Rainbows

Not all rainbows start with a sunny sky.  Sometimes it takes hours, days even, of pounding rain to create just the right environment for that single sneaky ray of sunshine to illuminate like it had no idea it could.  But you wouldn't know it, because during those long, dark hours and days, you lose interest in the new fallen rain and only realize it until after the light changes colors.  But, oh!  How we bask in that shining prism of color!

The same is true in life.  When life gets hard, we cry.  We complain.  We moan.  When it gets even worse, we panic.  We stress.  We forget that life continues outside of our struggles.  I think we even tend to forget that WE go on.  It takes a lot to discourage 32 years of training.

My entire life consisted of women making excuses, falling and quitting, for the promise of a life that was as just as fulfilling as we watched it in the women before us.  We knew what we would have to put up with.  We were broken.  We were products of our broken and painful environment.

I watched as my mom gained strength and faltered.  She gained strenth and faltered again.  And during all of this, I felt bad for the abuser.  He needed the help and love the most, right?  The ideas of a child.  But how was I to know?  I was just the product of a product of a product that felt the exact same feelings in the exact same situations.

And still, during progressions I never thought possible, I can hear the illness tugging at my mind.  The 32 years of upbringing, taunting in the back of my head that I'll never be good enough.  I'll never make it.  I'll always be a victim.  And, I deserve it.

These are ideas that were planted in me.  I didn't ask for them, nor was I born with them.  Instead, I watched all the other women in front of me act like it.  I had the men in my family, not all, say it to me directly.  I was destined to fail.

And somehow, recently, I've accomplished.  I've done things I never thought I'd do.  Not because I didn't want to, but because, it wasn't in my stars.  My sky was different.  It was full of endless dreams.  Not realities.  And God knows there are no rainbows in my sky.

Until I saw red.  Not a bad red; but a bright, illuminated red in the form of a college degree.  I can guarantee to you that I never saw that coming, and now I'm anxiously awaiting answers for fall admission to 2 accredited universities with amazing online psych courses.

Then I saw orange.  Brightly shining in the form of a secure job with an amazing group of people.  Challenging?  Yes.  But, maybe I need that kind of knock.

Then came yellow.  I've been qualified for an apartment.  An apartment that is all my own.  The possibilities are endless.  I will smile, and my kids will see that.  I will live; finally.

But with all of that progression came the scared, naggy sound of the victim inside of me.  What if I can't do it.  What if I lose my job?  What if I can't afford the apartment?  What if the kids don't like it?  What if they hate me for the change?  What if I fail like I'm supposed to?

And then I remember: I made it to yellow!  I wonder what green is!  What could blue, indigo, and violet possibly hold for me?  I mean, yellow was so much farther than I'd ever thought I'd make it.  Hell, I didn't think I'd ever see red.  At least, not in a good way.