Tests, Allies and Enemies

Not all enemies come to destroy.  Some come to awaken.

 

Every journey brings its tricksters,
its unexpected teachers,
its fires of testing.
Mine were cloaked in masks —
some worn by others,
some stitched into my own skin.

​

I had lived in delusion.
I had spun gold from straw,
insisting the man before me was who I hoped he could be
instead of who he truly was.

   I idealized the marriage,
          romanticized the struggle,
                   told myself if I just tried harder,
                              loved better, served more…
                                       he would meet me there.

​

But he was a raccoon soul —
nimble-fingered and clever,
wearing charm like a disguise,
weaving deception with the brilliance
of a wounded magician.'

​

And I allowed it.
Not out of weakness,
but out of the deep ache to make something sacred
out of something shattering.

​

     My siblings —
     my lifelong companions —
     were my trusted circle,
     but not trusted vaults.

I hid the truest truths from them,
thinking I was protecting them,
or maybe myself.

​

I only shared what I thought they could hold.
The rest I buried under smiles and survival.

​

And when the day came
that I drew my line in the sand,
it was they who invited my ex-husband back in
without telling me.

​

That was the betrayal that tore the veil.

The betrayal that cut me at the knees
and cracked my chest wide open.

​

And though it was agony,
I now see it as sacred.

​

The betrayal was my initiation.
It was the gateway to the desert.
It was the necessary unraveling
for my soul to begin
its holy descent.

​

And then… the allies arrived.

​

Not in the forms I had expected.
Not the ones I had clung to.
But the ones who had been on the periphery,
quiet witnesses to my spirit,
waiting for me to be ready.

​

People I had known,
but never let all the way in,
showed up with open hands
and steady hearts.

​

They held me.
They saw me.
They stood beside me in the shadows,
not turning away from the blood, the tears, the truth.

​

And I learned a great lesson:
that sometimes those you think are supposed to be there
cannot walk with you where you’re going.

​

But the universe will send others —
unexpected angels, earthbound allies —
to walk the path with you.

​

To remind you
you are not alone.

​

That love, the real kind,
does not require performance.

​

It meets you
          where you’ve fallen.​

                    And lifts you
                              with no conditions.