Around the Table

As a little girl in the early sixties, Diana sat at the kitchen table managing the consequences of spilling her milk. At the age of five, she already sensed the agony of intimidation radiating from the patriarchal figure hanging on the crucifix above the door. She believed her father and Jesus were one and the same and began counting the peas and carrots on her plate to cope with her developed emotional trauma. Through her quest to discover her worthiness and survive her teenage years, Diana's coping mechanisms amplified as she struggled to define love through acceptance within inherited patterning of matriarchal control. Her path through adulthood took many u-turns as this courageous woman chose to defy dysfunctional codependency to find genuine connection while co-existing with those she loved. This fifty-five-year account shares the duality of heart-wrenching and heart-warming memories within a daughter's battle between the perception of what is right and what is wrong while painstakingly escaping the cycle of living on what she believed was the brink of insanity.