Just Hold On

Sometimes the only strength I had left in my being was just the ability to get through one more day.

When I was going through the memories of the murder through nightmares, flashbacks, and work with my counselor, I lived in a kind of terrified state. I had a constant fear that my father was going to come to my house any day and kill me for talking or for even remembering the events of that tragic day.

I went to work daily to avoid the collision of my mind and soul. I lived in a state of constant turmoil. I was walking around on red alert.

When I came home from work, I over-drank so I could dull my senses and prevent dreams. Vividly, I can still recall those days. They were dark days that I thought would never end.

When night fell and it was time to go to sleep, I would go into my bedroom, slide my large dresser across my door, grab my bible and clutch it tight. Then, I prayed that God would guard me as I slept.

The Psalmist said, “Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.” So every night that would be my prayer. That God would sent His angels to watch over my house. In my mind’s eye, I would place an angel at the four corners of my property and then move into a ritual of laying my guard down and try to sleep.

If I could just hold on through the night, I would make it to another day.

Sometimes, that is all I could do.

I’m saddened sometimes that when I got through those times, there would be just another memory that was waiting for me to explore. It gets old but I had no other choice.

My past would have plagued me in hidden ways if I didn’t dissect them and take each memory’s power away.

My counselor asked me a hypothetical one day. He posited, “Jodie, if a man came into your house uninvited, what would you do?” I told him I’d use my mind to talk my way through it. I then shared about keeping my dresser in front of my door at night. My counselor said, “Ah, you’re still scared of what lives inside your house.”

That was the truth. As a child I didn’t fear things that were outside my house, that felt safe to me. I feared the internal structure of those that were raising me.

Today the residue of those times remain with me. I’d have to go through a lobotomy to erase them.

What quiets my soul is knowing that I have an eternal destination waiting for me. This world is not my end.