really. i would never have thought when i was a 10 year old tomboy or a 16 year old dressed all in black and writing poetry about death and thunderclouds that i would turn out to be a woman who could get an emotional boost from retail therapy.
first of all… i would have thought myself faaaarrrr too deep and intellectual for that silliness. second… anything to do with girly women was anathema to me because i was afraid of them. because most of the emotional and spiritual and psychological abuse i suffered as a girl was at the hands of women. my mothers in particular… both of whom were very fluffy and girly. very beautiful. and very dangerous (my father always has played to type, bless his heart).
oh. there was plenty of physical abuse at the hands of men. but that’s just the body. not really a big deal, as far as i’m concerned. i know this will sound shocking, but i’m convinced i could shrug off rape by a stranger much more easily than emotional and psychological abuse by someone i’m supposed to be able to trust.
which, when you think about it… isn’t that how all true christians should feel? maybe i’m being ridiculously simple here… but having experienced both emotional abuse and physical abuse, i know which is harder to get over (of course when physical is combined with emotional… well, that’s the perfect storm and without Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf there would be no getting over it at all). but about christians and abuse… look at Jesus. the physical abuse was horrible. but crucifixion was par for the course in the rome of that time. it wasn’t the physical abuse that made His sacrifice what it was… it was the laying on Him of all the evil this world could produce that did it. the separation of His spirit, however momentarily, from His Father. eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?
what about the 1st century christians? they seemed to think that getting ripped apart by lions and burned to death and crucified (even upside down) was far easier than denying their inner man and the Truth. (which makes me wonder why the modern Church is so quick to help a woman with black eyes and a bloody nose get away from her husband… but tells the spiritually and emotionally abused woman , or man for that matter, “well. you need to stick this out. it’s your duty to God.” okay. that’s a WHOLE other conversation.)
right. so i’m officially rambling and probably not making much sense because there are too many threads of thought colliding in my head right now. time to make my way back to the beginning of this rant and get to the point.
oh yeah… my turning out to be such a girl. i’ve been in a situation that hasn’t changed and has shown no hope of changing anytime soon and i have spent so many nights crying over it and have used up most of my sick days at work over it and i’ve been crying again the last two days over it.
but today i saw the light: retail therapy (thanks to a dark, but funny heather graham movie i watched last week: the exterminators).
no kidding. i went to the mall after a late lunch and bought accessories for the 15″ mac… then after work was over, i went to the nail salon and got pampered by my gay vietnamese nail artist, ken, who brings me wine and calls me honey and kind of pushes me around a little and tells how i should get my nails done. my fabulous boots were the talk of the pedicure room and even ken said my outfit was very cute.
this morning, i was sad. tonight, after some retail therapy and some affirmation by ken and the ladies at lv nails and some sympathy from one good girlfriend (you know who you are) and serious talking to from another good girlfriend (you know who you are), i’m so much better. it may only last a few hours, but i’ll bet it will be enough to let me sleep all the way through the night without waking up to my teeth grinding in my head!
retail therapy… a panacea for kelly. who knew?