I have always found it interesting (translates to spooky) how my external world mirrors my memory recovery.  The universe is definitely committed to waking me up.  I am reminded of that often.  This past week has been no different.  It might come as no surprise that I have been struggling to allow an intimate relationship in my life.  I am not consciously struggling with this.  I really do want a partner in my life.  Single motherhood is not always fun.  I would love someone to bounce ideas off and have adult conversations with.  And of course, I would love to have the love I have not found because my childhood patterns kept manifesting in my relationships.  But I made a choice not to go there because I didn’t want a revolving door of abusive men coming in and out of my children’s lives.  And I knew my unconscious was at war about it.  So nothing good would be coming my way.

So I have kept myself busy with other endeavors as you well know.  I parented my children.  I got a degree and started a business.  And I delved into all this trauma that was stopping me from having the best life possible.  It hasn’t been wasted time although my love seeker would try to say that.  It has actually been the most powerful time in my life.  But I have watched my neighbor do exactly what I didn’t want to do.  There was clearly trauma there, but she wasn’t willing to look at it.  And the revolving door was pretty active.  I watched the impact it was having on her kids who I really loved, and I did what I could.  I tried to help as I watched her current relationship destroy her relationship with her kids and leave her whole family homeless.  I tried to stop myself from doing too much, but it was hard to set boundaries, and I didn’t know exactly why.  I wasn’t having problems with boundaries in other areas of my life by this point.  But deep down, I knew I was triggered.  I was furious with her.  I hated him.  I just didn’t understand exactly why.  And I have learned in this work that there is always an exact “why”.  If we don’t know it yet, there’s a repressed memory.

On an apparently different note, I recently went to see a Tarot card reader.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Wow.  You are really creative.”  I tried to dismiss it and she said, “No really … like … off the charts.”  So I knew she knew something.  During the reading, she did mention that someone would come along and it would be a great relationship.  That made me and my love seeker happy.  But she also said something about the kids.  She said they were standing in the way of it.  She didn’t say it judgmentally.  She just said it.  And I could not deny it.  I went on and on about the logistics of dating and parenting.  And she nodded in agreement.  But something deep inside said that wasn’t the entire story.

Cue this crazy weekend.  After three pet deaths in a year (all old age), I knew it was time for some new energy.  The kids had been begging for a kitten.  I had secretly decided on two because I always wanted to have cats that were snuggle buddies.  And I also wanted them to be siblings.  Of course, as things go, the kittens they wanted came in a set of three.  They picked out two and there was NO WAY I was leaving that third one alone.  So we have new kitten energy times three.  And snuggle buddies they are … when they are not tearing through the house at 60 miles per hour or falling in the toilet.  The kids are ecstatic.  So are my inner children.  But I heard something deep in the unconscious that caught my attention.  It was completely contradictory to what I know to be true.  But it said I was not allowed to have these kittens.  They were in danger.  They would die.  I wasn’t good enough for them.

But I have taken many animals to ripe old ages in my adult life.  This has never been a problem for me.  I would mortgage my house to pay the vet bills if one was sick.  It’s just how I do things.  This was about something else.  It was about a core memory, a memory I already remembered.  One of my most core memories which caused the split of my mean kid and karma kid was about a cat, my childhood cat named Misty.  I came home from school one day to find out that she had snuck out of the house and fought with a raccoon.  There was a written note that said she was in the laundry room and not to go in there until my mother could take her to the vet.  Of course, I didn’t listen.  I walked in the laundry room and she looked okay.  She had been sleeping but did not look injured.  My furious mother walked in behind me and screamed at me.  She said the injuries were internal and she might have rabies.  She took her to the vet and I never saw her again.  I kept waiting for her to come home until my mother finally told me she wasn’t ever coming home in a very condescending way.  She acted like I should have figured that out on my own.  Cue core memory and the split of my inner defenders.

I knew this was heartbreaking for my inner children.  But I never understood the status this memory had in my system of memories.  I mean really.  I had been through it all.  But this weekend, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  There was no raccoon.  My cat never got in a fight.  My cat never went to the vet.  My cat was removed from my house because it was no longer convenient for my cat to be around.  Why?  There was a new guy.  And he was controlling every move she made.  He was driving a wedge in between my mother and me.  In this moment, it worked.  I never sided with her again on anything.  As a matter of a fact, I ran to my psychopathic father and told him about this guy and his controlling tactics.  My father never liked competition.  He rained his wrath down upon my mother and her boyfriend and the guy ran for his life.  This was one of those moments when my father’s anger was of benefit.  He was scary as shit.  But that didn’t bring my cat back.  And my mother’s guilt trips were never ending until she found another pedophile to marry.  But I didn’t let her pick the guy who wanted to erase me and everything I loved.  And for that, I am proud of my 10-year-old self.

I will have to watch for the beliefs that a new man would erase my children (and now my cats) from my life.  I am well aware I would never let something like that happen.  I am aware that no man would stand a chance in my life if he indicated he would not respect what I loved.  But my inner parts are wary.  And I get it.  I can respect it.  At the same time, I’m not going to let some asshole from my past determine what I do with my future.  I will process this.  And I will find a kid-loving, cat-loving man who is nothing like the monsters I have known.  That is my promise to all five of them.  And I don’t break a promise.