Work. Touched. Safe space.

I'm at work right now. Things are pretty quiet at the moment. I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a message perfect for me. It was such a simple message. Let it go. That was the main point. Let it go. I stopped and thought about things I am holding on to that I should release. It was easy. I'm holding on to things from my childhood. Places where I should have been emotionally protected and wasn't. And this post is not about blame. It's about acknowledging stuff to myself. Even if I never say them out loud.

On more than one occasion I was touched wrong as a child. To say the least. I was very quiet about it. I didn't know what to say or who to say what to. There wasn't a place I felt emotionally safe enough to go. I was date raped when I was twenty-two and only told my best friend (at the time) who was also my co worker. I didn't even want to say the word rape. I couldn't accept that something like that happened to me. That I had been violated again.

Now to be fair, the conversation of going to therapy wasn't a thing back then. Especially not for black people. Especially not for me. I was raised in a Baptist church where the only safe space was prayer. Was Jesus. But the church, the church wasn't safe space. Take it to the Lord in prayer. That's all I knew. I was supported by my family in the way they knew how to support me. I was fed, I had toys, I had a home, clothes, I participated in extra curricular activities, I was loved. Shout out to my mother and father and grandparents, aunts and uncles for doing the best they could. There was something missing for me though. Something I wouldn't know until I became an adult well into late twenties. I didn't know emotional safety.

What does that even mean? What does it mean to be emotionally supported and safe? What happens to children who are not? Specifically, what happens to children who have experienced sexual abuse who don't know what to do with the emotional scars after an abuse? Well, to start, emotional safety is just that, it's having a place to unapologetically be. Be. Be sad. Be hurt. Be held. Be listened to completely. Not be cut off because the conversation got uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to the listeners. The big people.

I don't talk about it much but I was married once. Not to my son's father but before him. Just a few months after we got married he had sex with another woman. When he told me he also told me that I could only talk about it once. Only in that conversation. I could never bring it up again. We were together for about a year and a half. I never brought it up. There were other women. That's what it's like not being emotionally supported. Like what happens to you is your problem. Your problem to get over. Your problem to pray through. Your problem to recognize did not kill you. And if you do bring it up, you better get it all out in that one conversation and you better not take too long.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because I'm holding on to it and it's something I've had to let go in pieces. Because to let go of something you have to admit to yourself that you're holding on to something. Then you have to admit that there is a something. It's hard to say I wasn't supported emotionally. Mostly because it sounds like blame. It sounds like an accusation. It sounds like a compliant. Maybe it's all that. Even if it's true for me it's still hard to say.

So what happens to us as we grow up? Well for me it just became something I was looking for but I didn't know I was looking for it. I didn't know it was even missing.

Often I looked for that safe space in men. I never really found it there. Well, in a way I did but by the time I met the guy I was safest with I was so used to being unsafe. I was so used to people changing the subject when I wanted to get close that I didn't know what to do with someone who wasn't trying to shape me into something he wanted me to be. I didn't really know what to do with him. It sounds crazy, right?

When my grandmother died, my father's mother, I was dating a man. He came with me to the funeral. About a mile away from the church he told me that he expected me to keep it together in the church. No breaking down. I said a poem in front of the church and then sat back down next to him. I guess I cried some. When we got back in the car he told me that I had done a good job. That I almost lost it there for a minute but I pulled it together. Our relationship didn't last. It took a few months after that to know for sure that whatever I was looking for wasn't there. But I wanted it so badly. I desperately wanted somewhere I could be where I didn't feel like I was too much emotionally.

There was another guy I was with who I felt comfortable enough with. We had exchanged stories before. I told him about the preacher at the church I grew up in who used to tongue kiss me every time he saw me. I told him how it made me feel as a child. That was my first kiss. By some old preacher. I didn't understand them but I knew I had better keep them secret. We sat in his car as I told him this. His response confuses me to this day. But then, I'm not so confused. He said, that's a good story, but it's not true. Because I guess it was easier to call me a liar than to hold my story. Whatever. I whateverd much of my life away. Especially my dating life. I stopped expecting my stories, my life, to be important. But not completely. There was a part of me that knew I was valuable.

I started meeting friends, sister friends, older women who embraced me. Some of these women are my friends today. Many of them are at The World Stage. That is why that place is so important to me. I also found them among my WomanPreach family. I know emotional safety now. I also know how to be a safe place for other people.

I feel safe here. On this blog. I know I can say what is on me. I let go of things I am holding on to here. Thank you, readers. Thank you for...listening.