The question
I saw this on Facebook recently, and it gave me pause:
“You meet your 21-year-old self. You are allowed three words. What do you say?”
Wow. First, I was speechless, then I was flooded with all the things I wanted to say, in three words or thirty, all the things I would want her to hear, take in, believe:
- I love you.
- You’re my hero.
- You did it!
- You saved us!
- You are amazing!
- I was wrong.
These were immediately followed by a swell of guilt and shame with questions like:
- Would she even want to hear anything I say now, much less believe it?
- Why even say it now – would it do any good?
- Why did I wait all these years?
- Even if she heard, what could, or would my 21-year-old self even do with anything I say now?
- Would “words” even matter to that beaten-down young woman?
- Would she be angry? Betrayed? Accuse me of “too little too late?”
- Demand to know where I was when she needed me?
Then I wondered, even if she did want to hear from me, what would that 21-year-old have NEEDED to hear AT THAT MOMENT? And what COULD she have taken in at that moment, if anything?
- Don’t give up?
- It gets better?
It seems like too little for such a battered person to be of help.
I need to sit with all of this. Especially the guilt and shame I feel, and the sense of having failed her because for so long I blamed, hated, and despised her.
This will still need work.
Citrinitas – the learning stage… Who is the “me” at this moment of the story?
Google calls Carl Jung’s Citrinitas stage of learning a time of “illumination, wisdom, and understanding.” It is a stage of “integration” – a bridge between the dawn of insight (Albedo) and actively employing that wisdom in life to be whole. (Rubedo)
So here we are walking across the bridge.
From the nightmare…rebirth
The cobra came out of one of my nightmares – spewing venom at me. In it, as that toxic liquid flew toward me in slow motion, I was frozen in terror. I knew that as soon as the liquid hit me, especially in the eyes, I would be dead. In the dream, I was about to lose my life, and I had mere seconds left to consider that.
Later, in my therapy, as I started to recover, I realized that even as that snake from my past had tried to choke and poison the life out of me…even as I was running out of time and it was squeezing the last drops of blood from me, I somehow managed to break free.
Despite all odds and his brainwashing, I shattered that hourglass, flew free, and reset the clock of my life. I’d been almost out of time…it was then or never…but I broke free and had a chance to start over.
More recently, I needed to paint my feelings about all of that. But I really struggled to capture what to show.
The painting started out as simply an hourglass with most of the sand in the bottom and only a little bit at the top. Ed happened to come in while I was painting. Sensing my sorrow, he squeezed my shoulders and said: “There’s still time yet.”
The next day I realized sand was wrong…it was blood. My father had sapped so much of my life’s time, my very lifeblood, for so many years, and so much of my life was lost. In that moment, I felt so much sorrow knowing that most of those years were spent in pain, or anticipating it, and very little with joy. Thus, I changed the sand to blood.
Then it seemed like there should be a heart in the picture, but that was wrong. What I needed was something that actually represented the source of that threat – THAT cobra from my nightmare, with its lethal venom.
And last…that despite almost being too late, I broke free…shattered the prison he had locked me in, and escaped to reclaim my life. I lived to see another day.
In my journal, I reflected on the snake and the trauma my father left me with:
It cost you years, health, your very blood.
You fought the Cobra…
You even won,
broke free,
and soar now.
And it is your victory.
But is it all just lightness and sunshine?
Is it all over with?
You got hit with some of the poison.
And it has a lasting, lifelong toxic effect on you no matter what.
Its residue is real.
The predator viper in your life lost that battle.
But you still remember what it felt like to be caught in its embrace,
to try, often unsuccessfully, to dodge as it spat its venom into your eyes,
its searing pain,
blindness at times,
And its harm that flares,
unbeckoned,
during your days,
nights,
and in your triggered moments.
So much taken from me…so much toxin left behind…but, yet, still so much recovered. A rebirth.
Time to travel
It’s taken years to come to the point I am now. But finally, I am here – ready to dig very deep, to unearth the answers to: HOW did he manage to do what he did to us in that house?
I am finally strong enough to look at the deep well of poison he used, and call it out for what it was…name it…like Lucille Clifton described in her poem:
i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother’s itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning language everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.
Lucille Clifton
So now that I am strong enough, let us travel into that house, and his actions, for answers….
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and make a visit to my home state for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment