[at-l] It's time

[Shelly Hale]

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I have been on here.  I am finally wired back in, and I'm realllllyy behind on emails.  1,483 emails just from the hiking lists I am on.  My personal emails combined were almost just as slammed.  lol

For Steven there are no words of gratitude that can express the support and love you have given me.  I wish things would have turned out differently for us, and I hope that the seperate paths we are to follow will converge from time to time under much better circumstances.  The strain of all of this was sadly just a bit too much for us to survive.  I will miss you most of all.

For the Women Hikers, I have too long neglected my relationships with you.  I have curled inside myself with all of my hurt and for some silly reason couldn't let myself turn to you.  Ladies, you will always hold such a special place in my heart.  I'll be at the SoRuck and in much need of your strong shoulders and hearts.  My girls and I are trying to heal...trying to get through all of this. All 3 of my girls will be with me this year, and I want them to experience the healing love we share for one another and hiking.  

For those of you who sent well wishes to me as I have gone through the past two years of my life, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Your encouraging emails, phone calls, and shoulders to cry on have been sanity and life saving.  Jim & Ginny, Dawg, Miss Janet, Marsha, Felix, Toey, Marta Clark, Gary R., Greenbriar, .... so many others...  I thank you.

For those of you who don't know what happened, I have had probably the most horrible month of my life...an ending to a painful 2 years.  I lost primary custody of my two youngest daughters.  My eldest daughter is still with me, but there are huge issues there.

My biological family showed up in court to testify against me...to ensure their rights with my daughters for they feared that their treatment of me over a lifetime that I would keep my daughters from them if I was awarded primary custody.  Even though I have attempted time and time again to make sure that they would still get to see my daughters, they decided that I think way too differently than they do (which is highly unacceptable in their small minds).  My very own "mother" sat on the stand and testifed that I was bi-polar, crazy, and needed help (somebody hand her a mirror, please!).  They were there to support my ex and his new wife who is the daughter of the minister where they all go to church.  Sadly, I do not conform to their cookie-cutter way of living, and because I do not go to their church I am not good enough to mother my own children. 

My family died to me on 12/8/08.  I have not spoken to them or have had contact in any way.  Sometimes in life we discover that there are relationships that make us sick as a person.  I simply can no longer deal with their acid "love".  I can no longer tolerate their mental, emotional, and, yes, even physical abuses.

Within the span of two weeks my life had come crumbling down around my head and heart.  My youngest two were taken away from me, and I am religated to every other weekend now.  My 17 year old and I have daunting issues to overcome in our relationship...if there is even a relationship to salvage there.  My biological family is now nonexistant to me.  And, the man I love just can't take any more of the crap my life brings.

Christmas morning I hit rock bottom.  The lowest point I think I have ever been in life.  I had spent the night in bed all alone in a new house crying so very hard I was puking my guts up.  All of the things that I used to define myself were now pretty much all gone.  What have I left?  

There are the feelings of such raw pain that my soul howls with agony of it.  Cripling feelings of betrayal that my own daughters did not resoundingly choose me while in chambers with the judge after begging me to seek primary custody of them (and yet they want to come to my home and complain about their father and his wife).  Anger and rage at what a fluke our judicial system is in Podunk, USA, including negligent, inept, attornies and judges trying to get cases finished just so they can go on their Christmas vacation time instead of doing their due diligence and hearing ALL of the information to make a sound judgement on.  Hurt beyond belief resonates through my entire being at what my biological family has done.  More's the pity to them as they will never get to know the real me.  

And, yes, there is so much anger and hurt at my own self.  I made so many stupid decisions through all of this.  There are so many regrets over the past two years.  But one thing I do not regret is that I was strong enough to finally step out of my comfort zone and say "Hey, this life is not me or mine.  I do not want to be tied to people who continuously take me for granted.  I refuse to be stuck in a life with a person who I was not compatible with."  Yes, for a couple of years I sank into a deep depression because I foresaw the pain it was going to cause for everyone, and trying to fit in their life was killing me psychologically.  However, I never imagined the hurtfull things that people would say and do through all of this.  

So, what do I have left.  I have me.  No, I no longer have things in my life that define me as I once knew myself to be.  And, strangely it is a unique and exhilarating feeling.  Kinda scary and yet so very exciting.  What a way to start a new year!

I can and always will be there for my daughters.  Yes, there are wounds that we need to heal, but no one can change the fact that I am their one, true, and only Momma.  I, more than anyone else, realize that I will miss out on so many little Mommy-Daughter moments that I will NEVER get back.  BUT, I can continue to teach my daughters that they are beautiful just as they are and just how their unique differences make them so very gorgeous in their own rite.  That it is ok to explore all kinds of philosophies and theologies to figure out what they want in life along with however to spend it and with whomever they so choose.  They were not born with "Star Mountain Church of Christ" nor "Can reside only on Burger Branch Road for life" branded on their backsides.  I will teach them that there is a big, bright, beautiful world out there to explore just as my eldest daughter begun to learn on her trip to Guatemala this past summer against the naysayers
 within the family.

I will teach my daughters that it is THEIR life to live and not anyone else's.  I will teach them to also tolerate others and to respect and allow others to live their life as they so choose even if my daughters do not agree with it.  I will teach them to embrace the diversities of humanity.  I will teach my daughters to be broad-minded and how to avoid the pitfalls and obstacles of small-minded individuals. And, I will always love them no matter what or where they are.

I no longer have to worry about being the "dutiful" daughter and sister to a family who does not understand me at all.  These people have never been my true family.  At the Gathering this year, Jim Owens gave me such a wonderful gift.  It is a little slip of paper with a wealth of meaning emblazened upon it.  He carried it for years with him, and now it goes everywhere I go.  It says, "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each others life.  Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof."  Words to live by I think.

I no longer have to worry about being in a relationship.  I'm going to take a hiatus from all that mess.  I want to be on my own for a while and see what life brings me.  

Time to become Tenacious again.  Time to tuckerize my life.  Time to see what I want out of life.  Time to get to know ME again.

It's MY time now.

Tenacious Tanasi (aka Shell-no e-y)


      
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