Scribed In Light

My birth-name initials are TNT.

Tina Noreen Tudor.

Looking back, I’m beginning to think that was less coincidence and more of a manufacturer’s warning label.

I had what I will lovingly call a colorful upbringing.

There was trauma, but not the kind people usually imagine when they hear the word and offer a sympathetic nod.

Some of it was severe enough that, when I have shared it in full, people have sat stunned and asked me how I am still alive.

There is a rawness within that truth that is difficult to express in words.

Some truths are so sharp that even speaking them changes the room.

I learned a long time ago not to tell those stories casually. I share them when I believe the telling may help someone survive, understand what they are carrying, or feel less alone in their own trench.

Because the details are not always the point.

What they left behind is.

The adults around me were carrying stories and wounds that had begun long before I ever entered the picture.

At the time, of course, I didn’t understand any of that.

Children rarely do.

When we are young, we tend to keep the important adults in our lives inside very specific boxes.

Mom is Mom.

Dad is Dad.

Grandma is Grandma.

Stepdad is Stepdad.

We see them through the role they occupy in our lives and through the way that role affects us.

It usually does not occur to us that before they ever became those people to us, they were whole individuals with their own childhoods, disappointments, fears, trauma, mistakes, shame, anger, regret, and unresolved pain.

And whether they mean to or not, pain has collateral.

It travels.

It raises children.

It shapes homes.

It influences choices.

Sometimes it hands the next generation a fuse that is already burning.

I know that because I carried one.

By the time I was a teenager, I was angry.

Very angry.

Add hormones, independence, pain, poor judgment, a desperate desire to be loved, and the absolute certainty that I knew far more than I actually did, and you had yourself a fairly combustible little situation.

I did not always learn by listening.

I was much more talented at learning through impact.

Some people hear, “Don’t touch the stove,” and wisely step away.

I apparently preferred to touch it, burn myself, study the blister, crawl out of the mess, and then announce that I had discovered something profound.

I made hard choices.

Heavy choices.

Cringe-worthy choices.

Some hurt me.

Some hurt people I loved.

And some created shockwaves that traveled much farther than I ever intended.

One of the hardest parts of getting older is developing enough clarity to look backward and realize that some of what we blamed entirely on other people also contained our own fingerprints.

That realization is uncomfortable.

It should be.

There are things I wish I could go back and change.

People I wish I had treated differently.

Relationships I wish I had handled with more maturity and wisdom.

There were people who may have been very good for me whom I pushed away, overlooked, or mishandled while chasing people who were not good for me at all.

I spent a lot of my younger years searching for love.

Pure love.

Safe love.

Unconditional love.

Love that did not hurt.

And somehow, while searching for it, I repeatedly chose people and situations that recreated the very pain I was trying to escape.

That is the strange thing about unhealed pain.

Familiar can feel like home, even when home was painful.

And if you are not careful, you can keep calling the same fire “love.”

I did.

For a long time.

When Motherhood Changed the Direction

Motherhood changed something in me.

Once I had children, I began looking at the collateral behind me and thinking about the collateral in front of me.

I realized I did not want the shockwave of my past becoming an inheritance for my children.

I did not want the pain that shaped me to quietly move through me and begin shaping them too.

That may have been the beginning of the most important self-work I ever did.

I had to look inward.

Not only at who had hurt me.

Not only at who had triggered me.

But at what I was doing with all of it.

It is easy to say:

They made me angry.

They pushed me too far.

They hurt me.

And sometimes those things are true.

Sometimes somebody else really does strike the match.

But I eventually had to face a harder question:

Why did they still have access to my fuse?

That question changed my life.

Once I stopped looking only at the match and started looking at the fuse, I began seeing patterns.

Why does this affect me so deeply?

Why does this person still have this much emotional control over me?

Am I reacting to what is happening right now, or to something much older?

Am I setting a boundary, or am I detonating?

Those questions are not comfortable.

But they are freeing.

Because once you identify the trigger, you can begin to understand it.

Once you understand the fuse, you can begin to protect it.

Once you understand the pattern, you can begin interrupting it.

And once you interrupt the pattern, you can change the trajectory.

When I Handed Someone Else the Match

I learned that in one of the hardest ways possible.

