So much Shame surrounds her

 

It's really hard to realize that I was truly just a kid at 13. I was not this little adult; I was just a girl who had no chance of being the little girl I deserved. Wrapping my heart and head around her life, the life that we lived, is extremely difficult. There is so much shame and embarrassment that surrounds everything about her. I find this all so hard to comprehend. All the work that I have done and all that I understood, there are pieces of that 13-year-old that I just don't understand. There is so much that I understand today, yet this girl has so much that I struggle to find words for. I was all around an embarrassment in every way, and ashamed of all of me all the time. I never said the right words, never looked the right way, and never fit in; in all of the ways that everyone thought that I should. Because of that, there was this constant embarrassment that I wore no matter what I did. I still carry so much of that today. This is one of the hardest pieces to understand with a history like mine. It's like there are pieces that she has, there are pieces that I have, and to finally hold all the pieces at once and try to put them in some kind of order and give them meaning is a place that is just extremely difficult. 

The shame and embarrassment that exists for merely breathing is so real and so intense. I feel it to this day. Sometimes it's little things. Other times it's bigger things.  There was this feeling that I have always had, something untouchable and ever-present. There was just something about me that was wrong.  I was just never enough, and in the same breath, I was always too much. What kind of place is that to grow up in, or at least try? Well, it isn't. 

There is just so much about that spunky girl. So much for me to understand, to hold close, and make space for without any judgment.  She believed that she was going to die that day, and living with that is an enormous burden.  Feeling like there is something inherently wrong with you, having that happen, and then thinking I couldn't even do that right.  In those moments, I remember thinking that I just wanted them to kill me.  I wanted them to just finish me off; I could not imagine another minute of what they were doing to me. I didn't want to die, but the weight of what happened was suffocating.  When it was over, I wanted to be anyone but myself. I didn't know how to live, and I sure didn't know how to live with the memories and the silence about what was done that day. And I think I always used to say, one rape was ok; if I just had to deal with my father, that was ok; if it was just Albert. If it was just Don, I could just keep going. But this was something so very different; this was something that happened that broke pieces of me into millions and millions of pieces that I have slowly been trying to get back together. I do think that there are pieces that have been found, there are pieces that will never be found, and pieces that Spunky holds that need care. It's giving those pieces a place to rest, recover, and be seen and heard.

I feel like I am not making any sense; feelings and thoughts are swirling, and I don't know how to make sense of them. How I have managed to keep myself together and survive what I have been through.  Somehow, being 13 is so different for me to process. Like the life that a 13-year-old is supposed to get to experience are things that I never got.  I am trying to wrap my mind around those things, and I am not sure that I can.    I want to see her and all the things she experienced, like how I am finally able to see little Callahan.  It's like all the things I know are thrown out the window, and I am starting all over again trying to find my words. She was just 13. The shame grows, and I think it's been growing since that day. I have shed some and continue to, but there are things just so affected. There are things that have never been given a voice, and I hope they will scream when the time comes.  I want that feeling to disappear of wanting to understand something that there is no understanding.  I want to take each piece and have it make some kind of sense; that just isn't possible.  There is no way to understand evil, no way to comprehend what they did.  I want that need to understand to disappear and feel able to let go and keep moving forward. I think about how far I have come, even feeling stuck in this spot, and I find it hard to imagine the things that I will be able to accomplish when I no longer feel that need to understand the incomprehensible. 

I heart your heart