40

today, one of my mentors said to me "have you thought of blogging about your experiences and thoughts?" I smiled, for I have been blogging on and off since I was 20 years old. about seven years now, but more seriously in the past year and a half. Not only that, I had brought with me my last blog post on the war in my life. He was hearing my heart ache today and suggested that this would be a good topic to write about. So here I am, with a broken heart, a heavy heart and with tears in my eyes.

I feel so very alone these days. Physically I am not alone - I live with five other adults, two 18mth old twins and my beloved cat. People frequent Camino House and I am involved in various volunteer work and communities. This morning I spent at the drop in for homeless and at risk persons and had a particularly wonderful and warm time there. With the thanksgiving holiday and my being sick, it had been a few weeks since I was there. Plus the chef whom I love and is my hero has been away and it was her first day back in several weeks. So it was kind of a joyful reunion. I've spent the whole day in fact in conversation with people and this is my first moment of the day physically alone.

I have wonderful friends too. I'm enjoying my new community and developing friendships. I have friends and family members who have journeyed with me over the past 6 and a half (and beyond). I am blessed. Not everyone has such a wonderful community as I do and I am truly thankful for this.

But at this phase in my life, I feel terribly alone.

Let me explain.

My heart's greatest desire is to be reconciled with my family and for relationships there to be healed and renewed. I continue to work hard on healing in my life so that I am closer to Shalom, wholeness and health. I have called a spade a spade, telling my story in court so that the lies can be dispelled and the truth be heard. I have prayed over and over again for hearts to melt and for the truth to be accepted.

This past weekend I was out of town at a conference on the catholic church and the sexual abuse crisis. Some people told stories of reconciliation between the catholic church and the victims of clergy abuse. Yet, no one spoke of reconciliation between the perpetrator and the victim. The explanation given was that most of the clergy were now dead and so that kind of reconciliation could not happen. I have read several memoirs and lots of books on healing in hopes to find a story of someone who had been through the gravity of pain that I have been and who has extended a hand in love to their perpetrator. I read a book on forgiveness whose table of contents promised to talk about forgiveness between a perpetrator and a sexual abuse victim - only the abuse was halted and the would be victim had to forgive only the intention of harm. I have friends who have been abused and have attended various support groups for survivors - but reconciliation is not something they long for like I do. In this, I feel alone.

I have friends who were abused, though none of them by their father. I know no one else who has been so intimately hurt by their father yet feels a connection to him that is not like any other. Only my dad and I know exactly what happened. He created my deepest pain, he knew me like no one has ever known me and there is a connection between us that hasn't been resolved yet. I don't know anyone who knows what this is like, and so, again, I feel alone.

This road of healing is long and hard. And while I have many people journeying alongside me, it is a road that I must journey. It is I who had to speak in court. It is I that has to work through memories. It is I who must come to a place of forgiveness. No one can do these things for me. And so I am alone.

Tonight I am reminded of U2's song 40. And in the depths of feeling alone, I sing this song.

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my prayer
He brought me up from the pit
Out of the miry clay


I will sing, sing a new song.


How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long, how long, how long, how long
to sing this song?


He set my feet upon a rock
And my my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and fear