The music starts and already I'm back in the river, floating along, my legs hitting rocks, sharp pain traveling through my body.

This is only one of the memories living inside.

It's an experiment. I'm trying to marry the past to the present. I'm trying to heal the old wounds and let go of the viewpoint of the child i once was and let the adult look through her eyes.

The relationships you have as a child are not the same you have as an adult. Things change and you can look at people as a whole, with all their flaws and insecurities, and still love them, sometimes love them even more than before.

I feel his presence in my life lately. Just there, at the edge of reality, waiting for me. He is there, and it is there, in the signs, all the signs. I feel loved. And i feel challenged. He has always challenged me. And even though he isn't here anymore, he'll always challenge me, i know that.

I need to find my way through this labyrinth, the confusion, back to the unrelenting truth. A truth he taught me: I am loved. I am loved and i was loved and i will be loved. And the love will be deeper and more intense, very messy and very human ... if i let it happen.

I have built these protective walls around myself that keep out everything and everyone - and all they do is keep me on this pile of broken dreams of the person i once was.

I am no longer this person. I have grown up, become an adult with sometimes similar dreams and sometimes very different ones. And if i keep hiding behind these walls, keep scratching open the wounds with outdated dreams, never letting them heal, i will lose myself completely, eventually.

It is time. The clock is ticking within myself. I know I'm supposed to take the first steps outside of this nightmare I've created for myself. I'm trapped within in it, always abandoned, never loved, never enough. But it's not the truth. It's a lie. The nightmare is the lie that i was telling myself to survive.

It is very old pain. It is scars upon scars, and it's open wounds and it is a bloody mess. And the clock ticks and all the signs say it, too: It is time to break free and also let the shadows of my past have their freedom. I must wish them well and watch them fly away into the night.

I have kept them and myself prisoner for too long. Incarcerated myself in the prettiest dungeon for too long. And even though it can be wonderful and beautiful in there, it's still a dungeon, so all the beauty and all the wonder are only distorted versions of reality.

And i get scared. Again. How many times have i tried this? How many ways have i tried this? Only to come back, like whiplash, just snap back into the fangs of this monster within?! The Monster that lives in this prison and that feeds off of every perceived rejection? Because that's the only way it knows I'll always come back: If I'm rejected in real life, or i think I am, i will keep the walls up and i will have my worst fears affirmed. Nobody loves me, nobody understands me, nobody wants me, and I'll be forever alone and never enough.

Lies.

And i go back and pick up an old dream and scratch at the old wounds.

But the truth will always be:

I am loved. And i know how to love.

Tentative steps were taken in the direction of freedom and then retraced back into prison. So again: what makes this different from all the other times?

I know more, i tell the monster. I am wiser and i am older and most of all: I am so tired of living this way. And all the signs are there today and i know, if i look out for them, they'll be there tomorrow, too. Everything tells me to let go.

But! The Monster sputters. But you'll abandon them, you'll abandon all the memories and you will lose them. You will lose all of the beauty and the intensity and all of the love, forever!

But i am ready for this with an answer: the beauty and the love live inside of me only if i let them breathe and move and grow and expand. If i keep them tied up within, in the dark of my memory dungeon, they become stiff with age and covered with dry dust. They become old and grey and listless and unhappy. Beauty and love want and need to be shared. Otherwise they're a stale, motionless copy of what was once a celebration of life itself.

You'll be alone, the monster says. You'll be alone forever. There's no coming back. Once you've let them free, they will never return.

And even for this i have an answer. I am not alone and i never was. I have this deep capacity for love inside of myself. And it now includes myself and all the broken parts of myself. I'm not alone. And with the intensity of the memories lessening, i can let new life grow within, make new memories. And most of all: finally live in the moment. This moment. Where i am so loved and where i would so like to love back, honestly and fully, without being held back by who i once was.

So i breathe. And i look over, in the bed, next to me, is my boyfriend. And i know in a bed a little farther away lies my mother. And in other beds lie other people, people i love as well as people i haven't even met yet but might love in the future.

I am not alone. This pain is complicated and messy and strange and it feels utterly isolating. But I'm not the first one to experience it. I know other people, too, have loved and lost. Loved and messed up and lost. Loved and grown apart and lost. This is my very own, very human experience of growing up.

So i look back at the monster and pat its head affectionately. I give it a hug and i say, "And you. You are free to go, too. You don't have to stay around any longer if you do not wish to. Your job of looking out for rejection is done. You are free ... to go or to stay and find a different job. But you don't have to protect me anymore...

I will protect me now."

 This free site is ad-supported. Learn more
​