Parks

Parks yep something that simple.  Sometimes parks are just parks and sometimes for people like me parks are something very  different.  Today was an amazing day.  The sun was out there were only a few scattered clouds, the sky was the bluest blue.  We were at an elementary school playground.  There was plenty to do lots of trees and plenty to keep little ones occupied.  I was just watching the kids play enjoying the sun and just like that........My mind goes back in time. 

All I did was look up into the branches of the tree and with out notice, without warning I remember.  It doesn't bring me to tears anymore.  It isn't a sense of panic like it has been in the past its a series of pictures really that I can not believe that I lived through.  I had such courage at 5, that I am just a little jelous of. My mind goes back to that park with those little tadpoles and I try to ignore it make it go away but the more I ignore the more it sticks around.  Its almost like a silent movie, but every now and then there are faint sounds but you can't really make them out.  But I see everything with the clarity of it happening yesterday.  It still  makes me sad but it doesn't break my heart anymore.  There were other kids that were there though I don't know who they were or why they were even there.  I was alone, imagine that, in my own little world.  We were playing in this little creek, and there were tadpoles everywhere.  I was collecting them in my little bucket.  I am almost sure that I was talking to them, those little black tadpoles.  The weather like today was awesome, not too hot not too cold just a beautiful sunny day. 

We were in an area that was away from the road, that was praubably on purpose.  I know that Albert and I were in the red van, I am not sure how everyone else got there, crazy the little things that I think of now that don't make any sense any way that you lok at them.  Either way the other kids did not ride with us to the park they must have rode with his mother.  There was a picnic table made of stone where his mother was sitting, pretty close to the little creek, and then the red van further away from everything, off byitself.  And Albert called me, told me to leave the tadpoles, so I left them by the picnic table.  I remember the banks of the creek being pretty deep and I don't remember how I got in or out, but I guess it also doesn't matter.  Once again those things that you think and don't have a clue.  So Albert called me and I think he took my hand and walked me to the back of the van.  There were beanbags in the back of the van, once again another creepy detail that should have sent red flags blazing but the people around me weren't ones to notice any flags at all. 

So it goes .....Albert raped me in the back of the van.  I was 5.  I didn't scream or carry on, my mind already knew to be very far away. I remember looking at the trees, seeing the sky that was the moment that stuck, the moment I remember the most .  I could see out the side window of the van and the sky was just so beautiful, the sky was so blue there were big billowy clouds and I kept thinking why on such a beautiful day, why this most amazing day.  I am grateful I had already learned to go somewhere else in my head.  I was so very far away from what was happening, I can say my mind knew what was best.  I see each and every little detail, and its not a sadness but an absolute ache. 

He was done, walked away told me to get dressed.  I couldn't feel my body really, my legs were wobbly, and felt like Jello and I wasn't sure that I was going to make it.  I can remember that I kept telling myself its ok its ok over and over and over.  I just wanted to get back to my tadpoles.  Only Albert was there right by the table and as I went to pick up my bucket he kicked it over , I bent over trying to pick them up as fast as I could, but it wasn't fast enough.  He stepped on them with his big boots.  He bent down telling me that next time I wouldn't fight and he srarted stepping on my little tadpoles.  I just couldn't pick them up fast enough.  For the longest time, I felt so guilty that I couldn't save all of them.  That I couldn't pick them all up and get them back in my little bucket.   For the longest time this is what bothered me the most.  When I had to share when I was talking with the attorney's, when I would talk about my past it was always the tadpoles that hurt the most, because because I couldn't save them.  Today finally I don't feel bad that I couldn't save them.  I realize that there was nothing in that entire day that I could have done different to make things happen differently.  Reguardless of what I did, Albert still would have killed them.

I wish I understood why my mind goes back in time like it does sometimes.  Its alwys the little things that triger me the most.  I guess when you are that little and have such things happening you just connect what you know.  There was a time when I avoided going to any park, but I don't anymore.  And there are times I can go to a park on a beautiful day and not be triggered today just wasn't that day.  So I remember, I am amazed at how brave that little 5 year old was, and I try to remember that little one was me.  She was brave and today I am brave.  I have lived to see the park with my children and they get to experience it as every child should and that is something I am proud of.  SO today was rough, and I wish that it didn't happen, I wish that I didn't remember every detail so vividly, but there is not much I can do.  But I know that I am ok and further from that than I have ever been,I am ok truly ok.