Behind the Veil

I’m so fucking mad.  If you can’t handle the word fuck, then you need to stop reading right now because there are bound to be a few in this post. 

I love myself.  I’m trying really hard to be fit and healthy, not for any vain purpose, though I do like how great my body looks, but to be strong and vibrant.  There’s so many things in this world I want to do and I have to be healthy to do them.  For several years all I heard and said was “I can’t”… but not anymore.  I look for ways to do those things I was once told I couldn’t.  Call it my rebellious side, I don’t care.  Call it stubbornness, I still don’t care. 

Anyway…. In my attempt to be healthy and fit, I run.  Because of the fucking horrible humidity of a Georgia summer, I’ve been doing most of my running on my treadmill, but I hate it.  It’s mindless, mind-numbing and I fight for every fucking second I’m on that hamster wheel.  I love being outdoors, feeling the wind on my face, struggling and pushing through all the hills and curves that nature provides.  This morning, I decided to run outdoors.  After all, I live next to a recreation field with a track – there’s no reason not to take advantage of it.  So, I got up early, did my yoga and core exercises, got limbered up and headed outside. 

Well, it’s early… well before sunrise because I don’t have the luxury to wait until the sun comes up because I have to get ready and be at work.  It’s dark, but there’s lots of lights all along the track.  No problem, I can see fine.  I know by now you’re probably wondering when the rant filled with profanities will start.  That’ll be now.

I’m so fucking tired of being scared.  Not three minutes into my run did my heart start pounding rapidly and it had nothing to do with the run and everything to do with a sense of panic filling me up.  The dark woods on my left sent shadows across my trail, and with each one a sharp panic would seize me and memories of past abuses would surface in my mind.  The faith of my youth and the past 20 years also surfaced and the familiar scriptures of calling on God for safety and security flipped through my thoughts. 

Back and forth the images and voices battled.  Abuse, faith, pain, prayer, laughter, tears… all the while in my right hand I gripped my pepper spray and in my left my knife.  About the ¾ mile mark, when my legs burned and my lungs felt like they were about to burst from my chest, the floodgates opened - and I’m so fucking mad. 

I’m so mad I live in a world where a woman can’t go for a fucking simple run without feeling afraid.  Don’t give me this bullshit either about prayer and God’s protection.  I believed with that perfect child-like faith, with every fucking ounce of my heart, every time I’d been attacked or abused.  My faith and belief didn’t stop the violence then, and I have no faith that it would stop it now.  I know the violence won’t stop as long as evil men have a free will.  So, no matter how much faith I have or don’t have the reality of the matter is that it exists and I live among it. 

During the last 1/8^th of my mile I wept for all the other women who have it much worse than me.  I weep for the women in Iraq who have no voice at all, who don’t even have dominion over their own minds, who are victim to a society of savage men who take what they want and leave behind a path of destruction.  My life, even filled with the fear I have running a simple running trail is an oasis compared to what they have to deal with every day.  And those women who have faith and belief watch their husbands and children being murdered for that very faith, while they are raped and abused.  Most people think the violent act of being beat and raped is the hardest part to deal with.  The body heals. But it’s the battle of the mind, the heart, and the soul afterward that is the most violent and it what truly destroys.   

I’m so angry.  I want to shout, “I don’t need a fucking passive god that will hold my hand as I have to stand by and watch this evil run rampant.  I don’t want peace.  I want to fight.”  If someone tried to harm my children, I don’t care what my abilities are, I wouldn’t just stand by and allow it to happen.  I would fight, I would do what I could, even if it meant dying in the process to protect them.  Where are the warriors?

I know I don’t understand the greater scheme of things, but what I do understand is that I’m so fucking tired of being afraid.  For a moment this morning the veil of reality has been pulled back and I see the ugly face of evil in this beautiful world.  I’m not naïve.  I do what I can to be as much prepared as possible.  I have my gun, my pepper spray, my knife, my Ju-Jitsu, and even my weak faith.  But I know that all that preparedness won’t stop evil or protect me from it.  I could have the most badass soldier at my side, and even that can’t fully protect me. 

I’m having a moment this morning and raise my tear-stained cheeks toward heaven and cry out for myself and the other women who are constantly afraid.  But I know this moment will pass and I’ll allow the veil to drop back in place, and once again I’ll focus on the beauty of this world.  I’ll fill my heart and mind with the positive, with the valiant, with the hope for a better day today and even brighter tomorrow.  THAT is my strength and my true weapon against the evil violence in this world. But in this moment… my heart is broke, my faith is weak, and I can’t breathe, and I say, 

“Fuck You!”

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray