thescreaminthevoid

[thescreaminthevoid]

Cats in the cradle

Last night was the first time I've heard my father's voice in 12 years.

He's supposed to be a bad guy. The memories I have from a time so long ago. The brief encounters with a man broken because his children were taken from him. The things that were told to me, whether true or false, it's been decades. Bygones are bygones.

He told me "Yesterday was the first time I saw you 34 years ago when I came back from Desert Storm." Almost 3 months after my birth. The joy and pain in his voice was gutting. I want to blame my mother. Honestly, who else is there to blame? She didn't have her father growing up, and I know how she felt about that kind of. Why would she rob that from me? Sure, he wasn't a great guy, but he was great enough for you to have children with. I can hear her petty laugh in my head when she thinks about things he's missed out on, and that I've told her he will miss out on. Based on what? Her words eager for understanding of her motives, foggy memories from a distant time, and brief encounters with a broken man trying to find his place in his children's lives.

There are many things I need to ask this man who is a stranger.... but so familiar my heart pounds for him. I find myself an infant again, curled up in his arms, with the soft glow of the television. I find myself becoming the little girl running around the house excited to go to a baseball game. I find myself a teenager wearing a hoodie like a shield he gifted my brother, even in the sweltering heat. I find myself a young adult needing helpful advice about boys and my place in the world, begging the heavenly Father that I don't even believe in to give me strength and wisdom because I couldn't do it anymore. Now, I find myself a soft, malleable husk of a soul begging to be full of life again.

I'd be irresponsible to think that this blossoming new rekindling will solve anything, but if it can help a little and repair some of the damage done, It's worth it.

He isn't a perfect man, father, or person, but neither am I. We've all made mistakes, and we all hope that once we've healed and learned, we can be given a second chance. I'm happy to give this man his first chance at being a parent to his adult child, and I'm so grateful for the second chance to be a daughter. I just hope that I'm able to process the guilty feelings I have in a healthy way and minimal impact to all parties involved.

No one said healing happens in a straight line, and it's not easy to finally decode these feelings, thoughts, and heaviness. It's going to get harder before it gets easier, but the light is there.... I can make it.

[thescreaminthevoid]

Movie Quotes #1

Kids lose everything, unless there's someone to look after them. - River Phoenix as Chris Chambers in Stand By Me (1986)

As I'm watching a YouTube video about the child actors in Stand By Me, I'm listening to Wil Wheaton's story, and the creator brings up this specific quote said by Chris to Gordie about his writing. While my life isn't an extraordinary story that you'd read and go, "Wow, I've never heard a story like that.", it should shed some light on the fact that this is a common thing occurring, not just for a generation, but generations. I'm not going to sit here and get myself riled up writing about the injustices towards children because that's a global scale and doesn't correlate with my own healing. That's not to say that I don't care about the children of the world, both past and future, you are important, but you're not important to my journey. This is something I need to keep in mind. I can't bog myself down, like I already have thinking about these global, even community problems, when I can't even handle my own. I digress....

To the bulk of why I felt the need to spill myself online rather than in a notepad for no one else to read... it's important for us to share our stories with each other so that we are all able to heal these little minds we have inside of us. Right now... I'm writing for the first time in what feels like years, not talking to someone or typing to someone... I'm typing into the void and writing down my thoughts like I did before. Before when I use to write stories about fantasy because I needed an escape. Before when I'd research topics and write debated pieces or informative speeches about the subject because I needed an escape. I'm coming here to write down my actual true thoughts. The thoughts of that child... however old she is... Let her get it out, today it's this string of thoughts all relating to the thing she lost. She lost everything because there wasn't anyone looking after her. That doesn't have to be the case anymore. While I have aged, my body grown, my body has matured, that doesn't mean that she isn't in there. That doesn't mean that as an adult, I have a right to let her continue to go unnoticed. Her interests lingered to the side and left her feeling empty. The only escape she had was the Barbies she could create a world with to escape, and that was even taken from her. Leaving her with nothing but the spaces in her head to wonder and get lost in. On the way, she dropped her ambitions, wishes, goals, dreams... because the baggage got too heavy.

