I can count on it. I depend on it. And it never lets me down. The nighttime, from 6-10, is the graveyard where my pretenses go to die.
It’s kind of good in a way . . . to feel this despair, I mean. Before I would try to steel myself against the pain, but now innocent tears plunge down well worn pathways, and my resolve is lost. I become that bullied child again.
I often think I should just get over it. They were just kids, weren’t they? Did they know better? Does it matter?
Ask my insecurities. They’ll tell you. They’ll scream the truth if it were safe.
Ask why we constantly need other’s approval or help in making decisions. Ask why we can never trust ourselves. Ask why our adult-self cannot make friends, trust others, and fears being social. Ask, ask, ask away. The answers agree and never disappoint.
Now, decades later, so many years have ticked off the calendar, but I still see that emotionally beaten and bullied child, 6th grade, head down on desk, tears bursting through failed attempts of constraint, embarrassed they caught her in their grasp again.
Sadly, I remember that girl. She was me, and I was her. And neither of us are okay tonight. She still cries, and I still watch, helplessly. We take turns when it gets to be too much . . . and tonight it’s too much . . . for both of us . . . and I want so badly for someone to listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment