Sacred Road: my journey through abuse, leaving the Mormons & embracing spirituality by Todd Maxwell Preston

Author:Todd Maxwell Preston [Preston, Todd Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Awakened Healing Ltd.
Published: 2013-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Broken Wide Open

It was the winter of 2007–08. It was absolutely incredible, we had so much snow: I remember there being a few days where we had well over twenty inches in one day. Being Utah, the snow was light and fluffy, perfect for snowboarding or skiing. Locals in the area figured we hadn’t enjoyed a winter that big since the 1983–84 season. My two older brothers and I were season-pass holders at one of the local resorts. We spent a lot of time together that season, carving up the mountain as much as we could. It was a real joy spending some quality time with my brothers. There had always been a little resentment in our family towards my oldest brother. It really wasn’t his fault my father created the dysfunctional dynamics, the way he thought a family should operate, mangled through the lens of abuse, biblical distortion and religious fanaticism.

It was towards the end of the season. We had spent the morning in fresh powder, it was beautiful. We were in the lodge eating some lunch, when tension surfaced between my oldest brother and myself. Before I knew it the tension had risen to full-blown verbal abuse. He completely lost it – name-calling and hitting as close to home as he possibly could. He happened to nail everything spot on, barely missing any detail – my mountain of debt, all the shit I owned but never really owned – he must have gone on for several minutes. I barely got a single word in, I didn’t need to: I was speechless. At that moment I absorbed it all. Everything he had said to me stung severely, yet I was content to let it be.

We didn’t speak for almost a month after that, but my brother’s tirade turned out to be a really good predictor for my life ahead. My finances were out of control. The pressure I put on my small business to outperform my reckless spending had reached its capacity. I was like a sailor looking for the promised land of materialism only to see the expanse of the vast ocean swallow me whole. My ego’s identifying with material possessions was coming to an end.

I turned thirty-five that spring; my daughters were ten, eight and five. My wife and I were further apart than ever, and the facade of our happy lives was soon to be blown apart. It was one foot in front of the other, unsure and uncertain as to the events that would unfold. I was scared yet somehow ready for my path to blossom. There was a calm presence for a couple of months – I wasn’t aware of it at the time – but the stillness was perhaps me sitting in the eye of a massive storm.

It was Mother’s Day 2008. This was one of the few occasions each year I would go to my in-laws for dinner. Ironically, it was one of the few times I remembered to get my wife a gift other than the usual card.

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