30.9

What, specifically happened when i was 9?

( i just got off the phone and a conversation with her reminded me of other facets i wanted to expose that aren’t necessarily on the 9th year)

Maybe that was the year my sister got a Make-Up kit for her birthday in September
and i started playing with it
and did up my eyes and lips and finger nails
and got on my bike and rode down to Neil’s house where he and my brother were playing basketball

Louis said to me:
You better go home and take that off your face before we beat you up and take it off ourselves.

…
i was just telling my mother that i was very confused about being a human
what would make so many people call me “an old soul” in my teen-age years
made my childhood a living hell

i didn’t understand people at all
i didn’t trust anyone

those people i called my “friends”
would sometimes just turn on my and do violent and shaming things to me in front of other people
they loved beating me up and berating me in public

for many years
people i didn’t even know would spit on me and punch me and kick me
because they say “my friends” doing it
my brother
my neighbors

i didn’t even trust my parents
because i was born with this idea that they were completely honest and in integrity
yet i would ask them when i would develope the capacity for hearing people’s thoughts and feelings like they could
and they (mother, father, other adults) would say “Honey, no one can hear your thoughts and feelings… that doesn’t happen”
but i could clearly see people responding to my un-expressed internal experiences
… so why were they lying to me?
what were they hiding?

when people blew up and threw huge fits
dramas
deceits
i was utterly confused

i took to watching people’s facial expressions
and intricately copying them
following their speech patterns and intonations
so i, too, could respond to situations with shock, horror, surprise, humor, pity, love
all of these things i had no concept of truly understand
and i certainly didn’t “feel” them, as they referred to it

i think this is why i perceived so many people as “hating me”
because i was faking everything

i so desperately wanted to belong
to be like other people
and they could tell i was just a bad actor

but i don’t think i was aware of this yet, at 9
i was too much in the midst of it

i was still at the point of being confused when people expected me to say “Please” and “Thank You”
or “I’m Sorry”
because, without even fully understanding this, I believed that we were all in it together. we were all one. all in the same family… or compunity… or some relation. what would be called loving and supportive
why would i ever have to appologize or beg for pity and forgiveness? why would i ever need to make a verbal show of gratitude? weren’t they doing what they were doing because they loved me and knew that i loved them and the joy of experiencing these things together were enough?

No
i was in a fucking desert
and watching the garden of eden wither in front of me
beasts in all the shadows
and a million scared monsters echoing the supposed voice of the angels who told us we were all wrong and bad and born of sin

whatever
i just wanted to leave
that’s all i knew

still
i didn’t understand the ramifications of that until the year before when my Aunt Mary Ellen died
— as far as i know
i only really spent time with her once
she was my Mother’s Mother’s Sister (in law? i don’t even know)
i spent a very pleasant afternoon at her house, running up and down her hill
swinging from her big beautiful tree
drinking tea and eating cookies

a few days
or weeks
or months later
she died
and we went to her funeral
— first death of my life
and i was amazed with the whole concept of no longer being able to spend time with someone
never being able to share tea and cookies with them again
hear their voice. . .

one of my mother’s favourite songs (or at least i heard it a lot)
was Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand singing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore”
— i listened to it on my walkman over and over and over on the 5 hour car trip home (we sometimes went up and back from Michigan more than once a month)
it was the perfect example Love being Finite
i cried for a week
and listened to that song

people kept saying
‘she’s not in pain anymore, she’s in a better place, oh don’t be sad honey”

and eventually
i understood what they meant
and then for years later
i was, again, confused why everyone was crying at funerals
— i got over that when i was 8

(it was, yet again, one of those things where people say something but it’s not real…they don’t really feel it or believe it… or yet, have to create a drama besides the truth of the peaceful reality of the situation: normal human stuff)