There were times during my son Austin’s medical journey when I knew something was wrong.

Not suspected.

Knew.

I had a mother’s instinct, and I also had medical training telling me that what I was seeing mattered.

But I was in a marriage where my confidence was repeatedly questioned.

My concern was dismissed as “mommy-itis.”

I was told I was overreacting.

Too soft.

Too emotional.

Too worried.

And eventually, I began questioning myself.

After one surgery, Austin continued to decline.

He had a fever.

He weakened instead of improving.

He would try to get up and collapse.

Everything in me was screaming that something was wrong.

Yet I hesitated because I had been conditioned to doubt my own judgment.

When I finally acted, he was gravely ill.

He was septic and needed emergency intervention.

For years afterward, I carried tremendous anger toward my husband.

And to be clear, there were legitimate reasons for anger.

That relationship carried its own toxicity, oppression, and harm. Eventually, leaving it became necessary for my children and for me.

But before I could let go of some of that anger, I had to stand in front of another mirror.

I had to admit something painful.

He was responsible for the way he treated me.

But I was responsible for the moments I surrendered my own knowing.

That does not make Austin’s illness my fault.

It does not mean I can know how different his outcome might have been had I acted sooner.

I cannot know that.

But I do know I allowed another person’s voice to become louder than my instincts, training, and judgment.

Sometimes lighting your own fuse does not look like rage.

Sometimes it looks like abandoning your own voice.

Sometimes it looks like giving away authority over yourself and then becoming furious at the person who took it.

Once I could see my part honestly, I could reclaim it.

I could stop handing over the match.

I could trust myself again.

And eventually, I could let go of some of the anger.

Not because what happened became acceptable.

But because I reclaimed the part of the story that still belonged to me.

But Not Every Fire Is Yours

There is something else I need to make very clear.

Not every fuse is lit because we allowed it.

Not every explosion could have been prevented through greater wisdom, stronger boundaries, or better self-awareness.

Sometimes harm is imposed upon us.

I learned that very young.

At sixteen, my family life had become so volatile that I left home and moved between families who allowed me to stay with them while I tried to figure out how to survive.

Eventually I became a nanny for one of those families.

I cared for their children. I bathed them, fed them, did laundry, washed dishes, put them to bed, and often spent days caring for them while their parents lived chaotic lives of their own.

For a while, that house felt like somewhere I could exist safely.

Until it wasn’t.

The father began crossing sexual boundaries with me.

At first, it happened while I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes.

I did not even hear him enter the room before he touched me.

I froze.

My mind tried to understand what had happened, assess danger, and figure out what to do next.

His comments about my body made me feel guilty, as though somehow my existence had caused his behavior.

I loved his wife dearly.

She had become like a second mother to me.

The situation broke something inside me.

Eventually his behavior escalated.

One evening I tried putting furniture between us while he pursued me.

I ran upstairs toward the children because somewhere in my sixteen-year-old mind I believed their presence might make him stop.

When I realized he intended to follow me into their room, I stopped because I did not want them exposed to what was happening.

Later that night, while I was sleeping, another boundary was crossed.

I will leave the details there.

They are not necessary to the lesson.

Because this is the important part:

None of that was mine.

I did not invite it.

I did not cause it.

I did not fail because I froze.

I did not create another adult’s choices.

No amount of self-reflection should ever turn another person’s deliberate harm into responsibility that belongs to the person harmed.

Sometimes someone else really does strike the match.

Sometimes despite everything we do, the situation detonates anyway.

People get hurt.

Trust changes.

Fear enters places it never belonged.

But eventually I learned something else.

I could not control what happened to me. I could begin deciding what I carried forward from it.

I could stop carrying guilt that never belonged to me.

I could stop treating someone else’s actions as evidence against myself.

I could learn that freezing was not consent.

Fear was not weakness.

Survival was not complicity.

Self-reflection should help us recognize what belongs to us.

And just as importantly, what never did.

The Friendships I Was Keeping Score In

That same mirror showed up in friendships.

There was a season when I became hurt with friends who did not give back what I felt I was offering them.

I would think, “I would do this for you. Why won’t you do it for me?”

Then one day I stopped at one word:

Offer.

What exactly was I offering?

Was I giving friendship freely?

