The Little Mermaid

There is a fairy tale that left a deep impression on me as a child. I had a fondness for these imaginary tales that lasted into early adolescence. As any child, I was of course captured by the beautiful illustrations in the books, that only enhanced their magic. One story stands out to this day, " The Little Mermaid ". Perhaps because in the original version, she does not get to live happily ever after. She sacrifices being a mermaid to be with this human man she falls in love with, she gives up what makes her uniquely a mermaid, her tail, in exchange for her voice, with the help of an evil witch. What the little mermaid does not know is that her prince is in love and about to marry someone else.So, she perishes, reduced to a bit of foam on the ocean, as she watches her beloved marry someone else. She  sacrificed everything for love. She lost everything, but the mercy of a benevolent god, who took her spirit's broken heart into his paradise. When I was in college and graduate school, my world was open, with friends, travel, a family. Ten years later, my world closed. It was just what happened, marrying a loving but very solitary man. It took me ten years to open up that world again, when I joined my black Baptist church, became involved in my son's school, made friends, got involved in Scouts and Tae Kwon Do, and then both my sisters died, my parents' marriage became toxic and turned deadly, and I went into hiding. I went into therapy 4 years ago, and re-established contact with my church, my father's sister, I started writing, and became very devoted to helping the animals in my neighbourhood. Almost ten years later, again, I am struggling to break down the walls of isolation, as social contacts are not a priority for my husband. This isolation is hard to break out of, because I put myself there, and my husband is who he is as am I, and we are older now. The tiger does not change his stripes. So, I try each and every day, to be as loving and kind as I can, to take pride in my marriage and son, who I saved from the disastrous kind of marriage my parents had. I was so ashamed and disgusted with my mother's endless list of affairs, because of what they did to her relationship with my father, and her children. She encouraged her daughters to be promiscuous, with terrible results. I managed to get away without any permanent damage to my husband and son. My youngest sister went from one miserable relationship to another, with the exception of the wonderful, honest and kind man she was engaged to at the time of her death. My other sister had an unhappy marriage by her own admission, but stayed in it for her two children, and because she got hooked on the wealthy lifestyle. My mother stood by and watched these train wrecks, indifferent, because she wanted her daughters to be like her, to justify her own selfish choices. I escaped that fate, but only barely. So, I wanted to be clean, to wash away the filth of deceit, and I focused completely on making my husband and son priority number one. I know, sacrifice like that is not without complications, and what I could not foresee was that with the limited family  connections left, I painted myself into a corner of isolation. There are days that realization is very hard to deal with, but I do take pride in the closeness and warmth we have as a small family of three. A family that is real, without deceit, without hidden relationships, " All for one, and one for all ". I had to dig myself out from underneath the family rubble, and some of the bricks did land on me. By the grace of God, I believe, I got away from an abusive relationship I was terrorized by emotionally for 6 years during my marriage, with an emotionally violent and cruel lover. All because my mother kept rejecting her virtuous daughter. I was disgusted with what she turned me into, and coming clean with my husband was one of the victories of our life together for me. Who this man was is irrelevant, he was a useless person and a total waste of time, but for what it helped me understand about what happened to me growing up with a promiscuous mother who hated nothing more than innocence in her daughters.So, it is hard to break down the isolation I put myself in in order to get a clean break, but I will take the peace of mind and true pride and hard earned happiness it comes with any day over the cheap, soul deadening thrills my mother advertised her whole life. I feel I am at risk of being like the Little Mermaid some days, but like they say, a brave man or woman only dies once, and a coward dies a hundred deaths. Give me a clean, proud death any day.In the words of one of my most favorite American actors, Sylvester Stallone, in Rambo 5 : " Live for nothing, or die for something".