Welcome, pull up, have a seat, grab your key board, phone or whatever device you use to communicate via virtual community. Whoever thought that creating an on line Rumpus room could bring the kind of deep connecting and healing that would shift not only the way I see myself but the way I see others?
What started out as a fun place to connect, tell stories and laugh out loud together has morphed into a place of healing and hope? Sometimes we ride the waves on boogie boards, laughing, kicking and screaming like children on the beaches of San Clemente, filled with sheer delight of playing together.
While other times we dive deep down into the sea of what use to feel and seem like darkness only to find out that what was so frightful years ago is now freeing. Deep in the depths of each of our stories, when told together has given a wider lens to look back on the past with a view and perspective that I had not known existed.
One of my favorite authors, Brene Brown states it well. “Empathy’s the antidote to shame. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: "Me too.”
I believe the running theme I see throughout the posts in the Rumpus room is: "ME TOO!" When you grow up in an environment where shame and guilt were spoon fed to you like medicine, one tends to grow up thinking “I am the only one who feel shame and guilt around my stories.”
The connection in the Rumpus Room with the family by birth and choice is burning away the chains of shame and guilt and a bath of empathy and understanding is being soaked up. ME TOO!!!! Healing words that allow the soul to dance like it has never danced before. I feel through the power of technology fingers reaching out through my screen touching my hands and holding my heart. I am, we are not alone. “ME TOO!”
I dedicate this blog post to my siblings, though we are far from perfect, though we have not always done the right things or said the right words, at the core of who we are is pure beauty. Beauty that has risen out of the ashes, a promise from the creator of the universe. A beautiful tapestry of a messy, crazy childhood that has now taken a turn for the better. A turn towards love, light and freedom to be just who we were all called to be. David, Dennis, Patrick, Cristina, Eileen and Michelle, we are ENOUGH, just the way we are!
My gift to you, my on line community, a thank you for cheering me on, as I continue to pour out on the pages of this computer. I offer to you, like water to a thirsty soul, this powerful poem written by my oldest brother David. It will captivate your spirit the way a new born baby captivates an audience through their eyes alone.
Please unwrap this gift with intention, drink in the words and hold it in your heart like you hold the hands of the ones you love the most.
Thank you David for your sharing your gift with the world.
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“ISLAND”
My soul was a crevice,
My heart was a boulder,
My faith was torn sheets in the wind
Such a world made of power,
To lower and tower,
From Evil and Sin.
How lost in the desert,
Without maps, without treasure,
And through Pain and False Pleasure,
I was
Simply and Island of Skin.
Yet with each passing hour
I grew closer
Not farther
To my God, My Creator,
Yes, My Love, My Beholder,
Forever my All,
My True Kin.
~David John Perez
To learn more about living in the moments of "ME TOO", please leave a comment. I would love to introduce you to six of the most amazing men and women I have ever known. As my sister Michelle states well, “we have won the sibling lottery.”
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