When I Was Nine Years Old

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

My birthday is coming up.  My life is much different and much better than it was a year ago.  Indeed, I sometimes find myself marveling at how much has changed.  And then other times, sometimes even in the same day or same hour, I find myself marveling at how much has not changed. 

In trying to address the abuse I experienced as a kid my paternal family of origin has consistently remained true to form.  By that I mean they have consistently either avoided engaging me in an authentic conversation regarding the issues of chaos, domestic violence and deceit I was subject to or, when they have supposedly listened, I have received a response that runs something like 'I don't know what to say.'  And so many times when I have previously received this weak answer I have wanted to scream in reply 'Then learn!'  But intellectual curiosity has never been a strength of my father's family.  It's so very sad.

During my most recent months in therapy I find myself waffling between two distinct time periods from my early years of life.  Sometimes I want to focus on my earliest years when I was the size of a toddler. And other times I zero in on the time between June, 1982 and December, 1983.  I find myself aware of the fact that I sometimes wish I could be nine years old all over again but this time around actually experience the attentive nurturing and stability I didn't find myself experiencing when I was chronologically nine years old.  It is difficult for me to motivate myself on some days.  Some days I want to have a level of responsibility commensurate to being nine years old...namely very little responsibility.

The task before me now is the same task I have been working on the last fourteen months.  My overarching goal is to overcome the harm done to me when I was a kid.  This is no small task.  It is taking a lot of time.  Somewhere along the way in the last fourteen months I have learned to relax into the process and just accept the fact that my healing process cannot be easily defined or forced to fully occur in a set amount of time.  The journey of healing is something like an art.  Art requires time, creativity, patience and openness.  I can always walk away from the process of personal therapy but I'm too invested in it to walk away now.  I am also too curious.  I am curious to see who I can become if I remain loyal to continuing my deep process of personal inquiry.

As the time of autumn approaches I feel the need to assess what progress I have made, make realistic plans for what I can still complete while it still is relatively easy to move about outdoors and, in the spirit of the season of shedding, begin the process of looking more and more inward as a means of preparing for the coming winter.  Last winter I was very busy with the process of healing...and enduring the worst winter to consume Minnesota in three decades.  I believe the coming cold season will be much, much different.

I am going to have a very different life in the future.  This is the promise I have made to myself.