That look of doubt. That look of disbelief. That predisposed judgment in one’s eyes to see you not just rising, but making it through and out.
Those who tried look at you as if just waiting to see you crumble following their words or actions meant to take you down, meant to cave you in, with all hopes to see you huddle into a ball as you surrender to miserable defeat.
I laugh because in reaching half a century in age, I am just getting to know myself.
I know one thing. There are just those of us, no matter the stones, joyous victory is the chosen outcome and thus, any challenge results in just that very foreseen predicament each time.
You can doubt, be in disbelief, or judge, but thankfully, that won’t stop resilience.
If I am one to claim the essence of joyous victory, trust me when I say, it is only because regardless of what falls before me, like those who grasp the very same determination, I hurdled over, under, and through to have chosen such destiny.
Are you to believe joyous victory is unreachable? Or, when perspectively unattainable, to see others exhibiting, exuding such energy, this form of illumination is not to your comfort or liking?
Has it not been an arrival for you that after some time, you have only to self-prophesy your own predicament upon subconscious surrender?
Let you be the one to smile.
Let you be the one to laugh.
Let you be the one to walk tall.
Let you be the one to walk as if you carry no burden.
Let you be the one who is unbothered by the very looks of doubt.
Let this be so right, anything less would be utterly wrong.
Must one arrive to tomorrow to arrive at such choice of being?
You aren’t supposed to be smiling. Question mark?
You aren’t supposed to be laughing. Question mark?
You aren’t to be walking tall. Question mark?
You aren’t supposed to be free of burden. Question mark?
You aren’t supposed to be unbothered. Question mark?
Not you. Question mark?
Devoured by those who have only to see your walls to be allowably breached.
If and when you allowed anyone to take away your joy, is not misery what’s left to give?
Which do you possess? Which do you then, have to give?
It is not your misery others want; while others gratefully relate to such, those same already hold plenty of their own.
The only shade unhappiness and misery have is dark.
Anyone willing to take some from others who have plenty are open arms- like zombies reaching for light in darkness.
There is no discrimination for those who want in on your seeking to commisserate.
All are welcome.
Free entry.
The catch?
How does one get out of such seemingly free indoctrination?
Truly, instead, the real question?
What dire reason did you find yourself to be enticed in?
Even more, to the deepest question, one you must ponder upon and own when answered- How will you get your heart, mind, body, and spirit to be freed from your self delivery?
To flounder.
To flicker or flutter.
To flitter.
To find and then, fortify.
In finishing the book, A House in the Sky, I am hushed by the very resilience and strength of Amanda Lindhout who accounted events of her abduction for over a year while in another country.
I held onto the end as if getting to the last page was my quiet respect to walk through her words to when she was finally freed.
Amanda,
I think of your words, grateful for your truth throughout your inner and outer fight, your innermost vulnerability exposed as if anyone should even dare to try and understand.
I do not know any other purpose to revisit and then, share such atrocities, other than to help others heal from similar maddening circumstances, to which I can deeply understand one’s need to know another can empathetically relate to their own silenced pains.
I see your picture inserted at the end of the book. Comforted by your smile, I sense you’ve done some healing, using your story to empower others to victoriously push forward.
I harshly say your unwarranted training arrived you to the strongest point to where now you can look into the eyes of victimized others, hear their words, and feel their hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits in ways others like me could only attempt.
One would only stand to be a liar to suggest to volunteer the pathway to which you endured just to tell the very same story. I relinquish myself of ever measuring up to your unequivocal strength.
You have silenced me in my own humblest need for growth. Your immeasurable resilience has my utmost respect.
Your choice to see joyous victory before its arrival shall stay with me.
All have walked a journey; some just cannot be compared to another. Most especially those who can get up every day without complaint, holding onto faith of a way out even if the odds outnumber any even to exist.
I arrive more now to understand, at greater depth, that joyous victory is undoubtedly a chosen mindset.
There can be no clear reading upon the very smile we see on one’s face in the same way one’s tears could either speak of joy or pain.
There are those who want to compare; to keep score.
And, then, there are those who beat our stories to silence.
When comparing paths traveled, there are just those you think to yourself, No one should ever have traveled such.
No one.
Even those who run the same race, on the same track- each have had their own fights and battles just to get one foot in front of the other.
That heart, that mind, that body, and that spirit- all tested to their point of threshold to victory or defeat.
Though unpredictable in injury or results, each training day, as I must call them, build strength in power, love, and self-discipline.
Though I dare not relate to Amanda’s story, I am given greater reason to be grateful of my own.
I will one day finally look back to my own story, of my own journey traveled.
The moment Amanda found that final strength to decide to live after almost giving up, I felt overjoyed of that moment of decision. Joyous victory.
I found myself, although knowing she had survived, given the obvious, at the moment of her decision that she would see herself get out and back home to her parents, it was as if I had been there, at that very moment, exclaiming her a THANK YOU, celebrating her choice to be victorious.
That moment was the strength for all those who would need to be reminded to keep strong and never, never give up.
When victorious, one’s story can be told with an ending where because one still stands, strong will others be encouraged to be or become and forward will they continue even with the falls.
Truly, when you can look back to your own life, when those real tears unstoppably stream down, there will be no judgment within you of reason.
If one shall surrender to the destruction, does not one also succumb to the thought that hope to rebuild is no longer possible?
If you should walk in circles over and over to build one’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual strength to get up and keep moving, holding onto that inner joy that must not be lost or forgotten, let it be for now. Amanda did.
You are hushed by your searched-out reasons to be despondent, burying oneself to found miseries, sometimes commiserating with those who only know quite well how to reinforce such choice- a well-known, familiar, and comfortable predicament for some.
But, facing and taking accountability of your own choices in life, you arrive to that very moment of decision that changes the course of the heart, mind, body, and spirit.
Where there is a way in, no matter how one found themselves having entered, there is a way out.
That is, if one should know only defeat billows within the walls and then, dare choose instead, joyous victory.
