My Hands

when i look my Praying Hands i see
i see The G-d that has bent my knee
i see The Way, The Truth and The Light
when I use my Praying Hands

when i look at my Praising Hands i see
i see the miracle of being me
i see The Way, The Truth, and The Light
when i use my Praising Hands

when i look at my Helping Hands I see
i see the Christ that has died for me
i see The Way, The Truth and The Light
when i use my Helping Hands

What Happens When Your Sexual Abusers are Other Children?

Being the only third grader in the school with a C-cup bra was traumatic.  The trauma began slowly.  Eventually it broke me.

The violence began when I first began to wear a bra at the age of 9, and it ended then with verbal teasing.  As my cup size grew by leaps and bounds, the violence escalated in direct proportion.

The other students progressed from occasional gentle bra snapping (1" away) to constant painful bra snapping (as many inches as possible).  Much like a towel snapped at your butt in a locker room, successive pops are geometrically more painful.  I'd be in tears from the pain at least once each school day.

*I* Was "The Other Woman"

For almost two years, I was "The Other Woman."  The man was divine in my eyes.  The wife was a crazy person, and theirs was a loveless marriage.  He stayed married to her because, where he came from, divorced fathers weren't fathers, and come hell or high water, he was going to be a good father. Even if that meant staying in a marriage where neither person had a single word to say to one another outside of "Excuse me" or "Did you pay the electricity bill?"

We began as friends, and I didn't even know he was married until after I was hooked -- He didn't wear a ring, and spoke only of his children (i.e. not his wife, ever), so I assumed that there simply wasn't a wife.  It wasn't until a third party told me that he was married that the concept crossed my mind.  I didn't believe it, but  I asked him anyway.

The look of surprise on his face told me in that instant that he assumed I knew.  By that time it was too late . . . Even after the hours of talking that followed, in which he told me the details of his loveless marriage, I couldn't walk away knowing that he wanted me to stay.

In hindsight, I don't think he'd ever fallen in love before he fell in love with me.  A confident and self-sufficient person, he didn't understand what loneliness was until he was separated from me while on a trip.  Our affair was inflammatory, and our conviction epic.