Today is the Day. The Chase is Over.

Dear Readers, 

It all came down to today. This is the day. The chase is over. I am 56 years old and I have finally reached the moment of full clarity, peace and the healing process is getting better and better. The feelings of heaviness, fear, anger, and resentment these emotions and voices will no longer have the power to burden me and whisper to me that I am not worth it. My healing process began in 1992 and at the time I thought that it would take me about a year to heal from the damage of my childhood, an abusive marriage, and what I didn’t know was from years of more abusive relationships that included the intimate relationships and family and friends. Let me tell you this  when you find yourself on the path to healing from emotional, sexual and physical brokenness don’t expect the people closest to you to be supportive, in some cases they are the people who will become obstacles on your journey, and you will have to make the choice to leave them behind with the rest of the wreckage. 

Today is the day that I can release years of pain, suffering, anger, and the struggles of chasing after the unknown. Today is the day I understand that what kept me prisoner was how I was thinking, and becoming a slave to the idea that my life was worthless because I haven’t become the success of the American dream. I don’t own a house, a car, and I don’t make a six figure salary. I berated myself mentally for not getting it right and for having to start over and over. When I think back on how many years that I didn’t feel loved , but search for love and the whole time I didn’t love me because I thought that it was the duty of others to love me, and my anger grew when I didn’t receive love. I  used sex as a means to feel. I was dead inside, but I thought sex would make me feel something, The only result of this behavior was more emptiness and being used as an object of pleasure, and not being cherished as a whole being. 

Today, Friday, July 24, 2020 as I sit in my bedroom with tears flowing, pouring out all the suffering, pain, uncertainty, and years of dying over and over and reliving the same tragedy over and over, I was numb and bitter. I was a slave to depression, eating orders and carrying around the  negative labels that others heaped on me because I believed them. I am not ashamed to say that I never fully experienced a mother’s love, but I am no longer going to allow that to drag me down.  On July 20, 2020, we celebrated my mother’s 76th birthday and I am enjoying the relationship we presently have.  I am no longer struggling, no let me rephrase that I am no longer choosing to struggle or to see life as a struggle. There are challenges, but I don’t choose to see them as a problem or a negative experience.  

I am thankful for all the intimate relationships that did not work out because they were not the ones for me and each one taught me a lesson. I am thankful for all the friends that left me when I was at my darkest moment because these people enlighten  me how to carefully invest in true friendship. I am thankful for this time of being alone in my own space because it has prepared me to understand who I am and to never allow loneliness to rear its ugly head to force me into the fear of running into another dysfunctional relationship so that I would be distracted from continuing on my journey of healing. I am thankful for being sheltered in place, although the world continues to be in chaos I have used this time to center myself in a state of peace. I am thankful for being able to work from home. I am thankful for the gifts and talents I have discovered that keep me free from  thinking that I will spend the rest of my life a slave to punching a time clock.  I am thankful for the friends and family who stuck with me through all of my drama. I am thankful for my blogging community. 

Today is the day that I released that I have a wealth of experiences to share by publishing my books on amazon. I am thankful for the creations of Conversations with J.R. Floyd, that gives me a public voice on all major social media platforms to help others to heal.  It’s been a bumpy and  dark, but amazing journey and I know that life is better because I am making it better. 

Who am I? I am J. R. Floyd , Inspirational Coach, Author, Singer, and Educator, currently works as a College Writing Consultant. A winner of the Jacob A. Weiser play-writing award for her work The Conversation. She was a freelance writer for Street News, and appeared in the gospel play Oh Lord: Why Did I get Married?She is a member of the BMCC Downtown Chorus. Performed at Carnegie Hall in the Manhattan Concert Productions: Let you Voice Be Heard, 2019. Author of The Waiting Game, A Different Flavor of Love & 90 Days of Reflection, Discovery, & Renewal.  

Thank you for stopping by dragthepen.

Dear Mom

 

Dear Readers,

My wordpress readers know me by the blog name dragthepen, however, I am J. R. Floyd,  creator of the YouTube channel Conversations with J. R. where I discuss relationship problems and explore the destruction of the family. At the start of the New Year ( 2020) I asked my viewers to join me in a year-long theme of writing letters to SELF. Each month I choose a different topic to write a letter about. This month I decided to write a letter to my mother, she is alive, and will never read this letter. This is my chance to work out  emotions that I’ve suppressed for years. This is my way of having that mother daughter talk. My mother is 77 years old and at this point in her life there is no need to open past wounds. I did not experience the ideal mother daughter relationship, although I am a mother,  I did not have good mother role models around me to teach me how to be a mother. At the age of 56, I still long for a deep soul connection with my mother, that unbreakable bond that I hear so many other mothers and daughters talk about. 

Dear Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. I hope you enjoyed the flowers I sent. I try my best to do as you ask to “ give you your flowers while you’re living”. I struggled whether to write this letter because I do not want my readers to get the impression that I am bashing my mother. I would never do that if you gave me the greatest gift, my life. Mom, there are some issues about our relationship that I have kept buried deep inside from childhood into adulthood, why, because you did not make it easy for me to confide in you. Looking back I understand that you were overwhelmed with children, being a wife and running a home. I have tried to make peace with the fact that you did the best you could with the information you had at the time. 

