The need for the illusion

 It has been  a  emotional week,  my slave re started the Betties and she had their first meeting in over a year. We received our final check  in  the foreclosure so now  the old house is behind us and in  five years we are going to be able to  get a mortgage and come off of the real estate contract. I am  caught up on homework  for the week.  I have been  approved to  CNM for my last semester and am  waiting to hear back  about financial  aid. The bills are paid, the horses are eating  and we have food and heat.

I am reminded of all  of our multiple  blessings not just because I am grateful  for them, and give thanks,  but because I received a call  from my Mom  a few weeks back. I followed up  with her this week.  My sister is in  trouble of the legal  kind. Not usual for our family- we tend to  err on  the  side of not going to  jail. The sad thing is that she is in  trouble because she can’t see that the only way out is to  change.

Part of this is her mental  illness- but part of this is the old fashioned ghosts that follow us all- the universal  human experience of  “it will get better. It will change. I can do this. I CAN MAKE THIS  BETER. If I am Better IT WILL BE DIFFERENT.”

How many of us have stayed in  relationships far too  long, tolerated abuse,  stayed in  jobs,  living arrangements, activities,  or groups way beyond what was healthy for us because we needed to  see it for what we wanted it to  be instead of what it really was.

We kept the  veil of illusion  over the starkness of the   reality because seeing what was real  was to  painful, to  dis-empowering, to  scary, to  unthinkable. 

The need for the illusion  is so powerful  that everything else falls by the wayside. Self care, dreams,  goals, desires-  it is as if the illusion  is an  addiction, and it draws our very lives from  us.

I know a little of what I am  talking about here.  My first marriage lasted 4.5 years.  I was dedicated to  the illusion that we could make it work. 

During that time I continued to go  to  school (which  I attribute only to us not living together) but I gave up  horses, my sense of safety, my sense of self,  my ability to  define my own  needs and desires, and my ability to  tell  right from  wrong. I believed so  strongly in  her that when  she would lie,  steal, or otherwise  “press the boundaries of the law”

I would justify it, ignore it, or refuse to believe  that it had happened. Even when it did happen right  in front of  my own eyes and ears. I really needed to  believe that  I couldn’t possibly be married to  someone that would do those things.  The illusion  of her, of us,  was so much  more important than the reality. I did everything that I could to protect that.  In the end  no  one could make me see the reality- I had to  see it for myself. 

When I had moved on in  life and my slave and I bought our first house we  stayed for four years because of  the illusion of being able to  make it work. The thought that I had just made that big of a mistake was unthinkable. That I had bought a house that couldn't support us and I couldn't afford,it was a rollercoaster that I was strapped into  by my own  need to believe that there was no  way I could have been  that stupid. I thought I could do  whatever it took  to salvage it.  In  the process I gave up  my degree,  the goal of having children, and my retirement was sucked dangerously dry. I had to  believe that the illusion  was real because the other was beyond all  comprehension.

 And then  it happens, the place of transition where decisions need to  be made,  the relationship  reaches critical  mass,  the  house is not  longer viable,  the job, living situation, the place where you put in  your extra time- it cracks and crumbles. 

It does so  in a way that even if you  try to  catch it, the ashes cling to your fingers as the bricks fall.  It is  addiction,  the place of relapse or the place of moving on, and no  matter what decision  is made -  the person, place, thing, and you are never the same.

And then  sometime after it is all  said and done-   sometimes weeks,  months,  years-  sometimes when it is all passed- you look back  and wonder-  was that me? 

My mother used to  say-  the one thing that you can  always guarantee is that  “it” will change. 

My sister  will never be able to  see that by choosing not to change it will  not get better. 

I am not saying that I am  better then  her or smarter or anything like that. I am saying that I was lucky that my illusion  revealed itself before we were homeless or worse.

We all  carry illusions,  we need them  to make our lives work. But there is that point where the illusion  steals the you  from  you. Where the illusion becomes so deeply engrained that it deceives you into thinking that  it is the reality. 

All  the while something is gnawing at you from  the inside out-  that little voice in  your head, that small flame of the self  or of doubt that shows itself in between  illusions. It is there. Waiting.

I think  that what I am  trying to  say is that change hurts deep,  it is terrifying,  it is sometimes  unthinkable-   

  

-- still  the power of change  marches on. 

Embrace it if you can. 

And if you can’t- just know that you are not alone. Your  feelings of fear, anger,  terror, hopelessness and dis empowerment they are in  all of us at one time or another. And yes-  they will change.