I met David in June and it was love at first sight. As I stared at him without his seeing me, I cried at his beauty and his magnificence. He took my breath away and I had to sit down to take all of him in. And in I took him, while alongside me sat Michelangelo, David’s creator. Together we three were quiet; while I, alone, wept. I understood that David’s magnificence was merely a reflection of Michelangelo’s own beauty, of Michelangelo’s willingness to buy into his own magnificence rather than his lack. In the beginning David was a block of stone. Michelangelo chipped away slowly and steadily, certain there was something bigger and greater and more beautiful and ready to be revealed on the inside of that stone block. He didn’t fear the tools available to him; he used them to uncover David’s greatness. And I saw that I was simultaneously David and Michelangelo: created and creator, art and artist, masterpiece and master.

What if instead of being on the receiving end of an abusive marriage, that relationship was the tool in my tool box that allowed me to reveal my greatest self? I chipped away slowly and steadily, not always certain what I might find, but certain it had to be greater than what I was at that time. It’s not about fear because fear would have kept me there, slowly dying without medical explanation. No, it wasn’t fear that removed me from that relationship; it was love. And it was my love of me that saved me for my own unveiling.