Broken

I've spent much of today on the verge of tears.  Therapy is a lovely thing, but it really stirs up all the muck on the bottom of my life and begs me to deal with issues long buried.

Today the predominant thought in my head is, what kind of parent DOES that?

I was 11/12/13, somewhere around that age.  It was early spring, and I was itching to get outside.  So I jumped on my bike and headed over to the playground.  Down a little hill, picking up speed.  Around a building.  Oh SHIT!  An unmelted snowbank!  Up and over, then on the ground.  HUGE gash down my left thigh.  Blood everywhere. 

I limped home with my bike.  The exact conversation eludes me, but I don't recall my mother or father caring too much about my wound. 

My grempop doctored me back to health.  I remember many, many dressing changes.  Today, I have an 8 inch scar on my leg.  Ugly, thick, long, curving scar in the middle of my left thigh.

As an adult and a parent, I have to wonder why my grandfather tended my wound, and not my parents.  Why was I not taken to the urgent care for stitches? 

The answer to this, and to so many other eddies and swirls in the bottom-muck seems to be this: I wasn't important enough. 

Self pity aside, I ache for that little girl.  Forgotten.  Desperately wanting her parents' attention. I want to reach back through time and hug her, tell her she's special and loved.  Tell her she has value.  Tell her to find God in the dark parts of her life.  Only He can fill them. Tell her it's all going to work out.  She will someday be triumphant.

When You Just Can't Catch Your Breath...

Somehow I never expected to end up on a therapist's couch.

Why, I have no idea.  I was a hot mess before Leila.  My childhood has left me wounded, forever marked.  Like having a clubbed foot or a speech impediment.  History is always there, the glasses I look through that color every interaction with others. 

I had just reached a point in like where accepting my idiosyncrasies (crasies - crazies) was the next step to surviving.  As I close in on 40, I want to be comfortable in my own skin.  For the first time in my life.

My husband and I reached a point where something had to change, or something was going to change,  if you follow me.  That crack in our marriage sent me to google, looking for someone to talk to.

It's been a few weeks and a few sessions.   The therapist is like my guide, walking through the dark forest.  She holds the flashlight.  We come across the trees, waterfalls, wildlife together.  Sometimes they are the scary shapes I see before the light hits them, but more often the light changes the shadows into something more manageable. 

I am not doomed to repeat my past on my son.  My marriage is stronger now.  If I'm not comfortable in my skin, at least I understand more of what makes me tick.  I am a Lost Child.