4 years relationship, divorce & a manuscript

Our relationship is already summed up in a big file, full of notes, letters, forecast budgets, solicitor fees, court ruling papers, translations, testimonies. It took 4 years to eventually close our case.

Our relationship is contained into a manuscript of 25 chapters, 165 pages, 68 000 words. I never thought I could achieve this one day. I should thank you for this. You gave me matters to discuss, feelings to explore, emotions to review in details, issues to solve. Your madness left invisible scars on my skin, in my mind. You gave me the chance to heal myself, to reconnect with the “true me”. I should thank you for this.

I need a couple of hours to finalize our 4 years relationship. I need a couple of hours to explain what happened after.

When I left I thought it was over. I was wrong. Another story started, the one that would crushed my heart in pieces but the one that would take me to the beautiful light after the chaos of the thunderstorm.

I always loved jigsaw. You must have known this. You don’t know anything about me. It’s the most difficult one I had to do, putting the pieces of my heart back together. It took me ages. Every time I thought I was on the right path, something went wrong and I had to start all over again. I am still working on it.

At the beginning writing was evidence. I needed to get you out of my head. I needed space to let go. I needed words to get rid of guilt. Healing process – dealing with grief. Ups and many downs. Then writing became a way to free my anger. I had so much resentment in me. There could not be any forgiveness. After a while, anger vanished and I started seeing things a different way. I wanted to understand.

Why you?

Why “yes”, when all my heart was shouting “no”?

Why I let you play with me in such a terrible way?

What happened in me? I had always been a happy child, a dreamer, a girl in love with life, a smiling lady. I had always been surrounded by loving and caring people.

What made me choose you? What made me think I would save you? What made me think you would save me? Save me from what?

Writing gave me the chance to answer some of these questions. Now I know why I want to finish this story. Sharing my experience is key. Sharing the worst before the best. Sharing to help. Sharing to tell the truth about you, about me, about the magnificent light, about the violence of your silences, about the pain inside my chest, about your status of victim, about my resilience, my faith.

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Being true to ourselves…

I wanted to be her. Confident. In love. With herself. With the world.

I wanted to be like her. Walking proudly in high heels and feeling like I own the world.

I wanted to be her. So sure of herself. So chatty. So beautiful.

I wanted to be like her. Wearing red lip-gloss and sunglasses. Short skirts and bikinis.

I wanted to be her. So much.

I thought she was happy, she had the perfect life, the perfect family.

And then…

She vanished into the night.

And all truth about her came back in a flash of dark light.

She was not loved, she was consumed by passion.

She was not happy, she was in much pain.

She was fake.

She was somebody she was not, so she could face life.

She was smiling at the world. Inside, she was crying.

We never know what people are going through, what life they have, what happens behind closed doors: the best or the worst.

Praying for the best. Always. And remembering that we should never envy others but look at ourselves with love, enjoy whatever is good in our life and change the things that don’t seem right (for us). 

Monday Wisdom

What if instead of declaring, “It was worth the wait,”we were able to claim: “It was a worthy
wait”?

Christine Carter

This is a Gem!

 

Across the Bridge

I don’t know your name

The secrets of your heart

The pain inside

That you hide

I don’t know your age

The heaviness of your past

♦

Through my lens

I identify

Serious darkness

Invisible scars

♦

I don’t know who you are

What your dreams are made of

Or whether the stars

Shine

On your side of the globe

♦

Through my lens

I can see

Terrible tragedies

Keeping you away

From being free

♦

I don’t know your name

I only crossed your gaze

The other day

From the other side of the bridge

My own place of safety

When life is messy…

Sometime life is pretty messy

Sometime life is crazy or sad

Sometime we feel like dropping on our knees

Sometime we feel like giving up

Sometime people are letting us down

Sometime people are showing us their dark side

Sometime life seems like a never ending struggle

Sometime nothing makes sense

Sometime we do feel like crap, not good enough

Sometime we only wish to stay all day in our pajamas cursing the entire world

Self-absorbed in the visualization on our worst future nightmare

Self-pity works miracles but does not serve us in the long run

Indulging in chocolate cookies or alcohol is not good either

At least we are trying something to feel better

Sometime life gives us sour lemons

And it’s up to us

To stand up

To show up

To decide between fear and love

To choose what we’d like to experience…

 

Being a woman

I forgot what it meant

Being a woman

I forgot what it’s like

Being looked at

***

He said things

I did not want to hear

Lack of confidence

My body is a mess

Inside

I feel scared

Trusting again

***

He told me

It’s time to let go

To let love knock at the door

Of my heart

***

I am so good at listening to others

At helping them

I am so bad at letting someone take care of me

Telling me how fabulous I am

***

Images are rushing in front of my eyes

Being naked is scaring me

How to be myself when deep down

The scars are still bleeding?

