Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!

I am a very visual person. It is easy for me to imagine places and visualize people, memories, etc. My latest? We’ll come back to that.

One of my greatest struggles has been and continues to be in speaking out about painful things. I begin, and then I retreat. I begin again…and then I retreat. I hide away all my words, all my pain, all my strength, even. I throw it out, burn it, speak it no more.

For a while.

But then I feel the compulsion to begin again, whispers of invitation to step out of hiding, to share, to write, to speak.

For the longest time, I’ve had this vision of an angry mob standing behind me, shouting and stomping their feet, telling me to shut up, go away, keep it all to myself. Faceless nay-sayers, disgruntled abusers, and uppity-do-das who want me to be a good little girl who sits quietly, shoving secrets back in the closet of my heart – and no more sass, young lady, or I’ll really give you something to cry about!

They scare me. I shut up. I sit quietly. But then I remember that I was not made to be quiet, to pretend nothing ever happened, and to hide. I was made to shine, to sing, to dance, to write, to share, to speak out. I am made of the finest qualities – of strength and courage and conviction and love, and you know what? I can’t shut up. I’m a daughter of the Most High King!

My newest visual of the “shut-up crowd” is this: a tiny little stubble of a devil, stamping his feet, shouting barely above a squeak for me to shut up! shut up! shut up!!! It’s the cutest danged thing you ever did see, I tell you. I wish you could see him, so angry, so full of hot air and lies. He makes me laugh and laugh and laugh, all chest-beating and huffy. I flick him off my shoulder and I get back to it, and he just hates it, and I love that he hates it, that little booger.

I can barely hear him, but he shouts, “Why won’t you stay down? How many times will you get back up?” And I just smile. “At least once more, pipsqueak. At least once more.”

Please come visit me at The Tiara Project!