And in Between, There is a Woman Who Allowed Her Inner Self to Be Taken Away

              A Boxing tournament Episode #8

Life does not come with an action plan; the same way my boxing tournament never tells me when it’s going to start hitting below the belt. Consequently, life never plays by the rules. So at certain times, it could hit below the belt and suddenly take out a gun and start shooting.. Mostly life does not shoot at you.. It shoots everything around you while it continues hitting you as you fall and see everything shatter.

There is so much that I want to write about.. I want to write about the injured who still suffer in the field hospital at Change Square in Sana’a while both Sunni and Shiite theocratic powers in Yemen gather protests for Gaza in attempt to prove who is more “Heroic” than the other. I want to write about the first anniversary of the GCC initiative. I want to write about two Australian kids collecting money for a Yemeni child who lost his eyes by a sniper’s shot during last year’s protests. I want to write about everything starting with how I feel about the coming national dialogue and the southern issue and ending with how I feel about visiting my college two years after graduation to find it full of posters telling women how much glitter and color their clothes MUST NOT have… But I really cannot write about all the things I want to write about.. Instead, I can only write about the one thing I don’t want to write about: My very broken heart.

My heart along with many other things experienced being broken at a very young age, and it managed to heal before it got broken over and over again. Still at the young age of 24, I managed to learn that it’s ok to have my heart broken as long as I am not making the same mistake again, and as my best friend says: If you insist on making a mistake, make sure it’s a new one.. So making new mistakes? Check =) But the urging question that hits someone like me is: How different am I from the pattern that I teach women not to follow as a certified trainer on how to survive abuse and gender based violence? In order to answer the question, last night, I crawled from the living room’s floor where I sat for hours drowning in my tears to my bookcase in my room and started looking for my notes and text books.

As usual, I could not find myself in my text books; not because my physical and emotional scars are not somewhere between chapter 3 and 5, but simply because we sometimes try so hard to be alright that we end up skipping a phase. I always skip the phase that I allow everyone around me to have as I stand there with my arms open to pick them up when they fall into pieces telling them it’s okay to do so, for I will be there to help picking them up.

It did not take me long to cover the carpet with papers and books in an attempt to know where I went wrong this time. I really did not mind the reading since it helped me stop the waterfall of tears that I really did not know what to do about. A bit later, I got up to make a cup of coffee and this is when my father’s voice on the phone interrupted me: “I am at work and have been thinking all day of how much you love strawberry yoghurt and was wondering if we can go get it together so that we can listen to your favorite song as we drive to the Supermarket.” I hung up and texted telling him that I got disconnected because I couldn’t hold my tears back and my father is the only person I fear crying in front of knowing that every tear could kill him…

That moment simply gave me an answer: We all fall into patterns sometimes. We all repeat the same mistake, and we all fall into the trap of abuse even if we train people not to..  But how many of us realize that our number one enemy is not when we are mistreated, but when we deny we are? Most importantly, how many of us give up on a trip to get yogurt with the one person who cannot stand our tears, or a cup of tea with a best friend who manages to see something good in everything we do, how many of us give up on that to be with someone who sees tears as unnecessary drama, and inner fears as party-poopers? How many of us skip phases of healing to fake strength only because we think that once we survive abuse, it is impossible that we face abuse again? Well.. I am sorry, but bad news: We may face abuse more than once, and what could be worse is pretending it did not happen so that we overcome the feeling of failure.

As I celebrate my father’s love and my best friend’s unconditional acceptance, I would like to take a moment of honesty and fall. Yes, I would like to fall into pieces for all the times I told myself it did not happen when it did.  And as I enjoy my strawberry yoghurt and my father’s singing, I will let my heart ache out loud and quit skipping phases.

Today, I discovered a new battle for a feminist. I found out that fighting for certain rights can be so tough that during the process we forget that it is okay to have a broken heart. It is okay to cry, feel lonely, be scared and need help picking up the pieces. Moreover, being a feminist does not mean I am abuse-proof but it is the art of turning a scar  into a morning like this one in which I celebrate my sorrow the way I celebrate my joy.

Soon enough, I will be able to write about all the things I want to write about. Until then, I will be falling into pieces and living every bit of the phase. I will cry, mourn and accept the fact that I was abused more than once so that next time, I stop faking things are alright in order not to admit what I thought of as “Failure”, for the only failure anyone can encounter is to start playing dirty to win. Yes, my life is a boxing tournament, but I won’t play dirty. I won’t fake happiness when I am heartbroken so that I know how it feels when it is real.

 “Good Morning Goddesses of the world” is how I always start “Surviving Abuse” classes. Being a Goddess is not perfection, it is being powerful enough to rise and fall without losing the essence of our inner selves. To all of you Goddesses out there, remember: Abuse can start with a joke and end with a body in the morgue, and in between, there is a woman who allowed her inner self to be taken away.

Finally, here is a poem by Portia Nelson, which I read when I was a high school student making a mistake I made again at 24:

 

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.