TEN MINUTES. Ten minutes is all the time that it took, for when I learned...shadows were not just my funny moves on the sidewalk as I walked, and even skipped, without burden or cares of the world on my way to school - being sure to never step on a crack. These shadows, these in my room, were nothing of a laughing matter. And eventually became not even of a crying matter. They scared me into silence altogether.
My sweet-expected rest into bed at the end of each day of all the lessons of youth - math, spelling, history and science - my lessons...continued, in the dark. I was lessoned, that your bedroom is not always your haven. That even though ruffles hung on the curtains behind my little chocolate haired head and though the walls were lined with childish whimsy of a little girl - a pure, full of life, love, hope and happiness little girl - does not save you from the demons of the night. And awaiting in the swallow was an induction into a club I never agreed to join. The club of stolen innocence.
It was forty years ago that my soul was first ravished and trickeried in the darkness. "So big deal". "Get over it." "It was a long time ago". Us "club members" have heard this, oh how we've heard this and a gazillion iterations of. And as razored daggers these are to our already bleeding soul - it's no wonder we choose retreat and mouths shut for the most of our lives. Until...until the ache, the pain, the screams of our soul are just too loud, too hungry for life saving breath, to be silenced any longer.
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” - Anaïs Nin.
And in our breaking open, we must {speak}. To be resuscitated from the death that became our going-through-the-motions life, actors in a story we never would have cast ourselves in, we must speak. And give voice, and be our own voice, through the ghosted tunnel out...and never let go of our own hand if that's the only hand, as is usually, available...all the way through 'til...the light. And for some of us, it has been so long since seeing the light, since feeling its warming on our face, that we are caught by surprise when we catch ourselves smiling, if only a little, but the first smile that is genuine in years or even in decades. A smile that was not in mask of our ugly truth as had become our favorite accessory.
Other posts and shares touch on the journey through to "out"...but today, this one...this is reserved for what exactly is the sum of just "Ten Minutes".
UGLY. Dirty. HIDEOUSLY UGLY. Trash. DETESTABLY UGLY. Defective. DISGUSTINGLY UGLY. No value. UNLOVABLY UGLY. Shame. DON'T LOOK AT MY UGLY. Unworthy. I AM UGLY
In one violating, soul ravaging instant in a non-consensual abidance to something that is sacredly meant for in an unveiling of mutuality, these words are the remnanting feelings. Feelings that parasitically ride on through every single future sexual encounter for LIFE...until healed! And in a case with repeated (as in mine, over 8 years) violations, it's a wonder how "normal" is ever reclaimed. But it can be. Oh sweet fellow walkers from lightless rooms and hidden corners and locked cars and under windows with dormers, there IS a way. And my eyes are proof-evident that you can get there too.
In the escaping away from the torment, the chaos, the spirit-weaving confusion, and subsequent heavy, oh soooo heavy, carry of shame, we go away. Literally. Our mind's survival takes us to a place outside of our soul, numbing to the horror playing out on our body. This compartmentalizing takes us out of feeling so that we can cope with the after. But after, always catches up with us. As we try to Rated G our childhood back to as before. But before...never comes. It's a shame their thievery couldn't stay just locked, encapsulated, into the minutes of the during. That we have to wary under the burdens from the night out into the light of day. We become daywalkers of our nightmares. Until such a time where we find our way back home, to ourselves and find our way back to the most tendering reunion with our feeling {be}ing, as how we were, beautifully, born. A homecoming of the greatest kind.
It was forty years ago that my soul was first ravished and trickeried in the darkness. "So big deal". "Get over it." "It was a long time ago". Us "club members" have heard this, oh how we've heard this and a gazillion iterations of. And as razored daggers these are to our already bleeding soul - it's no wonder we choose retreat and mouths shut for the most of our lives. Until...until the ache, the pain, the screams of our soul are just too loud, too hungry for life saving breath, to be silenced any longer.
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” - Anaïs Nin.
And in our breaking open, we must {speak}. To be resuscitated from the death that became our going-through-the-motions life, actors in a story we never would have cast ourselves in, we must speak. And give voice, and be our own voice, through the ghosted tunnel out...and never let go of our own hand if that's the only hand, as is usually, available...all the way through 'til...the light. And for some of us, it has been so long since seeing the light, since feeling its warming on our face, that we are caught by surprise when we catch ourselves smiling, if only a little, but the first smile that is genuine in years or even in decades. A smile that was not in mask of our ugly truth as had become our favorite accessory.
Other posts and shares touch on the journey through to "out"...but today, this one...this is reserved for what exactly is the sum of just "Ten Minutes".
UGLY. Dirty. HIDEOUSLY UGLY. Trash. DETESTABLY UGLY. Defective. DISGUSTINGLY UGLY. No value. UNLOVABLY UGLY. Shame. DON'T LOOK AT MY UGLY. Unworthy. I AM UGLY
In one violating, soul ravaging instant in a non-consensual abidance to something that is sacredly meant for in an unveiling of mutuality, these words are the remnanting feelings. Feelings that parasitically ride on through every single future sexual encounter for LIFE...until healed! And in a case with repeated (as in mine, over 8 years) violations, it's a wonder how "normal" is ever reclaimed. But it can be. Oh sweet fellow walkers from lightless rooms and hidden corners and locked cars and under windows with dormers, there IS a way. And my eyes are proof-evident that you can get there too.
In the escaping away from the torment, the chaos, the spirit-weaving confusion, and subsequent heavy, oh soooo heavy, carry of shame, we go away. Literally. Our mind's survival takes us to a place outside of our soul, numbing to the horror playing out on our body. This compartmentalizing takes us out of feeling so that we can cope with the after. But after, always catches up with us. As we try to Rated G our childhood back to as before. But before...never comes. It's a shame their thievery couldn't stay just locked, encapsulated, into the minutes of the during. That we have to wary under the burdens from the night out into the light of day. We become daywalkers of our nightmares. Until such a time where we find our way back home, to ourselves and find our way back to the most tendering reunion with our feeling {be}ing, as how we were, beautifully, born. A homecoming of the greatest kind.
I am in a daily alliance with gratitude that I found my way "through the through". I have been at peace with touch, and love and human to human connection for about seven years now, and I am finally on the vergence of a coming to an agreement with my body and scars I bear and those that bore me. I can look in the mirror now and not turn away when I see my own eyes...those pure eyes of just ever having wanted to be a little girl who loves and is loved in, first and foremostly, safety and heart preservation.
So before you are quick to judge a girl (or a guy) who may be taking longer than you deem should it take to heal from things long in the ago, I would ask you to take a moment instead and just sit, still, patient, soft and kind and just be there and there then again, and again, until such a time where you're being there is welcome comfort instead of an intrusion of our fragile space. We WANT to heal. We want to let you in closer, and closer still, but it takes time, oh that friend and foe, "time", to know we are safe to {be} once again. If only...if only recalibrating back to trusting someone in to our most vulnerable inner place...could take only...TEN MINUTES.
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