Just had an experience that left me shaking.

[Ladyhawk]

I went to water aerobics and for some reason let my normal guard down with a nice-seeming older lady. Lately, because of the very conservative / fundamentalist town where I live, I have been keeping my emotions locked up tighter than a thousand-dollar bill in the hand of a middle-class bushbot.

She asked about my cervical collar and I told her about my surgery and diabetes issues. I complimented her sunglasses and learned she couldn't get water in her eyes because she's on anti-rejection medication. She had a kidney transplant three years ago. I spent quite a bit of time talking to her about the kidney transplant and what it was like.

She kept looking at me and saying she knew me from somewhere. My eyes...they looked familiar...something about my big blue eyes... It took her a long time, but she finally remembered that her son had a little friend named Laura in nursery school, but certainly I was too young to be that girl. I asked if the nursery school was held in the little building that straddles Woods Creek. It was. I asked her the name of her son and instantly recognized his name.

For a second, I was transported back in time 32-33 years. At that point in my life, my family was as close to normal as it was ever going to be. I was in a public nursery school. I had a little friend named Chris and we played together in the sand box, building a "trap" for a mean bully that plagued us. My father hadn't really started hitting me yet. The televangelists hadn't yet warped my family's religion into something ugly. The church-going child molester had yet to violate my sanity. No fundamentalist school had pounded violent Old Testament messages into my impressionable brain. No diabetes. No depression. No chronic pain. I was young, care-free, burdenless...and I had a little friend named Chris.

Flash forward to age 38...where did I get all this baggage...and what happened to that little tow-headed girl with the big blue eyes?

[BikeWriter]

1. ((((((Ladyhawk)))))) That road sounds like a rough one.

[Ladyhawk]

2. Thanks...I just didn't know how else to share it.

:shrug:

I needed to get it out of my system, I guess. I apologize for venting... :shrug:

[sendero]

4. Nothing wrong..

.... with being real. I hope you got as much from writing it as we all will from reading it.

[BlueIris]

11. That's okay. Venting is good for your psyche. nt

[khashka]

3. That little girl is still there and still you

Don't ever let her go.

Having been molested, bullied, beaten, raped, watched most of my family turn against me for the unforgivable sin of being a faggot, developing an incurable illness that causes chronic pain...

I ask the same question. What happened to that little boy? So optimistic and hopeful....

Well, he's still here.

And that little girl is still a part of you. As KaTe Bush says in Jig Of Life "Never say goodbye to my part of your life. C'mon let me live. Never never never never never let me go! C'mon let me live, girl. C'mon let me live."

Khash.

[Ladyhawk]

8. Thanks. I try to remember who she was, but it brings pain.

Every time I've tried to do one of those "inner child" visualizations, I've had a bad reaction. This is the first time I've seen her clearly in over thirty years, probably because the visualization was grounded by a little boy named Chris. It feels...bizarre. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I'm shaking, crying.

[khashka]

9. I'm sorry it is affecting you so strongly

But sometimes it's a good thing, even when it hurts. Sometimes you need to cry things out. And come out more whole on the other side.

There's nothing wrong with feeling the pain, you can't help it and it's necessary. And you can make it to the other side of the pain.

You got someone there with you Lady? It sucks to go through this without someone to at least hold you while you do it...


Khash.

[BamaGirl]

5. Aww {{{Ladyhawk}}}

I have no advice, but many hugs! :hug:

[Aristus]

6. Hugs from me, too, Ladyhawk!

:hug::grouphug::hug:

[Left Is Write]

7. I don't know what to say.

I want to give little Ladyhawk a big hug, and I want to give grown-up Ladyhawk a big hug too. :hug:

[Bullwinkle925]

10. It's such a small world, isn't it?

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Whoofta

:hugs:

[hyphenate]

13. Ghosts of the past....

We all see them, but sometimes one comes across so plain, so unadorned, that it's as though it were just yesterday. It's a shock to the system, but what it is is a part of the brain that has been dormant for too long. It's something that we once were....and could be again someday if there weren't so many other things in the way.

It's part of why when people are writing stories involving children that they say children have an innocence that slowly goes away as they grow up. It's true, but it's also a fallacy--we all still have that child inside of us and that child needs answers that only we, as grown-ups, can finally answer for them.

We are all shaped by incidents from our childhoods that create who we are today. The day our school was let out early and we came home to parents grieving and crying when they announced that John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed....The day that the astronauts from Apollo 11 finally were the first to touch down on another planetary body....Our reactions to these events sculpture us, from the inside out. Personal events are no less life altering, and actually are both the demons and the angels which define our souls.

