Feelin' Good

My shrink told me that I wore rose colored glasses throughout my childhood and adult life so that I could, “Create the illusion of mother.”

The weekly visits began as a result of my mother very nearly murdering my father through neglect. He'd had a serious fall outside a restaurant. Rushed to the local hospital emergency, he was misdiagnosed. He'd broken his hip. They'd somehow missed that and advised two weeks bed rest, and extra strength Tylenol for pain.

Days later, he was discovered in his bedroom, flat on his back, covered in vomit. His tortured pain evidenced by the bottom fitted sheet yarded up all round him. Thankfully it was my sister who found him. The thought of what I might have done, well, I'd rather not go there.

My mother left him to die. I'm very sure she hoped that he would aspirate his vomit, suffocate, and simply cease to be. No fuss, no muss, no bother. She'd be rid of him. Her hands appearing to be the picture of pristine cleanliness to anyone who cared to look. No guilt ridden Lady MacBeth crying, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” How could it be her fault if he breathed in the contents of his stomach while puking in acute agony?

She abused me all my life. Physical abuse was meted out behind closed doors. No need to call her actions into question by someone, some stranger, who didn't understand her twisted need to do what she did to me. Verbal abuse, more often that not, took place in front of an audience. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to humiliate me in front of people. She fed off their reactions. Scorn was good but laughter? Oh that was the ambrosia of the Gods! An audience laughing at me was better than sex. Better than money. Better than all the designer clothes she dreamed of owning. Fancy garb that she could flaunt in front of those she viewed as lesser than.

When you've been abused all your life, you develop coping mechanisms. Some, like myself, also develop a heightened sense of justice and honor. For us, it's one thing to be the butt of abuse. We've learned how to take it. Quite another thing when your abuser targets someone you love. Someone who is more vulnerable than you. When my sister told me of the state my father was in when she found him, something snapped. In that moment, the rose colored glasses that were my emotional and psychological savior, were ripped off my face. I saw my mother for the very first time. The sick, wretched psychopath in all her unvarnished depravity.

I raged for weeks and weeks. All I could think about was the near death horror my mother had inflicted upon my father. “How could she do that to him,” I screamed. “You wouldn't treat a dog like that!”

I faced her down. Told her I could no longer welcome her abuse, and that I was divorcing myself from her. My final words to her were, “I hope one day you will see the impact you've had on others; particularly those who have tried so hard to love you.”

Months later, I found myself seated across from my psychiatrist, regurgitating a lifetime's worth of evil that had been perpetrated upon me by someone who was supposed to be “mother.” Then, near the end of our sessions together, my psychiatrist said something very profound. “You'll never know, and I'll never know why your mother behaved the way she did because she would never let me, or you, inside her interior world.”

I sat back while his words washed over me, flowed through me, then settled in my heart and mind. “You're right,” I said. “Why should I beat myself up when neither of us will ever know her motivation?”

It didn't happen right away but a few weeks later, my psychiatrist's words changed me. Released me. I felt euphoric. Free. And in that moment of what could be perceived as divine revelation, Nina Simone's Feelin' Good began playing in my head.

"Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me

Yeah, it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, ooooooooh

And I'm feelin' good."

Don't let the lyrics fool you. The melody and music that brings them to life are written in a beautiful, melancholy G Minor. This song isn't the sweet confection you find inside a heart shaped box of Valentine chocolates. Nor is it the joy found in the innocent delight and desire of teenage first love. No. This song is the artistic reflection of what life is like after you've suffered the sulfur and fires of Hell then come out the other side of it intact. Changed, yes. But alive. Free to be who you truly are. Relishing in the beauty all round you. Appreciating life in a way only offered to those who intimately know injustice and torment. When you're finally on the other side of it, you can sing along with Nina in the knowledge that,

"Oh, freedom is mine, and I know how I feel

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me

And I'm feelin'... good."

Every time I hear Feelin' Good, I cannot help but smile. My freedom was hard won and this song speaks to that. I confirms my existence and value as a human being. It is truly a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me, and I'm feelin' good.