The first pearl in my Necklace
January 2025
Writing Prompt from Beth Kempton’s Free Winter Writing Sanctuary 2024 – SoulStack by Beth Kempton
It was a day like any other day. Life crumbled around me and I did my best to gather up all the pieces and put them back together each night. It was a semblance of a life really. But that’s what I thought life was back then.
That day, sometime in the haze between January and April, those pieces shattered as they hit the floor. And that day, I wasn’t trying to pick them up. Instead I walked slowly over each piece, feeling them through each of my feet as I pulverized those smaller pieces to the point of no return.
That day, I didn’t know who I was. But I did know that I liked this version of me WAY better than the old version.
That day contained our continuous strained and false conversations.
Caught up in the same pattern, repeating the same lines that we weren’t even thinking or hearing. The conversation was unresolvable. We both knew it. I imagined most couples had these conversations regularly – never ending and never resolved. When both people realize they aren’t as similar as they first thought and the intent of things starts to matter more and more as time goes on.
Pressing harder into my feet and grinding those pieces to miniscule dust, I came out of the kitchen that afternoon as we repeated the conversation. And in that moment, I had the wisdom and courage to finally (after 15 years) call things for what they were.
I spoke into that space, changing me, and changing everything that would come after in that one moment.
It went something like this:
“You don’t actually care about me as a person – at all. You don’t know me or even want to know me. You just care about who I am to YOU, what I DO for YOU and who I can be, for YOU.”
In the following silence, I sat down in my spot on the other side of the couch from him. I hoped that calling it for what it was, would wake him up, would be another epiphany in a long line of ”epiphanies” he had over our time together.
I held out that maybe this time, maybe these words would finally sink in. It had to – there was no going back now. And I couldn’t imagine life any other way.
I looked at him, saying nothing else, letting those words land. There was more than plenty of time to respond. He didn’t say a word. And when I met his eyes, they told me everything I needed to know and already had known for over a decade.
Oh. So no more faking on his end either? No half-hearted tries anymore?
And, OH. I had called it for what it was. And he was okay with it. Why wouldn’t he be? I can’t imagine a woman alive who hasn’t been told, trained, manipulated, explained and abused into putting herself before anyone and everyone who happens to be in front of her. No matter the consequences for her as a person.
I wasn’t just angry at him about it. I was angry at everyone in my life who had used me in the same way. I was angry at society and the well-worn paths of what is expected of a woman. I realized that nothing had changed and nothing would ever change. And I was angry at myself being complicit and welcoming (and trained, in fact) in my own denial. And angry knowing that in this world, and with who I was, that this dynamic would likely never end.
Even if I did something about it now (leave my current husband), it would become something that I would deal with in every situation for the rest of my life. That training, the mental and emotional abuse that over decades was imprinted onto our psyches and systems requires much more than one statement to be overruled.
I got up from the couch and returned to the kitchen. I think we knew the conversation was over.
And that’s all I remember from that moment.
But In the months and years to follow, I would remember. When I needed courage and resolve, I would remember that moment.
As I grew stronger, more myself, I could see that moment more clearly, remember more things. I could see the curtains hanging over the front windows, the entertainment center in silhouette, the winter blank sky outside, the piano I stood by for a brief moment as I made that statement.
That piano means more to me than ever now. It is my way of anchoring to that moment when I spoke the truth and started my freedom. The piano was in our lives only because it was a dream I had always had. And (of course!) always ending up ignoring, writing off, stopping – for us as a couple, for him. I had spent years being told that what I thought, what I felt, what I believed, what I wanted, and what I needed (even at a basic level) wasn’t acceptable.
It was always one step forward and fifty steps back. I would tell myself that I would get back to it, back to myself one day. There were always more “important” things that needed my attention at the time – these things weren’t related and had nothing to do with me, of course. Why would they? That was never part of anyone’s plan including my own.
The piano became a source of strength and power. That physical piano stayed in its spot until I moved out a month or so later. At my new place it didn’t fit, not just physically, much more mentally. It reminded me too much of what I’d forfeited, what I gave away all those years. How I had to fight for myself over and over, only to continuously abandon myself anyway. No more.
A year later the physical piano was gone.
Now 10 years later, I still see that piano fresh and clear in my mind. And with it I hear my dedication to myself and my clarity.
I have heard stories from others like this over the years but never shared mine. Decisions like this, life-altering moments like this are usually many – strung up like a string of pearls. This is my first pearl on my string I am sharing publicly.
It’s why Listening to The Still Small Voice matters so much to me. For my entire life I had ignored it, pressed it down and let everyone else scream and make noise over it in hopes that I would still be okay. And I was okay (of course!) but found life isn’t much worth living otherwise without that freedom. (And I am realizing now that though I am “okay” there is damage and circumstances that will always be with me due to those dynamics.)
As I grow older, I find myself getting overwhelmed by noise and society even more quickly. I feel like I should know better. I feel that as an adult I should have a better way of getting out and opting out. I think that I would have learned.
But it’s not a matter of learning.
It’s a matter of listening to myself and you listening to yourself. Which feels and IS impossible on any given day for anyone – no matter their situation. With the structures and “powers that be” that we “need” for survival we are sometimes lucky we hear, listen and do anything with our Still Small Voice at all.
It’s a matter of listening and doing what you can, when you can, to stay true to it.
It’s also a matter of NOT beating yourself up when you can’t do that. (If I could and we could all just learn this – OH, how the world would have to change!)
I still struggle and I imagine I will always struggle. But it’s worth it.
To feel more myself, to feel more honest, to feel more alive…
always worth the price for a pearl.
Writing Prompt from Beth Kempton’s Free Winter Writing Sanctuary 2024 by SoulStack by Beth Kempton