What everyone needs to do is to take a time, even if it's an hour at lunch or something, and go someplace filled with clean air, no sounds other than what are natural, and pause. A time for contemplation, away from the urgency of our lives, is a cleanser more powerful than the best paid shrink on the planet.

Reaching into your soul for that time with a young child named Chris probably felt peaceful--probably only marred by what happened afterward. Perhaps looking back into that time, that peaceful life can be summoned forth as a balm to your savaged soul. It's in moments like that that we can can find the will to let our souls be reborn, a little at a time, accepting the past, but using our knowledge of it to make the future better.

[Ladyhawk]

16. hyphenate, that is one of the most beautiful posts I have ever read.

You nailed it exactly. I did feel peaceful when I recalled my pre-school friend. As a pre-schooler, I lived in a very calm place. I had friends. I was loved. As that feeling of peace descended on me, it felt alien: the antithesis of how I feel at this point in my adult life. The peace felt like a negation of my later experiences. I feel a need to acknowledge painful experiences to ground me in reality. Why don't I feel the need to acknowledge happy experiences, too? They were just as real as the painful experiences.

My friendship with Chris was almost totally unaffected by baggage. His mother remembered that I had my first sleep-over at their motel in Jamestown. I didn't make it through the night because I was too afraid. As soon as Chris's mother started speaking, I remembered the event. :) Even the fear of a sleep-over was totally unaffected by baggage. It was a pure emotion, unadorned by years of remembered fears. Even my memory of a "bully" was a good feeling. Chris and I were going to "get" him with our mound of dirt and sand. I have no idea how a mound of dirt and sand can trap a bully, but that didn't matter to our pre-school minds. We were going to "get" that bully with our "trap." Chris was totally on my side. I had a real friend, something I've lacked for a very long time.

Even the negative experiences from public school don't feel as bad as the negative experiences from fundy school. Perhaps it was because I went to public school when I was very young, before I could carry much baggage. Perhaps it was because the fundy school's teachings made me feel shame for simply being human. I had to be good all the time.

The memory of Chris brought forth other memories. When I was in the first grade, there was a boy named Troy in our class who was much bigger than the other children. I fell down on the playground, hurting and crying. Troy actually picked me up in his arms, kissed me and carried me away. Troy had a huge crush on me...that never happened in fundy school. I never had a boyfriend again until college. The fundy school kids didn't like me. At least, most of them didn't and the friendships I made there ended in horrible betrayal.

Second grade was the beginning of fundy school, the beginning of the long drought of lies and abuse. It was the beginning of baggage that I didn't recognize as baggage because it was hidden under the auspices of religion, which is supposed to be good for you.

I never could find that inner child before because she was hidden behind Troy and Chris. I don't understand why this is...do you?

(edited for clarity)

[WCGreen]

14. I think that would be worse than growing up in an alcoholic

family...

All the confusion of god with that type of behavior...

It's a wonder you are sane right now....

Peace be with you,,,,

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. Ladyhawk, I think you could look at this encounter as a good thing

Imagine getting the chance to step back all that way and look at the journey so far. It is not everyday, or even every person, who gets that chance. I think too, if you look in the shadows of all the really awful stuff that happened to you, there are some good things, the things that define you as such a good person. There are all the people you've helped along the way. All the little things you did that were good and right and honest. All the times you picked yourself up, girded your armor, and headed out again into a world that had turned against you in one way or another.

A trip through the crucible makes you strong, a good look at the impurities left in the crucible later makes you wise. And being here with us, makes you loved.

:hug:

[Ladyhawk]

17. You're right.

Of course I had happy experiences as a child, even as the baggage began to pile up. I think that depression robs sufferers of the ability to remember good times. I believe that when a person feels depressed, the brain is hard-wired to recall times that are linked to that feeling. Those remembrances cause pain, which dredges up more memories linked to the feeling being experienced. I don't have hard science to back up this impression, but it seems right.

One other observation: in college, I was betrayed by friends I had made at fundy school, some of whom I had known since second grade. It was a severe betrayal--heart-rending and so painful I've never fully recovered. My emotions capitalize the experience: THE BETRAYAL. The memory of this betrayal colors all the memories of the good times I had with these friends...an entire lifetime of memories. THE BETRAYAL also gutted my ability to trust. Since THE BETRAYAL, I have not been able to make friends very easily and part of me is always on the lookout for signs of another betrayal.

As I look back at my friendship with Chris, there is no sense of betrayal or of lost trust. The relationship remains pure in my mind as a time of innocence, friendship and complete trust.