"There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons."
Dennis Waitley
In August of 1992, I was safely home with my parents after one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made. June of that year I got married to someone I went to high school with, someone I thought I knew. We moved to California, where he was in the Air Force. Everything went bad to worse immediately. I was being used as a punching bag and if that wasn't bad enough, the morning I was trying to leave him, he pointed a gun at me and told me "if I can't have you no one will." I barely escaped on our one month wedding anniversary and after quiet an ordeal I made it safely home back to Georgia. I was just a couple of months shy of turning 20. Licking my wounds and feeling like a complete idiot for going through with the whole ordeal. I was so embarrassed to be back home so soon with such a war story to tell. It wasn't the happily ever after it was supposed to be and I was very ashamed to be back home, when I was supposed to be living some terrific new life in California. I was very depressed and kept to myself, completely withdrawing myself from friends and family. I literally dropped off the face of the Earth as far as most people knew. My Mother, in particular had no idea what to do to help me. It didn't even matter to me that I had done the right thing escaping an abusive situation. I just felt stupid and often wondered if I had missed any red flags.
On a particularly down day, the "wedding photos" arrived from the photographer. There I was with two sets of wedding photos that cost my family around $1000, reminding me of what was supposed to represent one of the happiest days of my life. My Mom and I sat down and started going through the pictures. The more I looked, the more depressed I became. Then my Mom did one of the craziest things. She ripped one of the pictures into two. I was horrified. What was she thinking? As she sat there grinning, I asked her: "How did that feel?" "Great! she said. "you should try it." So I did, I ripped up one of the pictures into two and it felt SO empowering. I didn't have to live with pictures to remind me of my mistake for the rest of my life, I had a brain for that! Before I knew it we were surrounded by a pile of ripped up pictures. Then we came up with the perfect way to totally destroy them. We raced out to the back of the house and put all the ripped pictures in our grill, lit a match and burned $1000 worth of wedding pictures. My Dad didn't quite understand as well when he first found out, but he finally said "if that made her happy I guess it was worth it." My Mom still says she can remember the horrified look on my face when she tore up the first picture. She said it was "priceless."
These days Taylor Swift is a very popular singer/song writer. Liz Rose and she wrote a song titled "Picture to Burn." My favorite lyrics are:
so watch me strike a match
to all my wasted time
as far as I'm concerned you're
just another picture to burn
Every time I hear her song I think back to the best bonfire I ever had!
Great blog! You were so brave getting out of that marriage. So many women don't. Thank God your mother found a way to help you take your power back!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! It was a very scary time in my life, but my parents raised me to know that I did not EVER have to live in that kind of situation. No matter what, I always had their support and a home.
ReplyDeleteMy Mom and I talk about "our bonfire" and think about our neighbors, and how they probably thought we were totally insane! I'm just thankful to be able to laugh about it now! LOL :-)