Or was I unconsciously handing someone a contract they had never agreed to sign?

If I offered love, presence, time, or care, did that mean they owed me the same expression in return?

I had to admit that I was often looking at those relationships entirely through my own perspective.

Why did I want to be their friend?

Was I offering friendship because I loved them?

Or because I needed their behavior to validate what I gave?

That changed the way I approach relationships.

Not everybody will love you the way you love them.

Not everybody communicates the way you do.

Not everybody has the same emotional capacity.

That does not mean abandoning boundaries or endlessly pouring into relationships that harm or deplete you.

Closeness can change.

Access can change.

But love itself does not have to become transactional.

Loss taught me that too.

I do not want to spend what time I have keeping emotional scorecards.

I would rather offer myself sincerely and then use wisdom to decide what place a relationship should hold.

That gave me peace.

It also removed another match from the box.

The Woman Behind Mom

My relationship with my mother taught me something else entirely.

It was the most difficult relationship of my life.

It was layered with trauma, abuse, brokenness, emotional discouragement, anger, and misunderstanding.

For years, I saw her almost entirely through the box labeled Mom.

Who she was to me.

Who I believed she should have been.

What I needed from her.

What I believed she had failed to give me.

Sadly, it was not until she was gone that I began seeing her outside that box.

Not only as my mother.

As a woman.

A whole person.

A woman who existed before I did.

Someone with her own history, wounds, fears, unmet needs, disappointments, mistakes, trauma, limitations, and probably her own regrets.

She had her own storyline.

And when I finally saw her that way, something unexpected happened.

Grace arrived.

Compassion.

Empathy.

Understanding.

And eventually forgiveness.

Understanding her more completely did not erase what happened.

It did not make painful things acceptable.

Understanding does not require excusing.

But context changed my perspective.

And perspective softened anger I had carried for years.

That was healing.

And heartbreaking.

Because I wish I had reached that understanding while she was still here.

I wish I had seen the woman behind Mom sooner.

I believe I would have approached our relationship differently.

Maybe that vulnerability would have opened a different door between us.

I will never know.

That is a difficult regret.

But it taught me something I hope somebody reading this hears:

Do not wait until someone is gone to begin seeing the person behind the role.

People are whole stories.

Sometimes understanding does not change the boundary.

Sometimes it does not repair the relationship.

Sometimes distance remains necessary.

Sometimes leaving remains necessary.

But understanding can change how much anger you carry.

And how much access someone continues to have to your fuse.

Breaking the Shockwave

My children became the reason I worked so hard to break those links.

I wanted to be better for them.

Not perfect.

Better.

And even then, I made mistakes.

I stayed in things too long.

I misunderstood what faith required of me.

There were times I confused endurance with obedience and believed remaining in a toxic situation somehow made me more faithful.

It did not.

That created collateral too.

My children were affected.

That is difficult for me to acknowledge.

But accountability matters.

We cannot heal what we refuse to name.

Now I look at my children as adults and parents themselves and sometimes I am stunned by the parents they have become.

They tell me I was a good mother.

I still wrestle with that.

I know where I failed.

But when I see the way they love their children, I see something good traveled forward too.

That matters.

Because pain travels.

Fear travels.

Poor decisions travel.

Silence travels.

But healing travels too.

Wisdom travels.

Compassion travels.

Humor travels.

Faith travels.

Change travels.

Sometimes one person becoming more aware is enough to alter the trajectory of an entire family.

When You Feel the Fuse Catch

This is not an invitation to beat yourself up over every reaction you have ever had.

Self-reflection should create clarity, not another weapon to use against yourself.

But when you feel your fuse catch, pause.

Catch yourself before reaction becomes trajectory.

Step back.

Reassess what is happening with as much honesty as you can tolerate.

Not only them.

You.

What lit this?

Why did it have access?

What part belongs to the person in front of me?

What part belongs to me?

Am I reacting to today, or did today touch something much older?

Am I carrying something that never belonged to me at all?

And then ask:

What happens next if I let this burn?

Because sometimes the explosion is not the most damaging part.

The collateral is.

The words that cannot be taken back.

The decision made in anger.

The relationship damaged.

The shame carried afterward.

The consequences that continue long after the original moment is gone.

