I have these huge gaps in my memory. For example I can't remember most of my life until I was 16/17. I remember bits, Various postcards over time.
Watching tv on the living room floor on a Saturday morning with my brothers. I was about 12. Reading under my sheets late into the night at 10 years old. My first crush. Playing cricket in the driveway. The rest is a blur.
People ask me astonished how it's possible that I can't remember most of my life. The simple answer is that I wasn't there. My body was present. But my mind had learned to disconnect itself.
I remember a few years ago (I cannot specify dates/times) visiting my brother in Melbourne. I was reading a book. I had caught the train to the airport, collected my ticket, handed in my baggage and boarded the plane. It was not until not until the flight attendant asked me if I would like a drink that I realised I was in the air. For a moment I forgot where I was and what I was doing. I knew in my head that I had caught the train etc etc but I did not experience it. I may as well have been back home on the couch, reading my book and not have moved.
I do not, for example remember much of my HSC year. Or the year following graduation and during my hospitalisation. There is no clear cut timeline. All I have are snippets of my life.
The memories I have are powerful and detailed. For instance I can remember every inch of what my childhood home looked like, the smell of hospital sheets, the feel of someone's hand on my cheek. These memories play out like movies, in full technicolour with high defintion sound.
It is interesting to me which memories stick out. There is a photo of me as a 10yr old girl, healthy and happy at an afternoon bbq in my new two-piece swim suit. I am smiling widely, my arm around the person next to me, happy healthy normal. At 22 I still remember thinking then that I should suck my stomache in so no one would notice how fat I was. I was not a fat child. I was perfectly sized for my age and height. Yet 12 yrs later this memory burns in my mind and that concerns me. Strange what things we choose to remember and what we choose to forget.
I don't remember much.
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Neither do I. It's okay. You are not alone. You are not a freak. You are just a delicate flower, so fragile and beautiful. You don't deserve what the world has done to you. You don't deserve the petals that were ripped from you and the leaves that were crushed. It is however, what you do from here on that will make the difference. What choices will you make. Who will you be after the broken child and beaten teen? Who will you be? Who are you now? Who do you want to be? How Will you get there?
ReplyDeleteDon't fear. I love you.
Wow. Thank you for your profound response. It touched me deeply. I would love to read your blog sometime.
ReplyDeleteIt is daunting, the choices you know have to make...who will you be? What do you want? Especially when the path of darkness is so familiar...