This is my story

It is March 14th, 2023. I am sitting in bed in my little home here in Wailuku, Hawaii, writing you. This land belongs to the Hawaiian indigenous peoples, and it ought to be theirs on paper, too. I’m humbly grateful to be here.

There is too much to tell, far too much to tell, for me to explain to you even a portion of a day. My world is so filled with emotion, with awe, with memories and crisp high-def detailed visions of the present, as it were… the wondrous roundness of a morning dew drop silently sitting on a blade of grass, perfectly still, and the reflection of the world in the surface of the little bead of water as the new days begins. The touch of my breath in my nostrils and all the sensations in my body as I meditate. The constant stream of thoughts, ideas, daydreams, visions, lines of poetry, annoyances, self-observations, musings, comedy, sorrow, peace, angst, overwhelm, and confusion that roll through me in any given 5-minute period… I tell you what, it is a wild thing to be alive, and to have jumped ship from a predictable life, and to throw yourself headlong into healing and pushing edges, and to seek love, or rather seek and dismantle all barriers against it, and then to find it within and without as well, and awaken.

I’m in a dreamy space today… can you tell? And then I wonder, what is good to tell you about, now? The most lovely things I want to share can be quite personal, and some things I haven’t told even my closest people yet, and so I feel it unfair to share them in such a public space. This is a large part of how I convinced myself to avoid writing to you for years and years. The things I want to tell, are the things I cannot tell.

Well, so be it. I’ll tell what I’ll tell. There’s plenty of not-so-recent material to keep us both busy awhile, wouldn’t you think? Let’s try something. A prompt.

"So, Bree, how did the triathlon go?"

“Oh God, it was just amazing! I mean you wouldn’t believe how kind and supportive everyone is. That community just really surprised me with the level of positivity and kindness.”

That’s my general response, and it’s true! But the story is long. There is a back story, to the triathlon story. I am compelled to share it. Here it is.

*****Trigger Warning: explicit content, sexual trauma, abuse, controversial material. Please stop reading if you sense this will be too much for you.*****

In the spring of 2021, I entered a relationship that turned serious very quickly and also became emotionally painful very quickly. In December of that year, after months of devotion and struggle, beauty and pain, I found myself alone, overwhelmed, googling the words “How do I know if I’m in an emotionally abusive relationship?” I read through several articles, and was astonished when I realized that I could identify 80% of the warning signs as being present in my relationship. Gaslighting, lying, insulting me daily in “joking” ways that were cutting and demeaning, repeatedly ignoring and purposefully crossing my boundaries, using other women to make me feel jealous and insecure while dismissing my feelings as crazy, pressuring me early on to get serious and commit to monogamy (while, I later learned, all the while seeking sex with other women behind my back for months), pressuring me to be a step mother to his child and regularly criticizing my performance as such, criticizing my cooking, teasing me about getting me pregnant even though I expressed I didn’t like the way that felt… the list goes on.

It took another month for me to pack my things and leave that relationship and that home. He was not only abusive to me. He was also kind and immensely loving. He was welcoming and profoundly generous. He was brilliant, mysterious, sexy, and funny. Some may say that every good thing he did was only a manipulative tactic to further ensnare, entrap, and control me. However, I tend to think that people are just a strange mix of light and dark, and things feel more holistic and true when we can let people be many things. It doesn’t matter, in the end, what’s what. Not to me, anyway, anymore. What matters is how I’m using my now, how I’m using my story to heal and help, myself and the world, and to celebrate life and empower us all.

And on that note, here comes the terrifying part. I’m going to tell you what happened next. I’m not going to hide, and certainly it’s going to be scary, and certainly it’s going to bless someone, me being brave and simply saying what happened.

I left him in January, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth.* I went to live with my mother, who is a saint, and who always takes me in and feeds me, at my best and at my worst. I stayed with her two weeks and bought a flight to Maui for February 1st. I’d been in touch with a friend I’d made there the summer prior- she was a strong young woman like me who, also like me, had recently ended a relationship with a man who she thought was faithful and who was indeed manipulating her and compulsively lying about his true desires and his infidelity. She was pissed. I was pissed. We decided I’d come and stay with her and we’d throw rocks into the ocean, bitch about these fools, and go dancing about it all. And play ukuleles and sing. That’s what we do best, other than hugging and loving one another through absolutely every mood conceivable. 

The day before my flight left for Maui, instead of packing, I took my 87 year old grandmother to the doctor and discovered she had Covid. She was very, very sick. I was incredibly depleted and felt strongly I needed to leave to focus on my healing, but I couldn’t bear to leave her and my mother alone to walk through it without me. As well, I was scared to lose my precious grandma. I cancelled my flight to Maui. I stayed home to help nurse her back to health alongside my very scared mother, and we succeeded. She pulled through, and Mom and I enjoyed our turn with the virus. We stayed in our pajamas for three long weeks, watched countless hours of Netflix**, ate weird food because everything is weird when your taste and smell is off, worked puzzles, wandered around the house in an absolute stupor, cuddled cats, cracked jokes, and laid in bed a LOT.

It was actually one of the sweetest months I’ve ever spent with my mom. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

At the end of it all, I was still exhausted, with perpetual fatigue and intense brain fog. I was healing emotionally, but very vulnerable as well. I told myself I would not let my ex who I’d left back into my life, and I kept the promise for one month. He texted and called me, asked to see me even though I had Covid, asked to bring me medicine, take care of me, the whole nine yards. I did not let him back in. Then, after weeks of a big alley cat bullying my mothers’ outdoor cats, and no sign that my Facebook posts searching for a home for the poor thing would come through, I decided to call the ex. He lived on a small farm and his farm cat had died the year prior. I knew this big alley cat would have a good home there. He of course came and got the cat right away. He asked if he could come inside awhile. I had spent nearly a month in isolation, and I missed him. As well, I longed to be held, to be loved, to be touched and comforted. I was in a very fragile, vulnerable state. I felt the deep grief of the pandemic and the virus. As many of you may have experienced, when you have the illness, you touch into some shared human grief, a sorrow and a devastation that has touched the whole world, and it is deep and beautiful and painful, all at once.

So, I let him in. We talked, we held hands, and before long, we got into bed. We spent a whole weekend together, and that was to be the end. I’d booked my rescheduled flight to Maui for early March, and was leaving soon. I told myself it was just a closing chapter, to allow myself the comfort of being held and nourished with loving embrace for a short time, and to enjoy the connection with him again before leaving and ending it for good. It was good for me, in a way, I thought. I thought.

Day two of this amorous weekend, we made love (again), and when I sensed he was nearing climax, my body instinctively pulled away from him. We were not using a condom. He physically pulled me toward him- something he’d never done before- and restrained me as he ejaculated inside of me against my will. I felt very strange after that, but with the emotional fragility and covid brain fog at play, I was in a bizarre state of surrender. We went to a hotel the second night, and all he wanted to do was make love. The hotel had a clawfoot bathtub and I drew a hot bath. I asked him to take pictures of me in it. He was a skilled artist and photographer, and I’d always wished to be made into art by him, to be his muse. It had never really felt like I longed for it to feel. He just didn’t have the desire to paint or photograph me. So, for whatever reason, I asked him to take pictures, and he did, he snapped a few. One or two were nice enough. It felt strange, still, and not really fulfilling.

The next day, we awoke, had breakfast downstairs, and returned upstairs. We made love again. This time, I cried the entire time. It was some strange encounter- me weeping openly, and him continuing to make gentle, steady love to me. It felt full of sorrow, and I thought it must be healing, though I couldn’t tell if it really felt very good to me at all. I just surrendered any understanding or control of how things ought to look, and let it unfold. 

Afterward, lying in his arms, I asked him something like: 

“What do you really want? Do you want a polyamorous relationship, to be with many women? Because if you’d just told me that from the start, I could have potentially been open to it. At least I would have been informed."

In the days prior, he’d repeatedly assured me I was the only one he wanted. I knew better than to take that truly to heart, but of course, some part of me wanted to believe it. Through our conversations that weekend, I perceived quickly that he’d been pursuing other women while we were apart.

