Slander.

The word is serpentine as it rolls through my head, over my tongue. Defining it. Naming it. Trying to take away its power.

My heart is heavy these past days. Not as heavy as in the past, my desire to simply walk away from this life hasn’t resurfaced since starting over in a new home and trying to rebuild. But. To hear my own son questioning me about the veracity of slander being spread by his father. My son. My heart. I cried the day you were born and laid into my arms, a miracle to me. My perfect boy with sparkling eyes, a huge smile, a love for people, a love to please. Now grown strong and tall and straight and true. An arrow of justice through a crooked world. Looking at me with questioning eyes, because his father twists reality, turns innocence to falsehoods, invents darkness where there is only love and light.

Slander. Deep, dark, oily, slithering. Hard to grasp. Hard to correct. You can’t face it head on – it twists away. A serpentine enemy with a bite more poisonous than any earthly snake. A shady creature so easy to want to believe, so tantalizing are its spitting words, so soothing to the ear. An insidious ASMR nightmare. Easy to take in, and suddenly those who mean only good and well and truth are viewed with suspicion and dark thoughts by friends. By family. By sons.

Do I pray? Take the time to submit to the Surrender Novena? Do I wait for time to reveal the truth? During which time, what damage is done? What hurts? What broken relationships? The one who voiced the slanderous lies wins, even as he loses, trust is broken. Shattered. Those beautiful brown eyes… looking at me now with distrust and suspicion over whispers and darkness.

My heart hurts.

I bought myself a water bottle today. I don’t know why. It’s not something I would normally do, buy a thing that is labeled. I don’t like labels. It reminds me of those overly expensive shirts and bags sold with catchy phrases, clever fonts, simple language to declare to the world you are His. I can’t afford those things, and even if I could – I would never have the courage to wear them. My crucifix sometimes feels like it’s glowing, and sometimes as though it is branding me as I declare myself most definitely Catholic at every turn of my life.

Maybe I needed to remind myself. Though I sometimes find the idea of unconditional love incredibly painful. A lump of sugar that simply sticks in my throat, choking me, bringing tears and pain and hurt. I’m undeserving. I try to be useful because I am undeserving of love or kindness. Life has long shown me that; or maybe that’s my own mental twists after the way in which men, my ex, have used me in this life. Or maybe it’s the bitterness that forms in a world of rejections no matter how much you prove your value. I don’t know. I can only say how today, the heaviness is overwhelming. Maybe I just liked the pretty flowers, frivolous … they match the green in my summer dress.

Blessed. Who is? Me? Or the water bottle that graces the word.

Slandered. I am that. But those who issue the lies, who invent a false reality, they walk through this earthly life feeling justified in what they do.

I know I am useful. I know God made me strong. I know I am earnest and honest. I know I love. These are the truths on which I have to hinge my world, on which I anchor my feet to the earth so that I wake tomorrow and continue to give of myself to my sons, as they try to discern true from false. Even as they are fed lies and darkness and are taught evil, serpentine ways.

I know I am Blessed.