I have blogged off and on for a couple years now about my abuse and survival. I have always said when I was no longer helping that I would stop blogging and would move on. That is why there has been such a span since my last blog. Then Mary came along...
I have had the amazing pleasure to see Mary Lambert sing live in small venues twice over the past 2 weeks.
I have always enjoyed her music, but last night Mary Lambert spoke right to my heart. Ms. Lambert is not only an amazing musician, with a wonderfully talented voice, but an astonishing poet.
I was present amongst a hundred people or so, at a fundraiser for the Q Center in Kitsap County. A wonderful fundraiser that Mary was the one and only performer for. This particular ever was different than the last, such a good cause...the room was full of emotion, power, strength, confidence. one singer with the choice of a grand piano or an acoustic guitar -- and she was excellent at all.
We might as well had been sitting on her living room floor with Mary singing and talking and laughing and sharing her spoken word, her life, her soul...so quaint, so meaningful, so close.
Mary shared many of her songs, her latest hit "Same Love" and a couple of her spoken word pieces before intermission.
One particular piece moved me, shook me, grabbed ahold of my heart and said "you are not alone". I closed my eyes slowly...wanting to hear each and every word, I didn't want to be distracted by the girls in front of me on their cell phones, I wanted to soak it all in, every single word she said. And the words hit me one by one, their meaning, their roots, her perspective.
"...Have you tasted the blood from biting your own lips because you couldn't say no loud enough? I never fought back. I didn't punch him. I kept my thighs tight and closed, but once he's inside you, you just kind of give up and your eyes glaze over. That's when you've lost."
All I could think was, "Was she there, had she been there every time my father raped me? Every time I would act asleep and throw my arms around hitting him faking I was asleep, was she there when I would firmly say NO! STOP! Don't do this to me ever again! Was this younger woman in my house when I was kid? Was she there hiding around a corner or in the walls?
I always said I only the walls from my childhood homes could speak! Was she there??
Of course she wasn't there, but she had her own experience and her own pains. But she knew, she knew the pain, the unfathomable heartache, the depression, the feeling of being lost. She knew all of it.
And she was singing and talking directly to me. I meet people all the time that have been abused or raped and who haven't talks about it, who are ashamed of their bodies, who think they are fat and not sexy and do things to hide the pain. And what I know an why Mary shared is none of us are alone, that all I is are fighters, survivors and worthy.
And what Ms. Lambert reminded me of last night, was to continue to fight, continue to dream, continue to share...and continue to make a difference one little step at a time...because there might be one person in an audience, on Facebook, in the supermarket, the airport, or a street corner that needs to know your story...so that they don't feel alone.
Mary Lambert, thank you for helping me remember, our voices matter.
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