Sweet Pain

ENCOUNTER

SPECIAL EPISODES

The interview with Ms. Ruth Chyler really stirred me up! Indeed, it was an awakening. I got to thinking about my own life and how I got to where I am right now. I thought about how I’d turn out without the network I had. I just couldn’t help myself but to begin to map out my own journey.

[Very deep breath] Now, where do I really begin?

I do not have words to express what I was going through during the course of the interview. It’s like this character, Ms. Chyler, just came alive and opened an unknown world to me. Not in the sense that I don’t know that people go through her kind of trauma and instability. Of course not! I am very familiar with and well aware of the ills she was exposed to: loss, rejection, physical and verbal abuse, sexual abuse, homelessness, prostitution, domestic violence, etc. But something was happening in me as she travelled deeper and deeper into her story. It’s like something dormant was awakened in me. It’s almost as if I had a Ruth Chyler quietly residing inside of me and I suddenly became two people. That thing in me was like a lost person crying out for help, making a noise, if you will; then there was the “real” me. Who I am presently: a composed woman! What was going on with me? I was busy working, so I had to focus on what I was doing. There was no time to try to figure out what that experience was all about. I did everything in my emotional power to quiet my tumult because it was Ms. Chyler’s moment, not mine. However, I could not ignore it.

This experience began nagging at me nightly that I could not sleep. Normally, whenever I feel emotionally or psychologically strained I would relieve myself through my faith. I would pray, read my bible, meditate, sing or listen to music; in fact, anything to feed my spirit. I simply cast all burdens on my Lord Jesus, because he is my burden bearer and I am light again! This was different. I was not emotionally strained; I was having an experience. A barrage of thoughts and pictures began flooding my mind as I lay in my bed. I could hear Ms. Chyler’s voice and as she shared about one sad event after another, I got flashes of myself at that same stage and what was happening to me. I saw myself at possibly five years old and what life was like for me then. I saw myself at ten and what was going on. I saw myself at twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen; and aligned the events which occurred in my life simultaneous to Ms. Chyler’s, and my heart was overwhelmed!

As the mystery began to unravel, I was able to interpret the experience for what it was truly worth. My life was magnified before my eyes to reveal my personal reality. It was so humbling to recognize that the elements required to produce a lost, confused, sad and broken individual, like Ruth Chyler in her earlier days, were all present in me. BUT THEY ARE DORMANT! THEY’VE BEEN RESTRAINED! THE RESTRAINT BEGAN WHEN I, JUST LIKE RUTH CHYLER, WAS RESCUED BY LOVE! What an awakening! What an encounter!

That reality haunted me and without further hesitation I embraced the thought to open up and share my story. I have heard and have been privileged to hear some extremely intimate details from the mouths of persons who find it almost impossible to trust anyone with the secrets of their lives. Some are embarrassing, shameful and so painful. But they have opened up to me, as a friend, a stranger or a mere acquaintance. Ms. Chyler taught me one thing: your story is your story; you can’t change it even if you hide it.

Ms. Chyler got me thinking that we, all of us, especially those among us who are privileged with a platform of influence in the media, politics, business, medicine or wherever else, should share our stories, whether good or bad, to help create an environment for persons who are dying on the inside as a result of harbouring dark, painful secrets.

I know that I can so easily, in a brief paragraph or few sentences, summarize my life’s events for you! but that would not be right considering the depth of Ms. Chyler’s story. As a matter of fact, I so want to do this properly that I have a very vivid outline in my head of the areas I will detail and I promise to be as genuine, transparent and truthful as I ought to be. So, by this, you can well imagine that we will spend a long time together, till I get through my story in its entirety.

I will share among other things, about my community, upbringing, school days, my parents and key family members, in order to establish a good view of what shaped me. I am convinced that there is absolutely nothing in our lives that is insignificant. Every second, every interaction, every aspect of our environment or atmosphere, every experience is a part of the journey and it really is shaping us and taking us somewhere.

With that realization, I am very motivated to unveil my reality. So, to all those who have entrusted me with their secrets I say, I know yours, now here is mine!

We will begin by strolling around the community where I grew up!