Touch

 Touch is a strange thing. Lately, my reactions seem extreme for a situation. Even with my students, when they do things that I am not expecting, it's like this jolt of electricity goes through my body, and my insides feel like the insides of a pincushion; each movement sends stings to each and every cell. But it lasts and takes hours to go away. It's been happening more lately, and it's exhausting. Sometimes I find that the closer that Spunky gets, the more sensitive I become to any and all touch.  I wonder if that will go away or if that is something that will always be.  It is something different. Generally, I am not one who doesn't like touch, but lately, every touch feels more intense. I was thinking back, and maybe there was a time, when I was working on little Callahan, that the same thing happened.  Maybe we just went through so much that the thoughts, the memories, are still living in our bodies. It's strange to think that in so many ways and have so few words.  Many of the things that happened, I just left. Left my skin, my bones, my body. There were those single seconds that I knew what was going to happen, or things became too intense, and I knew to go away until things were safe again. 

It's strange I can remember some of the most brutal moments and yet other things, it's just a feeling or a sense that I knew and was far away from where I was physically.  The nature of the beast TRAUMA. The things that it does to a person.  The lasting impacts and ways it continues to show itself.  I know that I have come such a long way, but when I have a reaction so intense, it reminds me I have a ways to go. 

I heart your heart. 

The most unimportant thing in the world

 

I have been terrified of this moment for as long as I can remember. The thought that I might break his heart is devastating. I fear how he will view himself, and I worry how he will see me. I am scared that he won't have questions, and I will just have to fill in the pieces. The thoughts of the last few days have spun around and around, and it would be so much better just to say I was a slut. I do not know how to even get the words out of my mouth and into the air. I don't know how to do it.  

When Shelbi came over on Sunday, it was so awesome.  I took her upstairs and showed her Amelia's Room.  We were just there present with each other. We were laughing, talking about everything. And the conversation turned to Father's Day, early in her relationship with Vincent. She said she asked him if he was going to do anything for Father's Day, and he said no, that he didn't have a dad. She said, but he was upset, and she said that she was sorry that she didn't know.  She said that he didn't even want to celebrate this past Father's Day as a first-time dad; he just wanted the day to go away. 

Listening to her talk broke my heart. I think that not having a dad has greatly impacted him, and he doesn't talk about his feelings. The ache in my heart hearing her talk made me more than sad; it broke my heart, and that is the last thing that I ever want for Vincent. I think that not having a dad has had a greater impact on him than he realizes, than even I have realized.  I don't have a clue what to do about that. I would do anything to take this pain away from him, and yet I can't. 

For a moment, while talking to Shelbi, I wanted to tell her, to explain.  I want her to have a deeper understanding of who Vincent is as a person and of all the things he has had to deal with in his life.  Is that my place to tell Shelbi?  Is that a conversation that I should open with Vincent first? I feel like he doesn't have a support system to even process that information, and that is not something he needs to keep to himself.  So I am left not knowing what to do. 

Should I bring it up to him, or wait until he asks?  Do I keep the silence, knowing that it stands like a huge weight between us? How do I say those words to my son, one of the best things that has ever happened to me? I would do it all again to get to be his mom. I want to have that conversation to ease his heart and mind, help him understand that I love him more than the last breath in my lungs. I want to find other moms who have been through similar things and learn what worked for them and what their children needed or longed for.  I have so many questions and not a single person to ask. 

What happened to me is the most unimportant thing in the world because I got to be his mom. I got to feel both of them move and grow and turn into the most amazing humans.  Being their mom has given more than I could have ever imagined, and that is something that I want him to understand.   

The fact is, something terrible happened to me. A man put a pillow over my face and took what he wanted.  Was I devastated, yes, yet another man using me, and I was almost accustomed to it, just go far away, pretend that you are somewhere else. The fact is that I get to be your mom.  The fact is, I would do it all over again to be your mom. I love you more than words and more than you could ever imagine. 

I heart your heart 

I will tell you everything

Sometimes there are moments when things become so clear. Last week was one of those moments for me. I felt closer to spunky than I ever have, and honestly, the feeling hasn't really left. I feel like we are on each side of the wall, extending our hands and holding on for dear life. Who knows what the journey ahead of us is, but together, there is a knowing that we can accomplish anything. I have this picture in my head of what it looks like, this old, broken, crumbling wall, one of us on each side, but we are both reaching for each other. We can't look each other in the eye not yet but there is a connection that is strong and undeniable that has never been there before. 

She is scared of me, and I am scared of her yet we both know that we need each other on this journey. I know that there are things she holds and there are things that I hold. I do think that there are times, we wonder if we will make it. I know that that there are things that she doesn't have words for and that is ok.  Piece by piece little by little I am sure that she will tell me everything, and I will do the same. The parts she remembers are horrific and the things I remember are just as bad but together, with all that I am we can tell each other everything and still be ok.

There are pieces of us that have been hiding in the dark our entire lives, and I know that we are both incredibly tired of hiding, of becoming small of shrinking because our story is different. We have pieces that have never been seen for fear of being hated, being seen as something other than, as something that doesn't really belong. 

In a sense we don't belong, the lives that we have lived few can imagine and yet here we are. We have built our own way. We have suffered, we have lived, I have even found joy in the unimaginable, and it's time that she do the same. So here we are.  At a space of great change that feels more right than it ever has. So for this time, this place this moment. This just this. 

The Wall Between Us

There was a wall — not built, but born from all the words we have never said. It cracked with silence, crumbled with time, but still it stood.

I reached for you through every jagged breath of broken stone and memory. Your fingers, just a breath away, trembled like mine.

We touched — not skin, but sorrow sadness and immense pain. Not warmth, but the echo of it.

The wall did not fall. It watched. It remembered. It holds all that we can't say. It held the shape of our longing like a wound that never heals.

And though we are finding our way, we are moving on, though the seasons changed, people left that wall still remains — a monument to almost, to what could not be, to the ache that still reaches in all that we do.

But we have each other, closer than ever

I promise to tell you everything, even if it keeps you awake

                                               Mumford and Sons: I will tell you Everything.