She should not have had to carry the baggage on her own for this long, and to her I apologize from the bottom of my heart that I allowed her to be mistreated continuously by not only others, but myself. I'm making it my mission to get you back to where you wanted to be... me. I'm going to start putting myself out there and do the things you wanted to do. I need us to become a we. I want you back in my life. I need you back in my life. Baby girl, I promise you, I am looking after you now, I have you. You can let go of the baggage. I am the adult, I will handle it for us, okay?

This isn't going to be easy, and I'm going to fall short sometimes. I promise to not be mean to myself because that means being mean to you. I promise that I will allow myself grace because that means rushing you and not giving you the respect you deserve. I promise that I will hold myself accountable when I fall short without beating myself up because that would be like beating you up. We can take this one day at a time... eventually we will heal this void you're trapped in and rediscover who we were really meant to be.

[thescreaminthevoid]

Here it goes....

So, today I guess I am committing to writing my feelings to see if I can even figure out what they are myself. I was going to start this post off by describing how I had just gotten out of the shower and decided to hop on tumblr for the first time ever. To my surprise, I found that my account had been taken over by a porn bot or something. I have messages in my inbox that just made me feel a little violated, but also chuckled because this is... well... the internet.

I'm 34 years old, I don't have a job, I don't have any idea what I want to be or do... or what I can even do at this point. You see dear void... I have never felt like a true adult. I worked, I came home. I managed to survive.... Well survive is a strong word for what actually was occurring because in reality, I had no idea what was coming. I lost my house, my job, my sanity.... all in the span of a month. Now... you might say to yourself, "This girl is crying because she didn't pay her bills or show up to her job, she caused these issues herself." I can 1,000% see how a giant crack in the crust of the planet would view it that was... but it was deeper than that. I had to sell my house that was a shared property, and my role just simply was being sunset. Now, on to the meat and potatoes of what brings me to your opening today. I am struggling with who I am as a person. I have a very thin grasp on what my self identity is... and right now my self image is "Mental Illness". Everything I do, say, think, feel is just drowned in disordered thinking. Growing up I didn't even know what it meant to have a healthy relationship with someone else, let alone myself. Who the fuck am I, you may ask? I ask myself the same thing everyday. If I heal, what am I without this disorder thinking? Who is the woman that will emerge from the ashes of this fire? Will I know who she is when I look in the mirror? Will I like her? Do I like who I am now? These are the questions I'm dying to find answers to because without them, I'm not even surviving... I'm barely hanging on... Survival means there is a will to live, right now I have a fear of living. I originally wrote death, but that didn't feel right... It left me sitting with the feeling of incomplete... Maybe I fear both life and death. That's why I stay here in the middle... sitting in my room, on my bed, scrolling YT shorts or videos endlessly, searching for anything that will take my mind far far away from here.... at your opening... The hole in my heart that can't be filled with anything... I keep throwing stuff at you as a bandaid, but you're still here.

I've never talked to you... I know why you're here. I didn't before, but I understand it now... I'm a lost child... not a child that went missing, but a child who went unnoticed... slipped through the cracks and hit every single beam on the way down. No one came looking for you until now.... I am you. I am the adult you're going to grow up to be, and I'm so sorry no one has come to help you before. I know it's a deep hole, and you're really far down there, but I am here to save you from the darkness. I promise that you will not go unnoticed anymore. It's okay to be scared, I'm scared to. There are going to be a lot of obstacles and it's going to be hard, but we can do this, I won't let you fail. You are going to come out of this and find out that when you look in the mirror, and see me.... You're going to be loved and cared for. You're going to be able to smile and say, "I am strong in spite of" because the trauma you endured and are still enduring, was not meant for you, it was not your choice. You are not lost anymore child... You are found and you are safe. I will keep you safe.