***

I want to scream

How can I forgive myself?

How can I let go of something that is killing me?

How somebody will see behind

My broken femininity?

***

I forgot what it meant

Being a woman

I forgot what it’s like

Being looked at

***

I forgot I was loveable

I forgot I was beautiful

 

84 more victims

Watching the words

Flying by

Singing songs

I hear from a distance

Watching hatred

Consuming lives

And shattering so many dreams

So much blood

On the pavement

That no waves could remove

A smile on a photo

And tears in our eyes

Behind us, water shades of blue

Telling us we are alive

Only Love can save us

When inside we are burning

With rage and anger

Thinking of men, women

Even more dramatic, young children

Eyes dazzled by fireworks in the dark sky

Falling down under the wheels

Of a mad truck

84 more victims

Killed by an insane religious fanatic

Orlando Blues

I feel for the mothers

For their cries in the dark

I feel for the fathers

For the deep pain in their heart

I feel for the brothers, the sisters, the neighbors

For the memory they treasure

Of a young guy coming home

Being free to love

♦

I feel for the killer

For his lack of self-love

I feel for his family

For the loss of innocence

I feel for the wounded

For the ones who survived

I feel for the dead

For their bodies lost in bloodshed

♦

I feel for the world

For the ones feeling empty and scared

I feel for the world

For the ones who don’t care

I feel for the world

For the ones shouting back

Let us live in Peace

Let us free to be who we are.

I pray for the Orlando Victims of Human Madness

The Warrior

Just thought it would be nice to share the first poem I wrote (in English) – It was during a writing course I took in 2010 in Dublin. 

Sitting breathless on the grave

Stay silent and be brave

An instant rush in the past

Wishing today will never last

Here and there time goes by

There’s an empty hole in the sky

On the road night and day

Running the distance that separate our lives

Feeling dead anyway

No miracle to keep us alive

Falling apart, no desire

The one who stands is a warrior

Down memory lane

As I was changing my blog theme and scrolling through old posts, I stopped for a while to think about the beginning of this adventure.

It started with a blog called “The color of our skin”. I wanted to show people that two people from different backgrounds, different skin colors, and different religions could love each other. I thought it was Love. Till I realized it was manipulation and violence.

How can you mix both? How can you take one for the other, when Love is Light and Manipulation is Darkness? How can you be so wrong about somebody? How can you take selfishness for an excess of sensibility?

In between, I got married and travelled to Egypt. I said “Yes” thinking “No” but reassuring myself that after marriage things will get much better, that he will be happy at last. And his happiness will make me a different person. I got good at convincing myself that I was ready for this life, that I was ready for Egypt, that I was ready for solitude.

My blog name changed. I was now “A heart in transit”. I was between two lives: between Egypt and Ireland / between an old version of myself and this “new me” that I was building to face the challenges of my marriage.

How can you change so much to please someone? How can you lose yourself, lose your way, lose your mind? How you can live with so little self-love? How can you accept to be treated like a carpet and think that you just deserve what you get?

One night, I said “no more”. I was five months pregnant and I decided to leave. Leave Ireland. Leave my flat. Leave my friends. Leave my job. Leave my miserable life. In less than 72 hours, I packed one suitcase and with fear attached to every part of my being, I flew back to France.

Just before this, I changed my blog name to “Let It Be”. I was trying my best to stick to the life I had chosen. But it was too hard. Too much silence. Too many harsh words. Too much pain. I was a ghost in my own body, an empty mind. I was still trying to make it work, when everything around was telling me that it was not worth it. Too many lies. Too many threats.

How can you lose track of who you are? How can you change so much that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you see a stranger? How can somebody destroy you? How can you let somebody destroy you?

Back in France. Back to life. Back to who I am, to who I was before all this mess. Back to me, to my roots, to my dreams. Back to my laughs and my joys.

My blog helped me on the crazy road. My readers were there in time of hardships, supporting me with their words and their love. They never let go of my hands. One day, it was time to move on. And I changed my blog name again. It became “Mahshi & Marshmallow”. Two treats / Two parts of my little boy story / Two sides of me.