatever you had to do to keep it together. You had to go on.

You had to keep moving forward.

So you did.

Like the turkey and it’s stuffing, you tied it all inside you. With strings. Held it in place to make sure nothing would seep out.

From that moment on, things were different. You no longer trusted what you wanted. You thought when you did trust yourself… look where that got you, so you decided to let everyone else decide for you.

The “safe” route.

You vowed to NEVER let yourself be put in a situation where someone could TAKE something so valuable from you again. It wasn’t a conscious decision but an unconscious one.

It was survival.

All you ever wanted was to be successful in your career, not married or a mother… so this experience threw a wrench in your trajectory.

You changed from psychology to Interior Design because you thought you NEVER wanted to be THAT adult, telling that 18 yr old girl that it was her fault, even though that meant abandoning your little girl dream of being a psychologist. You wanted the OPPOSITE of looking inside yourself. So your trajectory became making life look pretty on the outside.

It worked. For a while.

They say lighting never strikes the same place twice.

Not in your case.

You would tell people that there would be NO way that you would forget being raped, even if you were drunk out of your mind. That it’s too traumatic to ever forget. Because you know, first hand.

Watch what you say, I guess.

Your 22 yrs old, showing your roommates male friends that you can be cool too, “normal”…a round of ‘Circle of Death’, in your house, in a new geographic location.

It was vodka, I recall.

You let down your guard.

Innocently going to your room to change the music. You went up there drunk, you came down a changed woman.

Guess you were wrong… you CAN forget being used as a THING….

The whole thing was a blur. Even to this day, you can’t remember everything.

Fuzzy.

Oh how that experience just sealed the deal in your mind.

YOU thought YOU were not to be trusted. I mean, see what happens when you try to be “normal”.

No more. Those days are gone.

You added more strings to keep you held together.

You thought that once you become an ADULT, with a successful career, that life somehow smooths out, that you’ll somehow be on top of it. That you will no longer be at the whim of whoever wants to throw you around.

So you continue on… your eye on the prize.

In your 20’s you did the best you could… dealing with the fact that your career never felt like the right fit. It never felt like your calling. Life confirmed that for you by handing you multiple layoffs and elapsed time unemployed. By the time you were 30, you had 6 jobs. You kept going because honestly, the only thing you really WANTED to do with your life, was no longer an option. A box, sealed and put away in a closet somewhere… collecting cobwebs.

How confusing has it been the intermingling of the dream of a successful career and the dream of finding love/being loved. Both are dreams in your eyes.

Outstretched arm. Out THERE.

You’re career has never felt like the right fit, but neither has love. So they quickly became topics to gauge your self worth against.

And love. Something that you wanted to experience SO badly, that you were RAVENOUS for, but something you just couldn’t understand. How could you want to love someone SO BADLY AND be numb to receiving it at the same time? As I look back on it, it’s no wonder why you never had boyfriends. You sent out mixed signals, DAMAGED signals…probably to keep someone from catching on.

From an early age, you learned to separate your feelings from the physical. It was how you coped. You honestly didn’t even know you were doing it at the time. I mean, how could you? It was a full time job to keep you held together so that it looked like you could handle whatever came your way. Yes, you were highly reactive, highly emotional to sudden change, but you thought it was just a small side effect of the bigger issue at hand.

At 26, you met this man… that TO DATE, has been the ONLY man who has ever told you he’s wanted you. You knew that this would not come around again. You still struggle to understand what IT is that he loves about you. I mean…DOESN’T HE SEE? You we’re thinking he MUST see that part of you is preoccupied with holding yourself together, right?
How those early years together were TERRIFYING to you. How you cried and cried every time he sincerely wanted to make love to you. You couldn’t handle that he did, and found it easy to make something trivial into something earth shattering. Back and forth you’d go, together and apart… because honestly it made you too vulnerable to let him REALLY see. But you knew, deep down, that you would eventually marry him, for he’s the ONLY one who has the endurance to withstand what you’ve been trying so hard to hold together. And you did. But still…

What is her damage? I’m sure he would think…

If he only really knew.

But as you entered your 30s…you began getting tired.

The animal that had been kept at bay for so long had begun getting hungry. Wanted OUT. She wanted to be seen and she wanted to be heard. She wanted to breed. She wanted to multiply. You’re arms and your constantly spinning head were becoming weary.

