Speaking in tandem, the audience and critics' thoughts overwhelm my mind. The applause or raucous laughter, the deafening silence when I'm desperate for approval all feel the same. Outside my face is frozen in an unsure scowl. How do I answer the question you asked me "Are you hungry?"
How did I end up here?
Decades of unspent grief, buried traumas, the generations of women in my family taught to endure heartbreak. Ignoring and pushing aside the feelings of sons because in my family men's anger is dangerous. I learned this when I was 8 years old.
When the heavy footsteps come in the door I can tell you are angry. Freeze and listen, how do you treat the cupboard doors? The slam and rattle of dishes is almost as loud as my blood rushing in my ears. My face is hot, my heart is pounding, and I keep listening to the rhythm of your anger because I know that when you start yelling I am going to throw myself in the middle and protect them.
I was taught to defend and protect. I honed in my attention to the impending dooming in the pit of my stomach, that sharp pain creeping warning me that something bad is about to happen and I'm always right.
Until I'm not.
When I meet the first man who speaks softly, words that rouse instead of rattle me. Hands that caress and hold softly. Strength that makes my heart race is a blush not fear when your muscles flex. The first night I sleep soundly in bed with a man. When I stopped sharing a bed with past lovers, I thought I just needed space.
I needed the space to protect myself from creeping advances and the pain of being repeatedly torn down and rejected by someone claiming to love me. They laid claim to my body and heart without tending to either. Here I learned to tolerate and accept their disapproval of me as my own. If I were good enough I would not be treated this way.
When I could rest for the first time I froze. I didn't know how to move. If I stayed here in this moment where I felt safe maybe the bad thing would never happen. When I wanted to stay frozen and you wanted to move I could feel the pit form in my stomach. You seemed to really like me. When I felt the pit growing, a heaviness in my stomach, the tightness in my throat as it crept upwards.
The bad thing was seeping through my skin and bleeding out my pores. A hot sweat of shame and embarrassment rippled through me, boiling over into tears, my anxiety burned me.
If I didn't need to defend myself I didn't know what to do. What would you do now? I wondered. Would you be angry that I wasn't happy or appreciative? I could handle anger. I knew how to protect myself. Instead I saw water lined eyes, arms outstretched, and the whisper of your voice "Oh," you said "Come here, let me hold you". When fear held me back instead you walked towards me unafraid of the crying girl who felt and told herself "It was always my fault".
Taunting myself with cruel thoughts. If I couldn't stop it from happening I must have wanted it. Maybe I wanted to suffer. Maybe I deserved to suffer.
In the grace and beauty of love I awkwardly begin to find myself. I couldn't continue to believe that I was mistreated because I deserved it anymore than I could allow myself to question what I had done to "deserve" love.
The facade finally cracks.
The moment I meet myself I discover truth. A knowingness of the unknown, my own bite into the apple to see myself clearly. Awareness at first introduces shame, grace beckons us to continue devouring the fruit to uncover acceptance.
When I see myself clearly - how could I reject her?
I am no more or less deserving of love and affection. I was always due respect, dignity, and honour. Years of training had me question and disbelieve that. I am on a new path of embrace and recovery, a journey to restore my heart and return its guiding voice.
When the audience is quiet and the critic has nothing more to say it's because I have stopped listening.
If I freeze again I'll know what to do. If I still myself in that moment I can hear my own voice. The sound echoes through me. The gentle whisper on the wind, words growing her into a gust, into a whirlwind, into the breeze that shakes and dances with the trees to celebrate their newness in fall and spring. Shed a past season, recreate your beauty.
I'll hear my old anxieties crisply crunch beneath my feet as I walk into a new season of knowingness.
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