#healforward

[ninthpower]

#healForward https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs4150FliqaRVfqPo16KI5-MByK2JoRhGx40c80/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k27ky0jscwy8

[rhizomebae-blog]

Neglect

She was not the first clue. But the first I was awake for. Wide awake enough to realize she was a clue. To another life. A different way. Because you don’t realize there is something wrong. You don’t know it is not supposed to be how it is with you. Until you do. Her name was Vanessa. We met at seven years old. Her parents moved in across the hallway in our apartment building. They stayed less than a year. They were there to save money rapidly and dramatically. To buy a house. Which is what they did rapidly. And moved out. But it was enough time, those few months, to see something else. The first time was when I knocked well past dusk and asked if my new friend, if Vanessa could play. Her father was the one who answered the door. He seemed to pause a long time before responding. He seemed to have a kind of shock or confusion registering while looking at me. His voice was surprised even though his words were the familiar adult story of no this and no that. But the grounds for no, well there it was my turn to be shocked. Vanessa, he said, had already had her nightly bath. This was a strange turn of phrase to me. Nightly bath. Vanessa he said, was already in her pajamas and settling in to bed. None of this was familiar. It was nowhere near pitch black. The time when getting inside was really genuinely definitely required. And although I knew what pajamas were it was in the way you know about anything else you see and hear about on TV. Night clothes were a hodgepodge. Bathing nightly? Settling in? Settling in for what? While I listened to him my own face showing some surprise, Vanessa’s father’s face softened and I saw what looked like sadness. An expression I know now to be pity. 

They took me a few places after that. The drive in, a drive to do something they called antiquing in the country. But mostly it seemed like Vanessa could never play because she was having some kidn of doing with her parents. Having lunch, having dinner, having something, reading something, readying for something. It was the three of them. That’s the thing I started to understand about Vanessa and her parents. She was being watched over, regarded, guided, nurtured, and nourished. She was being cared for. The way that parents are best meant to care for their children. When she got scrapes or cuts they cleaned them and watched to make sure they didn’t get infected. When she said she was hungry they made food for her or pointed out something to eat. When she was too tired or fussy they made her rest and chill out. They guided her. Because that’s what parents do. They guide and nurture their children. 

I will always be amazed that I made it to first grade. I cannot fathom how it happened given the radical levels of ignorance, neglect, and apathy my parents displayed in their roles as caregivers. My father, now an elder, is steadfast in his neglectful countenance. He never did come around to the idea that one is responsible for checking in with, checking up on, or dutifully taking care of the children one has brought into the world. He prefers the stance of resigned intermittent remorse. Fathering. A skill he just never got good at he says. And keeps it that way. My mother died. I wasn’t a good mother she said. I didn’t have it in me, she said. Mothering. A skill she never got good at and kept it that way. 

I wear the remains of their neglect on my skin. Scars that will never disappear. A little girl, asked me recently if I minded having my scar. “Do you like it?” she asked. “No,” I said. Surprised to find myself near tears suddenly. She thought about it. And then said, “Can you learn to like it?” to which I smiled and said, “well I suppose I can.” At the least, I have learned to accept the scars my parents left behind. At the least, I have learned to no longer attempt to wage war with ghosts and torn sheets. Preferring instead to learn little thought by little thought how to live in the present as a warrior who has made steadfast peace with the past. 

It is a shocking thing to realize that not only are you solely responsible for yourself in the world, but that in a peculiar way, it’s always been that way for you.  When you come to terms with having been neglected, entirely left without guidance or care or nourishment or consideration, when you come to terms with it what you begin to learn, is how to remove the hindrances and how to explore the openings. You take away the anger, the hate, the hurt, the fear, the sadness, and the despair for all that you never got and will never get from people who just cant’ give it. And you learn to give yourself everything you ever wanted. You learn how to raise yourself, how to make sure you get enough sleep, and food, and nutrition, and self love, and quiet time, and rejuvenating inputs. You learn how to raise yourself all over again and this time you get it right. This time, you get it right on your own behalf.