A strange day… in a beautiful and vulnerable way

It’s a strange day today, in a beautiful, real, soulful, tender way. I’ll try and describe what I feel the best way I can.

This morning I started reading a book – Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph. I found this author and her moving story “randomly” browsing in WordePress reader. When I opened Alexis’s blog and read a few blog posts, I knew I’ve found it for a reason. I was captivated.

This is the story of a woman who has suffered extreme physical and sexual abuse as a young child and a teenager in the 60’s and 70’s in America. I only started reading this morning but the story is gripping and horrifying at the same time. I simply cannot comprehend how such atrocities could be committed from a human to human, even worse – from parents to child.

After years of silence, the repressed memories start to emerge and the author decides to speak the truth with the hope that she could untangle herself from her painful past and heal.

Before I started to read, I knew I want to connect with Alexis further and I will. These are the type of people I identify with and seek to connect with. Of course, my experience dealing with trauma has nothing to do with what she had to endure (and is still living with). But in myself I know that any type or any amount of trauma cannot be compared – in a way trauma is trauma and we come out of it changed, for better or worse.

And here’s me hoping that good things come out of it. And Alexis is an example – she’s taken the step to open up and share her horrifying haunting past and she’s making an impact.

I am touched, I am inspired, I am encouraged to tell my story.

And I do with this blog and I’m hoping it will have the same effect on others.

We all have stories, we’ve all been through trauma, we are all damaged in one way or another. But what we have, which our parents and grandparents didn’t, is the opportunity to transform all this pain into something else.

I believe it’s up to our generations now, the ones that come to terms with the damage and question it until they untangle from their past and heal this inter-generational trauma that’s been carried for decades, perhaps centuries.

We are evolving as species and as such we need to heal deep wounds, wounds that creep around in our subconscious mind but now are coming up to the surface to be healed and transformed.

The other thing that nearly brought me to tears today – I met this woman in the park today. We were in Sofia’s central park when a woman started talking back to Sylvie in English. She was American. I thought they might be living here but she said that they are travelling – her one a half boy and herself.

Then she said that she had cancer but she was just pronounced cured. She was thirty years old and she got sick when she was 29.

I couldn’t believe the openness and I had to reply that I also had history, sadly not a happy one, with cancer. I don’t believe I’ve ever told anybody I’ve just met about my sister and mother. And I admired her ability to be so honest and vulnerable.

What also struck me, is that after she got better she decided she wants to travel and she took off with her baby boy. Tomorrow she is going to Athens. All I could say is how brave she is.

She was calm, soft, kind and compassionate, her baby boy was quiet but smiley. I just pictured him being his mommy’s little protector and support in those difficult moments. His name was Fierce, she told me.

I wanted to talk to her for hours. I knew – I want people like this around me. I can talk to them, I can say what’s on my heart, I can shed some of what I’m carrying with me all the time.

It was really strange but it was like a little glimpse of hope and light on the way. Like a sign, or an angel send to me to reassure me. That I am not alone and I am not the only one. That I can feel different, better, I can feel OK with who I am, I can feel understood.

And also, seeing and feeling the strength  from both of these women gives me strength too. It tells me I still have a long path to walk but that it doesn’t have to be hard or lonely.

What a beautiful day.

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With love, Vilina. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments.