Violinist (CENTURIES series: Book #4)

24

Building a stable and safe psyche was like building a house.

From infantry and all through your childhood, your parents helped you build a good foundation. The best ones made it solid, but if you were unlucky, they would build it unevenly and set you up for a poor start to life. Some kids were strong enough to realize that and strong enough to find a way to stabilize their own foundation without them.

But then came the actual construction; Building it up to a safe and solid sanctuary.

Throughout life, you picked up heavy bricks that helped you sculpt your little mental home. Some were bad bricks, some were sturdy. You learned how to stack them through trial and error, learned how to stabilize crumbling walls – learned that sometimes, you had to knock one down and start over.

But throughout life, if you were lucky, you also found people willing to help you build. They lifted bricks with you, lent you a hand and supported you in your project. Some were old in the construction business and had built many houses themselves. They were good builders, happy helpers, blessings along the way.

But then, there were the snakes.

Some people were bad builders, but you didn't know until it was too late. Until they had helped you build an entire wall together and only too late did you realize it was unstable and would crumble. The people would ignore it and keep on building on your now unsturdy house, and it was up to you to find the strength to take them off your personal project.

Fire them.

But what if you didn't?

What if, through most of your life, when you had just gotten a hang of building and had found what you thought were a stable building partner, you had kept building with this person so far into your project, you finally dared to start building the roof? The thing that was going to be your safety; Your cover from the harsh pouring rains, the roof that would protect you from thunder and lightening and icy cold times.

I had trusted Mason with my roof. I had given him all my materials, all my assets, love and trust, and entrusted him to keep all of it safe by helping him build my roof.

But now, everything had crashed down on top of me, taking all my walls with it, and buried me in the rubble of what used to be my life.

Everything... was ashes.

For six months, I had been laying there. For six months, I had been watching the ashes fall, too tired to get up. People tried to dig me free, had tried help me up, but in the end I had to stand up by myself.

I had to choose to get up and start rebuilding.

But how did you start rebuilding when you couldn't even find the strength to carry on?

What happened with Mason was only a small part of it. He had been a bad roof over a poorly constructed house, and everything that had fallen down together had been an homage to all the bad choices I had made in my life. All the bad people I had let dictate it and let control how my safe space should be built.

"Who do you have in your life that you love?"

I looked at my therapist, Dr Samson, who watched me with her nurturing green eyes, waiting for my reply. Who did I have in my life that I loved?