Did I ever make a sound

 

I am in new territory and my heart is tired of trying to figure out so much. I want so many things to settle and have some kind of place to belong.  There is so much in my head that just don't have a place, because some things that happen in this life; there is just no understanding for, but still I am desperately trying. 

I want to understand, I want the things that are so sharp that stab my heart to dull and lessen. I want to learn so much, I want to understand I want to believe in myself and not all the words that I still hear in my head.

I watched Dear Evan Hansen the other night and  I loved it.  I saw myself in so many different parts.  I was the loner, I was the one with no friends.  I was always that one girl looking in at everyone. I was that girl that didn't want to live anymore.   I always felt more than different,  I didn't belong anywhere,  I avoided the cafeteria and would go to the library.  Not exactly the high school experience that everyone dreams about. I was afraid all the time. I would even tell people if I went to the restroom, and was gone too long to come looking for me.  I was never noticed and seen. Even when the most unimaginable things happened, Callahan just had to keep going pretend that things were fine.  I was the clean up specialist I had to pretend that somehow my soul was still in tact when really; I was barely holding on and I wanted it all to stop. 

There was a song in the movie that I have not been able to get out of my head.  

 When your falling in the forest and there's nobody  around do you ever really crash or even make a sound.

 When your falling in the forest and there's nobody  around do you ever really crash or even make a sound.

Did I even make a sound ? Did I even make a sound ?

It's like I never made a sound, Will I ever make a sound ?

Those lines , those lines are exactly what I feel with all that happened to me and nothing was ever cared for or acknowledged. And I question was it that bad ?  Was  I worth anything that not one person cared, not one person helped me.  I was left to deal with everything.  

I keep asking the questions,  and wondering why I was left so alone to take care of everything on my own. What happened to me never meant anything.  I was just an attention seeking girl who was lying.  I just wanted attention, that is insane but if those people knew me at all they would have known that was the last thing that I ever wanted.  I have this need for what happened to me to matter to make a difference and I am not sure what that means,  what do I have to do for those things to matter,  those things that are all that I have ever known are so much  a part of who I am and I have to find meaning and purpose.  

I risk being needy for a second, but no ones world stopped for me. There are many days that I want to scream at the world to slow down and please wait for me until I feel better.  I want someone's world to stop and hold me and acknowledge the awful terrible things that have happened to me, wipe my tears and tell me its going to be ok. . I want to be so important that someone's world stops and helps me feel better. I missed so much having to be so responsible and picking up after everyone else.  My entire world, was so violent and hurtful and not one person stopped to listen or care.  The care I got was Calvin's hug, Dr. Culpepper listening to me and patting my leg, and the ER DR when he gently touched my leg.  Just those three little things that meant the world.  I want to be able to let that go,  I want to be able to say No, I was not listened to or cared for but the woman that I am today survived that, the woman that I am today is a survivor and is brave and strong.  She is a fighter and even doing things on her own, even on those worst days when she wanted nothing more than to give up she didn't.  There are times that I just don't want to have to carry this alone anymore.  I want to feel strong and brave, somewhere in my head those are things meant for other people.  

Those lines Did I even make a sound ?  It's like I never made a sound and I wonder why I wasn't worth more, that no one cared or heard my screams and my cries.  I want those things to matter  but, No one noticed me at all, not the bruises not the dark circles.  No one noticed that I was scared of the world, they just said oh she is so mature and would laugh,  Like there was any other way for me to be.  I was just labeled as a weirdo,  and so much of that I still carry as I am desperately trying to heal all these wounds that no one ever acknowledged.  All these years later I am still paying for all those things that they did and I feel so completely embarrassed and ashamed of all the things that happened. I feel like a burden, I am too heavy, too damaged.  I want nothing more than to move on, and there are parts of me that feel so trapped because the burden of that past is carried in my heart each and every day. There are parts of me living back there and they don't even know its over, that we have survived.  I want so many things to feel different, and I feel like my need to scream and get it all out is useless because I open my mouth and do I really even make a sound ? 