An explosion can last seconds. Its collateral can travel for years.

Once I truly understood that, something remarkable happened.

Most of the things that once could set me off stopped having the same power.

Not because the world became easier.

Not because everybody around me suddenly became enlightened saints.

Dear Lord, no.

I changed.

I learned to catch the spark.

I learned my triggers.

I learned where my responsibility began and where it ended.

I learned when to own something.

I learned when to refuse ownership of something that had never belonged to me.

And every time I interrupted that process, it became easier the next time.

The pause grew longer than the impulse.

Clarity became louder than the trigger.

And eventually, the ignitions happened less often.

That is the part I want people to understand.

Self-awareness does not only help you recover from the explosion.

Eventually, it can make many of the explosions unnecessary.

You learn yourself.

You strengthen the weak links.

You stop handing the same people the same matches.

You recognize when an old pain is trying to make a new decision.

And sometimes you simply put the fuse out yourself.

If I had to reduce all of that to four words, it would be:

Pause. Mirror. Own. Choose.

Pause before reacting.

Mirror yourself honestly.

Own what belongs to you — and refuse what does not.

Choose what happens next.

Aged TNT

My fuse is much longer these days.

My aim got better.

There is far less collateral damage.

And thank God, a lot more humor.

Humor became one of my survival tools.

Sometimes laughter gives me enough distance to see something differently.

Sometimes it prevents a reaction.

Sometimes it reminds me that not every irritation deserves my energy.

And sometimes, frankly, if you cannot laugh at your own life, you may as well start handing out helmets.

I am calmer now.

More focused.

More deliberate.

Still fierce.

Do not misunderstand me.

The dynamite did not disappear.

It just aged well.

Same potency.

Better aim.

Far fewer accidental detonations.

And somewhere along the way, the fuse changed purpose.

These days, when my fuse gets lit, it often gets lit through my writing.

The fire that once came out in reaction now comes out in words.

In outreach.

In honesty.

In telling the truth about things I survived, things I mishandled, things I regret, things I learned, and things I wish someone had helped me understand sooner.

The fire now has somewhere useful to go.

Instead of detonating, it can illuminate.

That may be one of the greatest gifts of self-growth.

You do not have to extinguish yourself.

You do not have to become less passionate.

Less fierce.

Less powerful.

You simply learn what deserves ignition.

That is what I hope my writing does.

I am willing to show you some of my craters if it helps you recognize your fuse before you create another one.

I am willing to admit where I made bad choices if it helps somebody else make a wiser one.

I am willing to talk about regret if it helps another person realize regret does not have to become a prison.

I am willing to talk about people who hurt me and people I hurt because humility can sometimes give another person enough courage to look honestly into their own mirror.

That is the purpose.

Not shame.

Not blame.

Awareness.

Clarity.

Responsibility.

Grace.

Growth.

So the next time something lights you up, maybe pause before looking outward.

Ask yourself what it touched.

Ask what belongs to you.

Ask what does not.

Ask what the collateral will be if you react right now.

And most importantly:

Does this deserve my fire?

Sometimes it will.

Some things need confrontation.

Some things require boundaries.

Some things need truth.

Some things require distance.

Some things require us to leave.

And some things were never ours to fix in the first place.

But whenever we have a choice, let clarity choose the response.

Not the match.

For years, I lit my own fuse.

Sometimes I handed the match to other people and became angry when they used it.

Sometimes a burning fuse was handed to me before I understood what I was carrying.

And sometimes someone else lit it entirely without my permission.

Those are not the same thing.

Learning the difference matters.

Now I protect the fuse better.

I strengthen the weak links.

I look inward before I explode outward.

I refuse guilt that never belonged to me.

I own what does.

I choose more carefully what receives my energy.

And whenever possible, I turn the fire into light.

Because growth did not make me less fierce.

It taught me what deserves the flame.

And maybe that is really how we stop lighting our own fuse.

Stay fierce. Keep the fuse long. And before you strike the match, make sure the damn thing deserves the fire.

— Tina N. Campbell
Scribed in Light

“Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.” — Proverbs 16:32, NIV

“Unjust anger cannot be justified, for anger tips the scale to one’s ruin.”
— Sirach 1:22, NRSVCE
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Canon

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” — Viktor Frankl