I know about the question that allows you to acknowledge the animal… even today.

“If you had to name the emotion that lies deepest inside you, what would it be?”

A sense of peace when the word RAGE passes over your lips. RAGE. *Even today it still brings a smile to your face.

The animal… Roaring from within. But you found the strength to keep her quiet, if for a little while longer.

Fast forward.

34 years old, yet another disappointing career let down and the strings that you had been holding onto began to fray. One at a time, they began to reach their capacity. You found yourself at an impasse. You could NO LONGER deny that this was not the right path. You had no more TRY in you. And, after asking this man, now your husband, who knows you so well, what he thought you should do with the rest of your life…he did something that ONLY he could do.

He pulled out the sealed box with your little girl dream in it, out of the closet and handed it to you. He said “You should do what you’ve always wanted to do… help people.”

At that moment, your arms started shaking. You looked down at your hands who were holding on SO tightly.

They were tired, they needed a break.

Maybe.

Maybe it’s time to give a little, maybe it’ll be okay to loosen up your grip.

You decided to try it again, to let down your guard.

Convinced yourself…this time you’ll be safe.

This time you’re not alone.

You open the box.

A game of Red Light Green light begins…

Sometimes it felt like opening that one big gift Christmas morning. GREEN LIGHT GO.

Other times, a gun to your head, being told to give up something that you value so dearly.

No… I don’t want to give this to you. It’s MINE. Please don’t take it from me. RED LIGHT FREEZE.

Back and forth.

You manage. The Pros outweigh the cons.

Your not 18 or 22 years old anymore.

You can do this. You ARE doing this.

Keep going.

‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’, right?

One step at a time.

Fast forward to NOW.

The real reason why I wanted to write and tell you I see all the work you’re doing.

I know your biological clock alarm has been ringing loudly in your ear for a while now. Your body is READY to give life.

I want you to know I see you panicking.

Trying to conceive has awoken the animal that has been manageably contained all these years.

She wants out… and NOW.

I see you being unable to emotionally connect with your husband, more now than ever.

It’s getting worse.

How is that even possible, you ask yourself, you cannot connect to the ONE PERSON who loves you above all?

Especially when you want, SO BADLY, to create something that IS love.

All the years of holding it together are coming undone.

All the work you’ve done to keep the animal captive, is unraveling.

You can’t hold onto the strings AND connect with that inner desire to create life.

In order to GIVE life, you have to accept that a part of yours was taken away.

Not to run from it, to try to hide it. But to look at it.

I’m here to tell you it’s time, Kerilyn.

It’s time to let the animal OUT.

Release her.

The reason why you have been SO emotional, so reactive lately, is you are understanding what you have to do.

And frankly, it’s terrifying you.

It’s okay. You know what is happening and what is going on.

You have to face the animal. You WILL face the animal.

I know that you’re scared. Scared the animal will kill you, will kill those around you.

I assure you it will not.

She just longs to be free.

So do you.

It’s OKAY to want to lock yourself in your house, so no one can see how the strings are falling away. To see ‘the crazy’ , the rage. I mean, what if they run away? You wouldn’t blame anyone if they ran from an animal that’s been held hostage most of it’s life.

I’m REALLY proud of you. Most people have NO idea what you have had to do to hold it together, I am proud that you did what you had to do…. You are here, NOW.

You are ready for this.

Set her free Kerilyn.

All those years of keeping it together have come to this moment.

Please trust me.

The process has already begun. Let go.

And when it’s over… you will see through new eyes, a heart that has healed. To be able to one day look down at your child… thinking this child has NO idea what their mother has been through. Has endured.

Has survived.

Kerilyn currently lives with her husband, in the Washington DC Metro area in VA. As a recently Certified Life Coach, her reconnection to her little girl dream, to help others not feel so alone, to be heard, is in process and she is taking it one step (and one client) at a time. She’s working toward leaving her 9-5 design position permanently, and hopefully (fingers crossed) to become a full time entrepreneur, and a full time mom in 2012. For more than you’ll ever want to know about Kerilyn –
check out her blog http://ancora-imparo.net
Twitter @thisdreamergirl
If you have been sexually assaulted, please reach out. Check out http://rainn.org/