I heart your heart 

Nothing to forgive just the way I am

I keep hearing this line in a song, and I smile. 

There is nothing to forgive its just the way that we are. 

That so much that. 

 I am who I am and that is just the way that it is.  I have been told my entire life to be something different.  To act different. I do things in a different way.  In way too many situations who I was was not accepted or valued. I have been told to fake it until I make it, but that isn't me.  I am quiet until I know you.  I will sit back and watch until I am comfortable.  I talk when I have something to say not to hear myself talk.  I have been told to ask for forgiveness for just being me and that is not ok. The way that I am is not acceptable to so many people and I have been told to change, and do things different.  I don't want to do things different.  Who I am is not something that I need to change into something else.  I am quiet, that is me.  My heart has been deeply hurt and there are things that I am always going to do.  There are going to be times, when I get quiet and just need my alone time.  Nothing wrong with that and I should not have to apologize.      

I have had to apologize for who I am my entire life, I have been told to fake it until I make it, I have been told that my thoughts and feelings were wrong.  I have been dismissed and judged my entire life no matter what I have done. My thoughts decisions and way of being has been dismissed and excluded.  I am weird i know that, I watch and I do things different but that isn't a bad thing, its nothing to change, it;s just part of me. 

I do not need to ask for your forgiveness because you can't understand this soft, gentle heart of mine.  I do not need your opinion.  I am not going to fake it until I make it because that just isn't who I am, or what I want  . I will not pretend to believe in something that has not been there for me.  

What I want

 I want to feel brave. I want to be BRAVE.

I want to be able to speak the things that have happened to me without crumbling under the weight of  shame that is a constant.  I want to be able to say those things and feel proud and brave that I survived them.  Instead I feel embarrassed and oh so gross,  somehow those words make me so much less than and I feel that in my bones.  I have this picture in my head , of the moment that things all come together for me and I finally feel some peace.  I struggle with the things that were done to me and somehow that makes me less of a person.  I am embarrassed and ashamed of so much and I have found nothing to lessen that sting.  There are moments that I think, these people would never come close if they knew what I had done.  I struggle with the fact that at such a young age I knew things that should never have been known.  I struggle  I just knew what to do. I struggle that I was so aware.  There are times I wish that I could wake up and not remember a thing.  Sometimes I wonder if feeling free and brave is an option for me.  I work so hard trying.  I work so hard trying to understand and figure things out in my head.  I feel like I am in new territory and there are so many things to figure out and find a place for.  I see those moments of brave in people and I think that is what I want, someday I am going to find my very own moment instead of watching everyone else's trying to figure out what I am doing wrong .  I live in the middle of what happened to me all these years later and its exhausting.  I am 46 and still in the middle of so much trying to live in the moment if that isn't confusing.  There are pieces of me back there terrified and broken just as much as I am here today a teacher and mother. Some days the back there wins and somedays I can be here in the present. Lately it seems the back there is winning, and I must work harder to find that strong and brave. 

I want to feel clean. 

I think once again this is attached to so much shame !   I want to feel clean and that is something that I am not sure is meant for me.  It's really hard to describe, there are times I so much need and want a hug and feel like I am too unclean.  Like who would want to do that with all that has been done.  I don't get comfort, I don't get that reassurance often that I am not such a gross and disgusting person. I hug my little guys at work, but for me to get a hug.  I get a hug once a week.  And there are many times I don't want to let go like can't I just be safe and ok being me just for a little while longer, even a few seconds.  I have worked so hard to battle gross and disgusting and I feel its coming back with everything that it is. I can never imagine getting married, being a wife when I am so unclean and used.  Those things feel so very foreign.  To feel like an outsider in your own skin, to not even want to be there and not having any other way to live that is a dilemma that I face all day every day.  I wonder if even for a day I could be in someone else's skin that doesn't know all the has been taken from me. All the ways I have been used can I feel different , would being in clean skin make me feel worthy and full of life ? I am not sure I know what this would feel like, buts its something I imagine is so very freeing, feeling clean in your own skin. Yes, I want that.  