I don’t remember exactly how he answered my question, but we both decided to laugh about the whole ordeal. In a sort of a playful way, I said something like,

“Okay, well let’s see your phone again then. I want to see what you’ve been texting these women you’re trying to bed since I left.”

He laughed and agreed, and I opened his phone. First up was a thread with a woman he’d been trying to seduce for the last few weeks. Full of flirtatious texts, the most recent from him was none other than the picture of me he’d taken the night before, naked and posing in the clawfoot bathtub.

I think for him this was a kind of game, to play with her and tease her, showing her what beauty he could enjoy and hoping to draw her in with this. For me, it was fucking horrifying. 

I laughed under my breath in a low key, over-the-edge sort of way as I packed my things. “Welp, that’ll do,” I thought to myself as I loaded my things into the trunk of the car. “That’ll just about take care of that. I’m fucking done.”

He couldn’t understand why I was so upset. We took a walk in the park, and I tried, through gritted teeth, to explain myself. To explain why sending a naked picture of me to a woman he was trying to fuck, all the while assuring me he wanted only me, was extremely damaging and offensive. He accused me of being closed minded and judgmental. He defended himself. He dropped me back off at my mother’s house. I haven’t seen him since.

I flew to Maui a few days later, still reeling, but free. I hit the island and, as is customary for me, was immediately filled with gratitude, wonder, joy, and profound energy. I hiked, I swam, I connected with friends, I danced, I did yoga on the beach, I sang… I was in complete bliss. For six days. And on the sixth day, I took a pregnancy test. And the test was positive. And I came unglued.

I knew that I could not raise a child with this man. Despite my knowing that he was not a viable partner for me, I was extremely vulnerable to his advances. It was a strange compulsion, and made me feel like a sort of an addict. One of those relationships where you know you ought not to, and thus it becomes that much more desirable to do so. Of course I didn’t want to go back to him, but I didn’t trust myself to be anywhere near him and not end up back in bed with him.

He had a strong charisma and an energetic hold on me that made it so that I could not trust myself to be around him and stay in my center and stay empowered. Also, I’d witnessed how he co-parented with his ex wife throughout our relationship, and I didn’t like the way he criticized her behind her back and put her down. Hindsight is 20/20. I’d joked early on in our relationship that he was a walking red flag. We laughed then. I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was in love with the baby in my womb already, and also completely horrified at the prospect of raising a child with a man who was compulsively manipulative, abusive, and toxic to me.

Soon after reading the test results, I called my mother and she listened and consoled me. Then, I crossed the hall from my bedroom and collapsed onto the carpeted floor of my housemate’s room in tears, spilling the whole story. She barely knew me. We’d met only a few days earlier, when I came to stay in the home for the first time. Wide-eyed and open-hearted, she listened for an hour while I gushed, holding the most tender, loving, patient, perfect space for me. Holding me, physically, as well, when I was ready for a long hug. Reassuring me. Supporting me. Loving me. Her name is Bethany and she’s one of the most extraordinary women I’ve ever met. One day, I’ll interview her here. And you’ll know a bit of her and you’ll love her like I do, because she’s just so damn lovable. 

I pulled myself together. I slept as best I could. I woke up the next day, meditated, greeted the sunrise with gratitude and grief, and prayed for guidance. I pulled out my laptop and started researching options for abortion. I didn’t want to go to a clinic. I’d been there before. They are not fun places. They provide an essential service, but not in a pleasant way. I researched herbal options. I researched many options. I clicked and read and clicked and read and clicked and read for hours a day, for multiple days. And I landed on my choice: to purchase the same pills they sell at the clinics through a reputable, underground website, and do it at home, on my own, my way, if I wanted. Once I had the pills, I’d have the option, and I could always choose to say no and keep the baby. 

