Building Sandcastles with Words
Your words have power
Building Sandcastles with Words
Words can bring us such love, support, kindness, the adjective are endless and then they can be like waves hitting a sandcastle. A few choice words, emotionally charged, can bring a soul way down, like the waves hitting a sandcastle. Slowly, methodically beating the sandcastle down until there is nothing left but a hole. Isn’t that like our soul? Like the continually berated soul, that is gasping for some kind words, eventually becoming a dark hole in its spirit.
I was the last person you would have ever thought would have been emotionally abused. Strong, independent, successful, I was on top of my game when I met my
former husband. He came from a long lineage of charismatic, Irish-Catholic, New Orleans men. Meeting him was like becoming a part of a swirl of water, there was no way to not get caught up in it. It was a whirlwind courtship and engagement culminating in a marriage in one year. In hindsight I should have paid attention to the signs, but I was truly “head over heels” in love. The first few years were particularly sweet, then things started to unravel. He used these words to describe me, “clumsey’, “clustzey”, then these escalated to “bitch I married”. As you can see, it was subtle in the beginning, then outright mean towards the end.
Only a couple of times in my life, thus far, has my soul felt as low as it did towards the end of my marriage. It got to the point the my dark hole in the soul was so heavy, I didn’t know how to take care of myself, let alone my marriage. The heaviness was smothering me, making the day to day tasks harder. Thankfully I was able to care for our two -year old child. In the end, I decided to take care of myself and our son. With no self-esteem, or job, I left. The words had taken down my sandcastle of a spirit completely, leaving a deep, dark hole in my soul. There was such heaviness in my spirit as I slowly rebuilt our life, minus a dad/husband.
I try not to dwell on the past, but to focus on the rebuilding of my sandcastle. You know that saying, the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. This time built far enough away from the waves. If the waves do come, self -care, reflection and age, have made it easier to see the signs coming towards my sandcastle. To reinforce my sandcastle before it can be leveled, so I don’t fall into that deep hole again.