                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I want to be proud.

I want to stand up and be proud.  I want that less than feeling to go away.  I want to be able to say yes this is my story, these are my scars but I am still here living breathing .  Once again that shame of all that is happened keeps me from feeling proud. I want to feel proud and I want to stand tall and tell the world YES these things happened to me, but they are not who I am; bur first I have to believe that.  There is a part of me that believes all those things that have happened to me make me less than, used goods,  make me something that deserves to be shoved aside and looked over.  I think so many people have done that and there is a part of me that believes well of coarse so much has happened to me who in the world would want to stay around.  I am a burden and my story is a burden.  I am not sure that I believe someone wants to be around me with all my scars and wounds all my bleeding often oozy parts of me that makes me so sad. I want to be able to be ok with the sad sometimes and know what happened is sad but that doesn't make me less than, it makes me real and healing.  I want to be proud that I am choosing to heal instead of so many other things.  I want to be proud that I am working so hard to conquer and overcome so much that is unimaginable.  I want to stand tall even with my scars and my sad and be proud of the woman that I am today. 

Every Morning when I wake up

 

Every morning when I wake up there are those moments that I think please not yet.  Because the moment that I am awake and aware the moment comes that I have to figure out what to do with the nightmares from the night before, and deal with the day ahead.  I have to remind myself that those things are over and I am safe in my own home.  There are days it takes me time to even figure out if a shower will be a good thing or a bad thing.  Will I take a shower and feel clean, will I take a shower to memories and forget to wash the shampoo out.  Will today be the day something happens to my house that I don't know how to handle.  Will today be the day that something else happens and I will be completely on my own to figure it out. I wake up some days and I just don't want to.  And I think of my children, I think of my students and I put on a face and I get out of bed.  I can promise you that most days are harder than you can even imagine.  Most days I would love to hide away under the covers wanting things to be different wanting things to feel more in my control.  Each day I wake up wondering if I am going to be enough, if I am going to make the right choices.  Each day I wake up wondering if the memories will stay away or creep in like a gust of wind knocking the breathe out of me.  I am too old for this. I am a kind of tired that most can not even begin to understand. Every morning I wake up and have to pretend my way through, pretend that I am fine that my heart isn't broken that I don't hate the situation that I am and feel powerless to change the way that it is. I wake up fighting,  I wake up just as tired as I went to bed.  I sometimes imagine what it must feel like to wake up refreshed and alive,  then I realize I have never had a clue what that is like even when I was small.  Sleep is for the weak, terrible things happen in the dark where a child is supposed to sleep safe. For me sleep is for the memories of those terrible things that were to brutally taken. Sleep for me is where I try to fight them , desperately trying to change the story. So you see sleep isn't a respite a break, I sleep when necessary when I  can no longer stay awake,  but not something I look forward to, just something that I wish I didn't have to have.  

I wake up every morning knowing there are things that have to get done, knowing that there are bills to be paid knowing that everything in this house that I live in weighs on my shoulders. Every broken piece is my responsibility alone and that is a weight I do not wish on anyone.  I wake up knowing it will be another day of alone,  to come home and be so tired to even make dinner and the gratefulness that I feel when Mariska has once again been amazing and made dinner for us.  

Every morning I wake up because that is what I do, I keep going, I wake up and pretend all is well. I ignore my need to stay in bed, I ignore my need to scream at the world. I ignore the need to shake my mother from sleep and scream until there is no voice left but instead I smile and get out of bed.  I laugh with Mariska, clean her glasses and walk down the stairs.  I listen to music in the car  that has all the words I can never find then I go into work, trying to take care of it all, trying to be wonder woman when all I ever really wanted every single morning is to stay in bed trying to find the piece of peace that my heart is so desperately trying to search for..  I want to wake up ready and renewed instead of still tired and weighed down by the things that I can't change. 

