The Safety Deposit Box Of Pain In My Heart

I had an impatient life. At nineteen years old I became responsible for two humans. For the next thirty-five years, I raised my husband and children while learning about life and living. Hatred and love. Cruelty and kindness. Wisdom and folly. Understanding and indifference. Knowledge and ignorance. Pleasure and pain. War and peace, along with many life lessons from everyone, good and bad.

I had a full life, living and pleasing everyone, allowing everyone in my life to be themselves without fear. I stored the cruelty and pain humanity shares in a Safety Deposit Box in my heart, unaware.

My life was full of helping and healing humanity.

Then I had an empty nest!

I was now only responsible for myself and my husband. No children or the attachment and responsibilities that accompany them.

More time to enjoy my life with freedom.

My life was free of issues that accompanied parenthood. Now I could see and feel more. I could see the actions, choices, and decisions of everything that happened to me now and in the past. I would feel the pain that accompanied them too. The pain I thought I let go. The pain I ignored and pushed aside. I was forced to see my life as I lived it.

The people that added pain and cruelty to my life were still there doing their thing. There was nothing to stop me from feeling the pain they added to my life. No children to take care of. No homework, projects, PTAs, class trips, nothing. Life was forcing me to see and face reality.

I was like an alcoholic who had become sober and had to face the cruelty and ugliness of reality and the real world without a drink.

I didn’t know how.

This wasn’t a fight or flight mode. It was life or death. I only had two choices, live or die!

#Iintend2survive no matter what.

I am liked and admired because I don’t speak. I allow everyone to walk all over me with their thoughtlessness and cruelty. I say and do nothing. I give back good for bad every time. Or I walk away. That was expected of me, ALWAYS!

The Safety Deposit Box of pain in my heart burst open and uncontrollable rage exploded. The change of life demands that I see what I buried and ignored.

I am wise, I became foolish. I am smart, I became stupid. I am kind, I became cruel. I am knowledgeable, but I have become ignorant. I am patient, but I became impatient. I am easygoing, but I became difficult to get along with. I am peaceful, I became a war-boat. I am a deep thinker, I stopped thinking. I am love; I became hatred!

I was still aware. Aware that I was allowing hate, cruelty, and negativity to win. I was becoming someone I didn’t like or want to be.

I need to free my heart. The pain wasn’t just going to walk out with the people in my life still there. So, I decided to clean up my heart. I removed the ones who were adding pain, and the pain went with them.

A heart filled with love. All images by Annelise Lords

I can face life and everything else without negativity or pain. I can handle and accommodate change as it visits and learn to live with the ones who decided to stay. I can see good and bad as it comes and make better choices.

Allowing my heart to speak my creativity increased, and so did my imagination. Also, my anxiety, depression, and other issues, eased back.

I am glad I let my heart speak because now, it stores only positive things. And it warns me through pain when anything else comes in. Then I remove it. The safety deposit box is filled with kindness, love, understanding, wisdom, knowledge, patience, and whatever I need to live my best life so that I inspire, motivate, encourage, and share positivity, love, and kindness with you and our world.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.