The Real Lie

I am supposed to be a homeless drug addict. This is the thought I woke up with in April 2009, opening my sleepy eyes to the prospect of announcing my resignation at work, and a Valium sized feeling of anxiety. I’d grown accustomed to taking on monumental tasks and being occupied with too many things to do, and I felt far more comfortable with being overwhelmed than I was with having time on my hands for “hobbies”. Having hobbies just felt like I was cheating, or slacking off.

What did it mean to believe I was supposed to be a homeless drug addict? Whose rules had I broken by changing my life? Why did I feel like I had cheated death, or at the very least, snuck out of my social class when no one was looking? When I looked around me at my friends I saw a group of people who did not share my experiences. Whatever familiarity they had with the conditions under which I had grown up had been gleaned through compassionate, if vicarious, eyes.

My eyes see the seedy underbelly with empathy because no matter where I go, a part of me will always be where I once was. Will I always feel more at ease with people who are in pain and in need of fixing? However hidden, unconscious or muted their desire to change their lives and to escape from the pain and desperation may be, will they, or I, ever feel how it feels to live in the world that people from a less broken world are accustomed too?

My questions came that morning because I realized I had minimized my early experiences, as if they didn't continue to influence my view of the world. I understood that my sense of isolation was less the result of lost innocence, and more the result of my past remaining hidden. I really was being a fraud, not because I didn't belong where I was, but because I had turned away from the person who had helped me to get there. I hadn't stepped over a hidden line of demarcation into a world I had no right to be in, what I had done was step over that line with just the "good" parts of me in tow.

I wasn't really supposed to remain addicted to drugs, or homeless, or continue to allow myself to be abused. I wasn't supposed to remain uneducated, or to know my "place". I also wasn't supposed to pretend that my life had been something it hadn't been, even if my only pretense had been to distance myself from my experiences, to pretend as if those things had happened to someone else.

I'll get to the other side of this.

Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn

This is the blog I’ve wanted to write. I’ve written training blogs, and coaching blogs because I thought I had to write about what I thought people wanted to read. See all the thinking going on? Turns out that writing what I thought other people wanted to read led to two things; off topic blog posts, and eventually, not writing at all. I was lost.

What will I write about now?

I’m a storyteller, so I’m going to tell stories. I have journaled for 28 years. I had journals that went back further, but I burnt those pages a long time ago. I feel like I’ve lost those years, like I burnt the memories along with words. I think this is one of the only things I look back on in my life and feel true regret over, because burning them wasn’t my idea, it was my mother’s.

I’m surprised that I ever wrote again, so deep was the betrayal of finding her standing in my room, the middle drawer of my dresser hanging open, and the look of horror on her face at reading what I had written. I wish I could remember the words that were so terrible to her, and the me that must have been so dark in her eyes that all she could think to say was…burn these so no one ever reads them again…

The same thing happened to me in Sunday school. I loved Sunday school, the ritual, the beauty of ceremony, praying for our food. It all ended when I was 4. One day I was told I was no longer welcome. They said I asked too many questions. I would give a lot to know what I asked.

Never underestimate the power of words. Written or spoken, it seems, I have a way with them :-)

Kind of exciting, hmm?