It’s not the prospect of writing everyday. It’s that everyday I write I think she might find out.
The other day, at work, this guy scared me. I’ve been jumpier. He came up behind me and asked me a question and I couldn’t form an answer, my heart was racing. I yelled at him to stop doing that. He knows I’m jumpy and thinks it’s funny. In trying to tell him not to make me jump I said “Don’t jump me” and my cubicle mate started laughing at how it sounded.
Then comes that feeling, the feeling that I’m wrong, that it’s all wrong. That everything I write is a lie. That’s overpowering me now. While I’m finding my voice, I’m struggling with the authority behind it. Who am I to complain? Who am I to stand up and talk about anything? I’m someone with holes in her memory and the voice of her mother in her head telling her that she’s a liar.
Yet, there are other moments. When I finally asked my mother if she enjoyed knowing she hurt us, that she caused everyone around her such pain, she said, “Yes, it makes me feel powerful.”
The timeline is daunting at times, and when I jump because of someone talking to me at work it brings it home.
It’s just the gap between knowledge and understanding, some days I wonder if I’ll cross it at all, if I’ll ever build that bridge. Rung by rung, day by day, word by word I know it will come, but do I understand that?
I understand that I am not my mother- that took a while. She liked to inflict pain, all the reasons I tried to form for her actions melted when she admitted that and I realized I couldn’t deny it’s veracity. She liked to cause pain to feel powerful. I don’t. Fact, realization, understood.
But that gnawing fear that makes my stomach turn. I need to understand it will end, that I’m safe now. That I’m a survivor.
I still want to scream though :)
The other day, at work, this guy scared me. I’ve been jumpier. He came up behind me and asked me a question and I couldn’t form an answer, my heart was racing. I yelled at him to stop doing that. He knows I’m jumpy and thinks it’s funny. In trying to tell him not to make me jump I said “Don’t jump me” and my cubicle mate started laughing at how it sounded.
Then comes that feeling, the feeling that I’m wrong, that it’s all wrong. That everything I write is a lie. That’s overpowering me now. While I’m finding my voice, I’m struggling with the authority behind it. Who am I to complain? Who am I to stand up and talk about anything? I’m someone with holes in her memory and the voice of her mother in her head telling her that she’s a liar.
Yet, there are other moments. When I finally asked my mother if she enjoyed knowing she hurt us, that she caused everyone around her such pain, she said, “Yes, it makes me feel powerful.”
The timeline is daunting at times, and when I jump because of someone talking to me at work it brings it home.
It’s just the gap between knowledge and understanding, some days I wonder if I’ll cross it at all, if I’ll ever build that bridge. Rung by rung, day by day, word by word I know it will come, but do I understand that?
I understand that I am not my mother- that took a while. She liked to inflict pain, all the reasons I tried to form for her actions melted when she admitted that and I realized I couldn’t deny it’s veracity. She liked to cause pain to feel powerful. I don’t. Fact, realization, understood.
But that gnawing fear that makes my stomach turn. I need to understand it will end, that I’m safe now. That I’m a survivor.
I still want to scream though :)
