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Creative Nonfiction Inspirational Speculative

There are no positives to be found in fighting. When I was growing up, there was a saying that you “don’t fight for peace, you don’t have sex for virginity”. I fought my Dad and his belief that absolutely no one in the American workforce, at the time or at any time, actually wants to work. No one. I fought my Mom when I found out that it wasn’t just the Catholic Church that thought that women were second-class citizens, it was men, throughout history, who thought women were property and that the unpaid labor of a woman was expected and that we haven’t seen a matriarchal society- egalitarian, not run by or for women- in such a long time and that caused a big fight. I fought with my brothers over I don’t know what, but I know that ignorance is not only blissful, it is blessedly quiet, too. You want peace? Be peace.

    Y’now, come to think of it, I know exactly and precisely why I fought with one of my brothers. The other one I fought with was my fault, but his, too. The other one just never calls. But I do not believe in external causation, that the world is happening to me. I played a part in the fights, I said the words I chose with the intention to hurt, I haven’t picked up the phone, utterly resolved to keep things light or to remember that God lives in everyone. No, I have retreated to my corner and have chosen not to speak to anyone. No one wants to listen, so I won’t speak. It is fine because I am the operant power in my world and what I once to use to hurt myself, some well thought-out insult about myself, I now don’t even think about. I Louise Hayed my way into no longer listening to the lying, corrupt and utterly incorrect beliefs about myself that I used to hold dear and which I believed, fully. I am presently working through a little guilt but am a little too busy these days to think about it much.

    I am no one’s doormat anymore. When someone looks like they are thinking of wiping their disgusting, germ-ridden feet all over my freshly washed self, I look to myself and ask, “Why am I letting them do this to me? More importantly, what am I doing, that I am obviously not aware that I am doing, that makes someone think it is actually okay to treat me this way??” I step back, out of their reach, and find that most people are lazy and will wipe their dirty feet on who or whatever is closest to them. Now, I automatically move away from the unstill, from people who can’t sit still or be still or have any concept of why anyone would want to be still. And they don’t care, they are not bothered by this fact, they have accepted it and have moved on. They are really only concerned with finding someone to take care of their dirty shoes.

    I can’t spend my life settling disputes between people who want nothing to do with me unless, like a lovely, clean couch, I am ready and willing for them to rub their dirty shoes all over. I can’t believe how deep the desire runs in my mind that I have to argue with myself on a daily basis to hold onto the reigns of my Self, of my mind, that if I am not the primary operator of my life, the world will willingly step in and give it a shot. But my strength and wit, my intelligence and abilities, my hopes and dreams- none of this means anything to people who I still wish cared. I can’t remember when it started or how, but when your family stops talking to you and you stop talking to your family, it really doesn't matter. I simply have to heal me and all will be well. There is no crevice of sadness into which I might stumble, not anymore. I don’t keep alive things which never even existed in the first place so I don’t fear people, I just know I have to forgive, myself and others, and see why and how I played a part in this, not them. What other people do is not my business, but how I react to it is.

    I may want healings and peace between siblings, but I want God, more. God finds everyone, at some point, and I have been found. I thought I believed in a God of my understanding, and I did, but I understand more now and I see God in everything, everyone, everywhere, always perfect, always present, always complete. They say the spiritual poetry of the Bible is what draws people to it but I think it is the fact that ancient people were not bothered by emails and chemtrails and tuition payments or broken computers. They thought about life and God and the Spirit and they wrote The Truth. And we instinctively know the Truth, not his truth or her truth or their truth, but The Truth. This is where my heart and soul belong, thinking about God and Truth and the Bible, not worrying about someone else’s, family or not, inclination to wipe their crappy shoes all over my being. No thanks. I would rather keep my clean soul clean, than risk it, again and again and again.

    Be what I want to see in the world? I am a woman who knows God is watching life through my eyes and that I am not alone anymore, that I never was, am not and never will be. Instead of hating that which didn’t work out the way I thought it should, I just let it go and watch the will of God play out. I accept, not resist, with observance, at one with my Creator, being what I want to see more of in the world- being.

July 09, 2022 00:40

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Susan Dalziel
13:58 Jul 19, 2022

This reads so personally Karin, very brave I think. Well done and hope putting it all out there helps.

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