I went to the ocean one evening, after having made all the arrangements to give myself options in a way that felt right to me. I was exhausted from fitful sleep, anxiety, and many hours of online research and planning. The whole process really illuminated how little control we are granted as women over our own bodies. It was humbling to me, that I had so much privilege to even be able to explore these options, and how exhausting that was, as well. I climbed down a winding, rocky path to a large crop of black lava rock right on the ocean front. The sun had already set, and I sat on the warm rocks, watching the waves roll in, listening to the sound of it, and feeling the light fade from twilight to starry night sky. I sat with my feet on the earth in front of me, knees bent up toward my chest, and curled my back down, wrapping my arms around my shins and resting my forehead down on my knees. A little comforting cocoon, where I could feel all alone and go inward, with the company and comfort of the sea and the warm rocks to hold me. I felt my baby inside. Not physically, but not not physically, either. Like, an energy. A vast stillness and fullness within my womb. A very simple and pure love. A perfect being within me. Peace.

I sat and I sat, and I just savored the time with my baby and with the sea. I did not know what decision I would take, in the end. I did not think about what to do. I prayed for wisdom and for my intuition to lead. And I just sat with baby, with the infinite, with me, with the sea. After a long while in the darkness, I decided it was time to leave. And that was the most beautiful evening I ever spent with the sea.

Months before, I had arranged to attend a retreat rooted in indigenous wisdom and centered on sacred sexuality, called Quodoushka. These teachings and the community they’re held in had proven immensely healing for me in the three events I’d attended since 2019. I spoke with my spiritual teacher who was leading the upcoming retreat, told her about my situation, and sought her counsel. She invited me to come and be held by community in love. I agreed.

And then, I flew to the mainland. Three days after my positive test, I was on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona. The Southwest flight wasn’t full, and I enjoyed a whole row of seats to myself. I spread out, listened to music, and people-watched as I ate a snack and drank hot tea. The woman in the row of seats across and behind me on the flight was breast feeding her baby and playing with him. I watched them a long time. It was poignant to me.

After four days of being held in a powerful container of amazing people with skilled facilitators, I left the retreat, full of gratitude and with a new sense of peace and strength. I stayed in the guesthouse of some friends who were out of town, spending the next two weeks there with new friends. Two were a man and a woman who were a couple I’d bonded with over the weekend. The third was a man I’d met months prior at a previous retreat and who I’d been nurturing a friendship with. The three of them stayed with me and agreed to support me to take my choice: to take the pills at home, create a ceremony, spend the day lying on the earth under a eucalyptus tree, and let my baby go. It was the right choice for me.

I took the first pill the day before my planned ceremony.***

The second day, I set up a blanket with a journal, water, crackers (in case of nausea), and other items outside in nature. My friends gave me hours of space and sacred solitude after I took the pills. I meditated and rested on a blanket in the shade of the eucalyptus, a mighty tree that resembles a willow, with swaths of low-hanging, vine-like limbs covered in crescent-shaped leaves. The land there runs along a creek, and the eucalyptus was huge, towering over a small pond just downhill that held fish, ducks, and water grasses which grew up from its shallow depths. I listened to the breeze whispering through the leaves, watched the vines sway, watched the ducks float in the pond, watched ants crawl through the sparse grass and sand of the desert landscape surrounding me, watched the sun crawl slowly across the sky.

It was a beauty way to do a difficult thing. I prayed and wept and sang and sat in silence. After some time, my friends came and checked on me. They sat with me. We talked and they even managed to make me laugh. I wept, but I also smiled. I allowed myself to feel normal, strange, good, bad, and peace. I just allowed for whatever would unfold. They held me. They gave me massage and sweet words of comfort. They didn’t make it weird and actually were very comfortable with me and proud of me for creating beauty and empowerment from a painful situation. 

If I learned anything in the retreat, it was that this was an opportunity for healing. Inner reflection is paramount. I had to stop looking at my ex and placing blame if I wanted to find the healing I craved.****

In order to truly release and heal, my job was to look inward for the wounding that had allowed me to get myself here. I had to take responsibility for my choices and call myself into accountability while also holding myself with immense compassion. I had to, and I did. 

I had a medical abortion on my own terms, at home, in my own way, without using a clinic, in April of 2022, under a eucalyptus tree next to a little pond. And I am grateful. And I am not ashamed. And I am healed. And all is well.

