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“What did you do?”
“I told you, we’re married,” Lucy said flatly.
“Grief turns into the new,” Maria said. “Grief of the career you thought you’d lost. Grief of events beyond your control. Grief of the love you yearned for…but it’s all seeding a new future. Even if it’s not how you planned things, there’s still hope for miracles.”
“Not where Anwar is concerned. He told me himself he doesn’t believe in love. And nor do I.”
“There is love in holding on, and there is love in letting go. But mostly, there is love in second chances. Anwar’s showing you his love language—the studio space and now the curator position for a fabulous project. He’ll come around. Besides, what’s not to love about you? You’re a supernova of talent and the kindest, most loving person I know. Don’t let your stubborn pride keep you imprisoned in the past.”
“But what if he betrays me again? What if he believes another lie someone manufactures?”
“What matters is that you know the truth. People lie, and facts tell the truth. Sooner or later, what is real will come to light. In the meantime, live in the present. Let go of your fear the past will repeat. You don’t have to see the whole staircase of your future. Just take the first step in faith. Stop giving your power away. Say yes to being Anwar’s curator. Can you do that?”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
“How did you give your power away?”
Lucy sat in bed and stared at a YouTube clip she had been watching on her iPad, unable to answer. It was by famous British Astrologer Lee Harris in his monthly energy update. The title had captured her attention: ‘Empaths and Narcissists, a Guide to Healing Trauma.’
Lee offered a three-part video to help recover from narcissistic abuse, but Lucy decided she didn’t need to take his online course. She had enough therapy to sink a ship. What she needed to do was put what she knew into practice. Putting her phone on the bedside table, she told herself she needed her journal and paints. Recalling what her art therapist, Issy Riley, had taught her during their counseling sessions, she reached down and fetched the box of crayons and other art supplies she kept under the bed. She opened the lid and instinctively picked up a black crayon.
Black, the color of darkness, she affirmed to herself as she walked over to the desk beneath the window, placed a large A3 sheet of paper firmly down, and rapidly scribbled a thick, fierce line. Pressing more heavily as feelings she’d kept suppressed came to her mind, she drew spiraling circles like coils of graffiti.
Put some words on the page, she told herself. “I’ve been blind,” she said out loud.” She wrote, ‘Blind to the narcissist's bag of tricks!’
She plunged her hand into the box and pulled out a fiery red crayon. She wrote the word ‘shame’. Then, taking the flat side of the crayon, she layered washes of angry red over the black marks, staining the paper crimson.
She remembered how her face blushed horrifically when her mother teased and publicly embarrassed her with her cruel ridicule and toxic taunts. Lucy gripped the crayon in her palm and scrawled sharp zig-zags across the page, then wrote the word ‘rage!’
She’d been so afraid of her mother’s unpredictable outbursts of anger she learned to remain silent lest she inflamed her further. But now, free of her overbearing presence, she could express her true feelings. Feelings she had repressed for so many years.
She heaved a weary sigh and glanced at the box of colors. Her eyes were drawn to the soft, pale blue crayon almost hidden from view. She picked it up and wrote the word ‘peacekeeper.’
Put some feeling words on the page, she reminded herself. ‘Safe,’ she wrote. Being the peacekeeper and placating others had kept her safe. Now what?
Put some help on the page, Lucy reminded herself, recalling Issy’s instructions during her therapy sessions, encouraging Lucy to express the painful feelings buried in her subconscious.
She drew a white dove surrounded by angelic light. As a child, Lucy had escaped into her imagination. She lived in a world of make-believe, happy families and love-ever-afters. She wrote stories and drew pictures of smiling animals surrounded by friends. She submitted these to competitions and won prizes, and her drawings were published in the newspaper and later in the school magazine. Lucy kept her accomplishments private because her mother would reprimand her, telling her she was showing off and being boastful and vain.
“You love yourself,” her mother had said as though it was a horrible crime. “You think you’re better than us.”
Lucy picked up a rosy pink crayon and drew a fat, juicy heart. Then she picked up a vivid white crayon and wrote, ‘I can love myself better than you ever did.’
She held the drawing up an arm’s length from her face as Issy had shown her. “What else does it need?” she wondered.
‘Flowers,’ came the answer.
Lucy picked up her phone and scrolled through her Spotify playlist until she found Miley Cyrus. 'I can buy myself flowers,' Miley sang. As Lucy listened to the lyrics, realization dawned.
I gave my power away because I thought I needed my mother’s love and approval to be lovable. I tried to be the person she wanted me to be. Quiet, always in the background, never succeeding, never flourishing, never shining, never taking her light.
Why?Because, for some perverse reason, she envied me. I took the spotlight from her, and she couldn’t stand it. But why did she do that to me?
Because she was broken. Because she was deeply flawed. Because she never felt loved. Because it was easier to be nasty than sweet.
Lucy put the crayons down and walked to the window. The only things that survived in the desert’s punishing environment were snakes and spiders, she mused as she glanced at the shifting sands.
Lucy suddenly remembered that at her father‘s funeral, despite divorcing her father 20 years prior and remarrying, her mother had complained, “What about me? Why doesn’t anyone care about how I feel?” She never once asked Lucy how she felt about losing her father.