Life goes on

 

Life goes on and you see that's where I am struggling. No matter what has happened to me, no matter what was taken life just kept going.  I was dying, dying to be kept safe and  dying to hear that the things that happened to me were not my fault. I was dying and always pretended that everything was ok.  So many times I just wanted everything to stop, I wanted to go away.  I wanted the world to stop until I was able to feel better. I wanted to be noticed, I wanted someone else to stop the world and help me feel better.  I wanted the world to stop for someone other than me,  I wanted someone to stop with me.  I wanted someone to hold me and tell me they were so sorry and that they would stay until I was feeling, ok until I could find my feet again.  I wanted someone to see me and just for a time, just for a short time stop the world , help me heal, teach me that what happened to me mattered and it was awful terrible but there is so much more to this life than those things that happened. 

I was little and my world was smashed into millions and millions of tiny pieces and I was left all alone to put those pieces together. So I struggled and fought barely breathing to collect all these broken pieces and I kept  fighting, kept moving forward because that was all that I knew how to do. But with so many pieces all over the place and smashed beyond recognition, I didn't have a clue how they were supposed  to to go back together.   There was no acknowledgment or care of me, there was no acknowledgment of all the things that were taken. So a part of me knowing , no one was there I kept smiling packing those atrocities, the pieces of things I can never forget into  into boxes, of all sizes some that could hold elephants and others to hold shells,  but they were all my boxes none the same.  

And so my entire life I have just kept stacking these boxes, holding on to them for dear life as a reminder that someday I am going to be able to open them and let them go. I was going to win, opening each one feeling stronger that I made it. Someday I am going to open them and see just how much those things mattered just how much I was hurt, and just how much that they made me the person I am today.  I have been waiting ;Waiting for the day that would allow me time to open them and give what was needed to each precious part that is in each and every box. 

This life is a crazy thing and when things are taken, when thing are missed there is no way to get them back no way to make things the way that they should have been. I have to somehow find a way to live with that.  I know that the world should have stopped for me, everyone that was around me failed to do all those things that needed to be done. Those people should have stopped the world giving me everything that I needed.  They should have given me safety and rest.  They should have given me reassurance that I wasn't the one who was so awful. I wanted to be held, I wanted to be told that it was still ok to play.  I wanted to be told that I didn't have to hang on to those big adult things because those were not things that were made for my little heart to carry.  

So today I sit here with a death grip on this cargo plane filled with boxes of pain , disappointment and suffering because those boxes have to mean something. Those boxes are my life.  Those boxes are everything that has never been acknowledged or cared for.  Somehow letting go is forgetting everything that got me here,  how terribly devastating they all were and somehow that has become a badge of honor, like look at this Cargo plane and all that has happened and look at me still living, still suffering and you all did nothing.  I hold on to them as a fuck you,  all these things that you never cared about are things that I can never forget and will never let go of.  At the same time there are parts of me still back there in that time  that don't even realize we aren't there anymore.  Maybe that is another reason letting go is so very difficult, there are pieces of me still back there fighting monsters that no one can see.  

I want to go back and acknowledge each little tattered part of me in those boxes, and give that girl exactly what she needs.  I want to make everything stop until she is ready to move forward.  I want to give her time and space to catch her breath and for just once not feel like she is so behind . I want to believe that we are strong and brave and were meant for better things in this life. 

So sure life goes on, but for me there are parts and pieces of this life where I wanted everything stopped because I needed someone to see and to acknowledge my pain.  No one taught me that it was ok to move forward.  No one taught me that I was never meant to live in that violence and pain. NO one taught me that all those things that I ever needed were good and ok.  So I have learned to hold onto the pain with a death grip, because that is what I know. That is what I have known my entire little life and today as a 46 year old women I still don't have a clue how to let go, and there are pieces of me back there dying because all they want to do is let go and I don't know how to let them.