Mom, that the little girl in me still aches for the gentle, loving touch of a mother’s hand. As I matured in age and experience there were certain hardships that I could not talk to you about because I was afraid of being judged by you. I heard that a mother’s love is unconditional, and that mother’s have this 6th sense of wisdom, and mother’s forgive unconditionally. You never kissed any of my boo boo’s, played dress up with me, read  me funny stories, or  told me that I was pretty,  and that I was your princess. Instead,  you gave me a stern hand when I needed a firm one. You withheld vital information about maturing into womanhood, my body changed and I needed you to help me to understand this transformation. You didn’t teach me self- care, self- worth,  or self -respect, and most importantly to keep myself for that special person. 

There were nights when I cried into my pillow because I knew if I cried out you won’t come,and if you did I was afraid that you would scorn me.  I need the warmth, protection and assurance only a mother’s arms can give. You missed so many important events, my 1st and 2nd college graduations, the birth of my 1st son and the burial of my 2nd son. For years,  I put extra effort into being super women so that you would be proud of me, but instead, you praised other people’s daughters for their accomplishments. You haven’t read any of my books, listened to my podcast, or watched my YouTube channel. When I received my Ministry License, you told me you were“ proud of me”, but I did not feel any joy from those words because to me they were just words. I have gone through life loving you and hoping that we can connect on an emotional level. My hope is that the years that you have left us can find a way to be joined together as it was met to be. 

 

Thank you for stopping by dragthepen

Lies of a Player

I did not know to say no to the house date because I was just your booty call

You said I am your one and only, what you meant was that I was the only one for that moment

The gifts you gave me wasn’t made for me they were recycled from what you took back from you EX

When you say you couldn’t see me it wasn’t out of obligation to work or family

You were busy juggling the others in your list of booty calls

The other night you called out her name, you claimed that I am insane because your heart only beats to my flame

The cycle of heartbreak, tears, pain, lies, promises, apologies, late night mystery phone calls are more than I can bare…..

After the depth of darkness I will bath myself in self-love, walk in truth, heal my soul with the bliss of peace and rid my heart of the fake, scheming, and hypocrite of a lover you pretend to be

Healing

Dear readers,

I should have protected her, but I didn’t know she was sacred. When I was a young girl no one told she was the essence of my spirit and the center of my being. No one told me that if I gave her away too soon she would be abused, missed used, hated, battered, passed around, and treated as if she doesn’t have a soul. No one told me that she would cry, hide and begged to be cherished, loved, and protected. No one told me that she would be branded whore, slut, loose, easy, and old maid. I didn’t listen to her when she whispered” lets not do this again.” I pushed her concerns aside for the benefit of pleasure, but the pleasure wasn’t for us. I didn’t hear her when she begged me to stop treating her like stocks on the Wall Street trading floor sold to the highest bider. After all these years of being together I final understood and the moment that I did the emptiness and pain shook me to my core. The years of allowing others to pour into me their brokneness, suffering, pain, bitterness, resentment, and heartbreak, their spirits never left me even when I thought that I started a new. Why? Because no one told me that my womanhood, my maiden head, my innocene, the purest part of me was scared. No one told me to guard her because giving her away to the woves of this world might result in irreversible damage. No one told me that she would rebel, and that I needed to follow her into the battle to wait for the one. The one who would wait for her to mature. To understand that she needed to be loved and that she is a part if a whole. I regret that I abandon her. I was anger at her for not being better for not capturing and keeping those who I considered a soulmate. She understood they weren’t worthy.

Today, after all of the destruction of my past I realized I never forgave myself for not protecting the innocent young girl who give in too soon. Can you ever forgive me?

I write this too all the women who gave in to soon. HEAL.

TIME

Dear readers,

They say” Time heals all wounds.” I say, ” The wounded may heal thus lessening the pain caused by the wounds, but overtime scars form where the wounds use to be. Scars are the reminders of the pain caused by the people who created the wounds. Time may heal the wounded, but scars last forever. The wounds we create have lasting consequences and are a reminder of the void of compassion.

What Say You?

HEARSAY

Dear readers,

They Say, “Confession is good for the soul.”

Others say, “Speaking truth is our moral duty.”

I say, most people have been in a situation when being honest turned into bending the truth. I’m not a supporter of people who tell bold-faced lies, there is no excuse for lying. When I speak about bending the truth I mean trying to spare a person pain. But is hiding information from an individual in their best interest not to know the truth, despite the discomfort that reality will caused them.

Wasn’t there a game show in the 70’s or 80’s called “Truth or Consequence?”

When we are sworn into a court of law, we swear to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth.” Parents teach their children to be honest, no matter what the situation, they must tell the truth. While in the process of development a relationship whether imitate or a friendship, we hold others to be trustworthy. Yet, in many of these scenarios there may be a breach of trust because the truth is hidden behind little while lies.

What say you?

I challenge you to speak the truth

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