part 55

So this whole outing-the-neighbors thing has been really difficult. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but that doesn't detract from the pain and hurt and anger. Not just my pain and hurt and anger, but that of everyone involved.

I have really never felt more empowered, though. I continue to shake like a leaf (in a hurricane) whenever I talk about it or even think about it. My voice doesn’t falter so much anymore, though. That’s pretty awesome.

The whole experience has been another of those dark tunnels of excruciating anxiety and heartbreak and sadness that I have come to associate with “processing trauma.” Going through this last tunnel has been very difficult for the past few weeks, but I am very grateful to have a light heart today (I mean, on this very day, not in this time of my life or whatever).

The tunnel is still there, but I am starting to get into the part where the light is shining in. My thoughts about my childhood have been retrospectively much clearer. Of course a lot of thoughts applied retroactively are much clearer, but these thoughts are the ones that have been very muddy up until now.

I can clearly feel what it felt like to go get the mail or mow the lawn or turn the corner onto the street I grew up on. I can clearly feel that I do not have to feel that way now.

I have never been able to go into that neighborhood without a sense of dread, or with my head held high. The place is the temple of doom for me, and has been my whole life. But it is starting to not feel that way anymore. It is starting to feel like I can go visit my mom without cowering as I go up the driveway.

It is starting to feel like I can sit at the kitchen table in front of the big bay window without feeling the vulnerability of someone in the scope of a sniper.

It is starting to feel like I am stronger than those houses and that street and that whole neighborhood and every single person who hurt me. I feel like I am not a little kid people see as dysfunctional, or a crazy teenager. 

I feel like an adult. I feel like I have my feet planted firmly on the ground. I feel like there are people who very badly want to knock me down, who have kept me knocked down for most of my life, and I know they can’t do it anymore.

Huh. It feels nice.

I do not feel impermeable to pain, or to fear. However, I do feel like pain and fear can exist simultaneously with strength and determination. As much as fear and pain can cripple me, I know I have a choice to keep standing back up and get through it.

I guess I am having a lot of feelings today. That’s usually very exhausting for me, but these feelings are good, and I am lighter and calmer and more peaceful. These feelings are giving me this strange energy and motivation to do things like take care of my student loans, and pay the bills I have been dreading opening, and facing other things that are daunting for me.

I don’t feel high or speedy or invincible, I just feel capable. It really, really is nice.