i wish she had loved me

Last year my 4 year old daughter rode in a little yellow racecar with her grama. During the race, Grampa ran into them and injured Grama's shoulder a bit. No one was really hurt. The next morning when I said "Good morning, Princess." to my daughter she told me she wasn't a princess any more because she made Grama and Grampa crash. I kissed her and told her it wasn't she that caused the crash and that she would always be a princess. It was easy to fix. She had not heaped a lifetime of contempt on herself yet. She just needed to be told it wasn't her fault.

My mother sent me to a psychiatrist when I was growing up. Of course, when I had to leave class early to go see the shrink that in itself confirmed every week that there was something wrong with me. But, it took me years to see that what really kept the therapy from doing any good was that my doctor did not care about me. I didn't notice at the time, but now I know what it is like to be loved. And I know how easy it is to love children. She was indifferent. For 10 years of therapy she was indifferent. She was the only adult other than my mother that I was ever alone with. She was in a position to undo much of the harm done to me. Much of the harm I did to myself. I wish she had loved me.

the house is me

I dreamed I was in an old brown house. The father of the house could not find his son and needed my help. We searched and finally found a secret room behind a false wall in the cellar. Bare concrete. Rusty metal hooks. Blood everywhere. The decades old remains of a tortured boy still strapped to the floor. The father was devastated. I left him and went for help. But there was no one anywhere. Vast emptiness. Dry, cracked earth. I went back to the cellar and found the father playing back old home movies of himself torturing his own son to death.

I asked my friend who is interested in dreams to interpret it for me. He said the house is me.

we're all mad here

My father was a test pilot and left the following quote on the chalkboard at work in 1977.

"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. "What sort of people live about here?"
"In THAT direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Later that day he crashed his plane and died.

trap door

We live standing on a trap door. Some people spend their whole lives just standing on it, never knowing it is a trap door. It may as well be granite. For some the door swings open and they fall to their deaths. Swallowed whole. Some of us catch the edge on the way down and hang there by our fingertips. We can see the raging river beneath our feet. Hear its roar. It is possible to hang there for years. We look like everyone else, but inside we are inches from being consumed. Fingers white and trembling. Trying to hold on a little longer. Sometimes we can even climb back up and get the door closed. But once you know you're standing on a trap door nothing is ever the same. If you can't trust the ground you can't ever rest.

someone dies

In my favorite Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is standing at the top of a snowy hill with his sled. The hill is obviously too dangerous for sledding, but Calvin thinks "go ahead, you'll make it." and "It's probably not as bad as it looks." He turns to us and says out loud "I think my brain is trying to kill me."

My brain is like that. I've begun to realize that my body is trying to kill me too. Consuming itself. It won't sleep. Muscles old rusty barbed wire from year after year stiffening to receive the next blow. You never know where it will come from or when. I've spent my whole life trying to be ready for the next attack. To brace myself. Then each one catches me unaware. Someone leaves. Someone dies.

Then I realize that the person who left wasn't who I thought they were anyway. Did I even know them? I find out they lied. I find out I lied to myself. How does one grieve the loss of a person that was part real and part made up? Which part was real? Which part did I love?

told her I would do better

When I was 12 I came home from school on my bike and my mother told me to pack a bag. She was taking me to the psychiatric ward to stay for a while. I've never been able to cry, but I cried that day. I said please. Told her I would do better. Not that I ever really understood what I was doing wrong. I just knew she hated me. She seemed to have plenty of reasons. Once I adjusted to the hospital think I liked it. It was predicable. Quiet.

still in the celophane

I think I mentioned that I died when I was eight. My parents ended an alcoholic, abusive marriage when I was seven. My father took my brother and I on weekends for almost a year. Fishing. Model airplanes. Then one Saturday morning I went outside to wait for him only to find a box on the porch. Everything we had left at his apartment. No note, no phone call, just a box of our stuff. I had saved up and bought him a model airplane for Christmas. He left it on the porch with everything else. Still in the celophane. I think I was confused and wounded by the marriage and divorce, but still struggling on - still alive - until that day. That was the day I knew for sure that no one wanted me. I never saw him again.