“For those who are not ready to say #metoo out loud, we love you”
I’ve seen this message again and again lately, leaving me to think to myself, what if we never want to say #me too? Why should we have to say it, especially on social media?
And then a song rose up in my heart, “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know…” and I cried.
Growing up, something always felt a little off inside of me but I could never quite pinpoint it. Until at 23, truth walked toward me in my dark bedroom. It was actually my husband I saw that night. He had turned out our light and was coming to bed but his silhouette walking towards me in the darkness awoke a fear in me that I felt in my very bones, sending a guttural cry up from the core of my soul and out into our quiet room, “Help me.”
I had perfected conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know so well that I had become a stranger even to myself. An oddity that I still don’t fully understand. But I like to think that perhaps my Savior stood between me and the darkness of that trauma, covering me in His light. Until, when I was old enough and in a safe place, He stepped aside and let me see.
He didn’t step aside because He wanted me to feel pain. He stepped aside because He wanted me to FEEL. And He knew that in order for me to do that in the highest most perfect sense I had to open those parts of me that had been closed off for so long.
He wanted me to share in His understanding of Love, His understanding of truth and His understanding of me. He wanted me to reclaim me–all of me–for me. And, though I do not wish to sugar coat my journey in anyway because often times I felt lucky to come out of it alive, I am awed by it. “Seeing” has been and continues to be one of the most intense yet magical journeys I have ever experienced and through this experience my Savior has been able to open the windows of heaven and flood me with His teachings.
So why #metoo? Why now? Because I know that my silence is sending a very dangerous, damaging message to that little girl inside of me. My silence is telling her that she is wrong.
She, that little girl inside of me, showed me this at my recent writer’s conference when–during a simple writing assignment–she began to share with me the secrets of her heart. I wrote them freely, without question until my tears flowed so intensely that I–in fear of making a spectacle of myself–pulled away. I pulled away and began to question whether I, that little girl, was just being dramatic. “Perhaps you’re just imagining some of this. Making it bigger than it really is.” I told her.
“You don’t believe me either.” The words filled every part of me. “How will I ever feel safe if you don’t even believe me?”
So I write this now. I say #metoo. And I say to that little girl inside of me, “I do believe you and I will believe everything you tell me from now on without question. So please, take my hand and join me in this beautiful journey called life, the journey that you were created for. I promise to keep you safe.”
“but how can you keep me safe when you are still so very afraid?”
“I am afraid but I am strong. I learned that from you.”