I Never had a chance

 

There are times that something when I was little hits more than hard.  Sometimes I just start writing then when I look back, I think, how in the world does a child live like that? When I think about the thoughts that I had and how I survived, it is pretty amazing, that I still have breath in my lungs and the muscles to stand.  The first time I remember my father touching me my first thought was that 

"it's ok, he just thought I was my mom"

In my father's bed his hands all over me and my first thought was that it was ok because he thought I was my mom.  The weight of that.  Why was that my first thought?  Why would my thoughts go straight there?  Why in the world were my first thoughts to make excuses for him.  There was not thought to tell him to stop this isn't supposed to be happening.  There was not a single thought to say no or to tell someone to ask for some help.  No, none of those things just

"it's ok, he just thought I was my mom"

It wasn't until my early 20's when I spoke those words to my detective.  I couldn't look at him, I was looking at his hands, memorizing them.  The shame so thick, I could feel it in every cell. It felt like the world around me had come to some sort of stop, everything lost in time.  He just quietly said,

 Don't you think he knew the difference between the body of a 5-year-old and the body of a woman ?

I remember that moment, that my world stopped, and I looked him in the eyes. Absolute shock that thought had never once crossed my mind.   I had never thought about it like that. In that second the excuse that I had always had for my father no longer seemed to fit. It had never even crossed my mind that he did know the difference. I kept hearing Det. Plemmons words, and I replayed the situation, replayed my words and his.  That realization is a different kind of broken, that can never be healed. 

Today at 49, even still there is a sting in those words, in the situation in imaging that life of that scared little girl.  Even then I just had to pretend that everything was ok and make excuses for the things that were happening.  There is a fucking sadness in that, that is hard for me to even comprehend today.  It's a breath stealing, world stopping kind of realization.  

I should have been able to run to someone and ask for help, tell them what he did to me, but that was nowhere in my little brain.  At 5 I knew that there was not a single person that was going to protect or help me in any way.   

 

That is so difficult, I think of a five year old and they can barely make it to the cafeteria on their own.  Yet, there was little Callahan who was making excuses and trying to understand in her little world why her father was touching her.  That is devastating, and more than painful. I have been able to process that as that little girl.  But the woman that I am today, I am just speechless.  It makes me so angry.  There was no childhood, no innocence, no sense of safety.  

I heart your heart.