Six months later, I accidentally dialed one of the friends who’d been there with me that day: my sister Anne, who walked me through one of the biggest ceremonies of my life. We lived far apart by then, and hadn’t spoken in months, so it was an unexpected encounter, as I hadn’t really intended to ring her. We decided we were pleasantly surprised, and wound up talking nearly two hours on the phone, catching up and realizing we’d both be back in Arizona for a week in December at the same exact time. I asked what she had planned for her visit, and she shared that she would be competing in a triathlon. I’d been curious about such a thing for some time. I was hungry for expansion and challenge, and for a clear goal. 

I was doing well, overall. Thanks to my spiritual growth and daily practices, the immense love of my family, friends, and new partner, and my own relentless will for joy and well being, I had not sunk into depression or despair. I was sober, stable, and grounded. Still, I felt I was treading water. I was floundering in my career and financially. I had a sort of lethargic energy about me. I felt unfulfilled, desirous of feeling my own power and clarity, and of realizing an achievable goal. I decided I’d do the triathlon with her. I had about seven weeks to train. 

I enrolled in the race that same day. The next morning, I bought a swimsuit and goggles, got a gym membership, and began my training.

I quickly recognized that this was to be a journey of spiritual healing for me. 

In my next entry, I will tell you the rest of the story, and all about the race and the days following it. It’s been three days since I finished. I feel very good. I feel very alive. I feel very happy and profoundly grateful. I also have been crying a lot and releasing. 

Washing oneself clean of shame, hate, and blame is a long journey. For me, it has taken countless hours of prayer, and of pushing edges in my physical body to grow, expand, sweat, and breathe my way into presence. To release stress and stories that do not serve my joy. To reclaim my power, one mile, one tear, one bead of sweat at a time. I am alive, and I am well. I did things my way, and I’m grateful to share my story with you.

This is a vulnerable space, and my writing is just what it is, my loves. I’m not interested in elaborate editing or in attempting to appear skilled. I’m interested in being honest from my heart, and letting it all go, letting it be seen, so that those out there who need to read this, can. 

And to all still reading, I love you. I’m here for you. Even if you’re confused and angry with me for what I’ve shared, I’ll listen to you. I’ll give everyone who wants to speak an initial ear, and no matter what you say, I’ll love you. If you need love, support, or questions answered, just email me at onwardandoutward.org@gmail.com. I’m here for you.

With all my love and courage,

Breezy Bree

______________________________________________________________________________________

*This is a biblical reference… I don’t know why, really, but I always loved that phrase. It’s so dramatic yet also poetic, don’t you think?

**Our favorite discovery during this time was the show Penguin Town. I love the music video for the theme song. It felt like it came to me at the perfect time, reminding me of the power of human resilience and the will to survive and thrive. Check it out here. And for God’s sake, if you’re able, stand up and dance!

***This pill ends the production of the hormone progesterone in the body, which ends the growth of the pregnancy. The next pills are taken 24 hours later, and cause the uterus to contract, effectively bringing on what feels like a very strong, painful menstrual cycle. It can take hours to start bleeding and cramping after taking the second day’s dose. Then, you bleed strongly for a few hours, have a heavy period for a week or so, and have spotting for perhaps several weeks after that. It takes months for the hormones in the body to fully rebalance back to normal. It is a new normal. We women are never exactly the same after a transition like this. That doesn’t mean we’re worse. Healing is a process. Each woman has her own way. We are all sacred, and when all else fails, the earth is our Mother and She will hold us through anything. If you are a woman who is considering or has experienced abortion and craves connection and support, please reach out to me. I will connect you with others and we will all heal and grow and be well, together.

****He’s blameless anyway, in the end. All humans are. We are all doing our best with the cards we’ve been dealt. Even the abusers. Most of them don’t know what they’re doing. They’re lost to themselves. They’ve been through pain we can’t imagine. Even the lost ones and the ones who do unthinkable things are blameless, if you look with the eyes of compassion. My ex is a very wonderful person in many ways. He also devastated my life. And I let him. Life is strange and confusing, but love and compassion never fail. To know happiness, we must learn how to use anger and pain to fuel our healing, not take over our lives. This all takes time, and you can’t rush the process. You can, however, expedite it with spiritual disciplines and teachings. I’m happy to share more about what’s worked for me. Feel free to email me. Blessings. <3