It’s going to get messier.

“It’s going to get a lot messier.

That’s the title of the book I am feeling the universe nudging me to write.

“It is going to get a lot messier”

We don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about how really examining the work we do and the impact of it, will be so so messy. And we double don’t talk about how it will get even more messy to begin making changes and trying to repair damage we have done.

We talk about the mess like it is trendy. An obligation. Something all good anti-violence folks must do… wade into the messy middle.  

As though it is a foregone conclusion almost that you will dig in, sort things out, and come out the other side being all sunshine and roses. Peering back with serene reflection as you sip your ice tea on your wraparound porch… That vision is about as true as the idea that once survivors of intimate partner violence or exploitation leave the person who is abusing them, they will be totally fine.

All they need to do is leave.

But the most dangerous part is the leaving. The hardest part is the part we don’t talk about, the hardest part is not going back.

We don’t want to think about or even begin to explore this. We don’t want to be honest about that because who in their right mind would sign up for an adventure in the mud, if they knew that it just kept right on getting more and more and more and more disgusting to their soul? What are the things you really need the space to talk about and wrestle with?   What are the things we should have been prepared for when we entered this field? How are we working to prepare our space for the next generation?

We must start having these conversations. We must start being more honest about this work as a whole.

And for the love, we must stop pretending that sunshine is a constant and the darkness is the variable.

Both day and night are constant.

Some days and nights are more bearable than others, but both have capacity to be incredibly devastating in the same breath that they have opportunity for healing and beauty.

It is messy.

And the good news is: it gets messier.

***

If you know me very well you know that I’m always working on more than one thing, and that this isn’t the only thing I am working on writing. But I am laying the groundwork for this one, and I am pretty excited about adding it to my list of works in progress.

Speaking of works in progress, I better get back to it.

Take extra good care my friends.