pseudonymous
Obtuse Kineticist
The 11th Year
My parents were not lovers. They were not lovers with one another, and they were not lovers of their children. They arrived in each others' company years ago very damaged goods. They received an education in love by ancestors that knew nothing of emotional consolation and encouragement. They arrived at each other from a place of necessity, a place of fear.
I am but one of the products of this unbalanced relationship. There was no physical touching in our house. I have yet to hear my mother say "I love you" to any of her children. She is not a monster...she is a product. We are not victims...we are effects of effects of effects. Although living 25 years with my father, he died a stranger to me. I knew precious little of what made him wake up each day, and pick up a script that he had grown uninterested in years before my birth. I was a walk-on in his movie.
Everyone has a pivotal moment in their lives which is the recurring echo that drives all fears and pattern creativity. Mine was not exceptional, but only in the fact that it was mine. My 11th year was the alpha and omega point of my ego cementing. Two things have shaped my emotional life from that year which I freely share - not out of want of sympathy, or need for redemption, but out of a desire to demonstrate that scripts are not as menacing as we may think that they are. Our historical selves are not even real any more. But if they are made to be, then the future Self is never realized.
It was July 4th, 1976, and as an idealistic 11 year old I was marching around our yard in New England singing patriotic songs. It was an exciting day for a kid filled with wonder at the world. It was our country's 200th anniversary of being a nation, and I was high on it. I kept trying to get my family's attention by making comments about the momentous day, but all my attempts to rally up the relatives was falling to not only deaf ears, but to increasingly annoyed ones too. Finally, I was sent to my room for being so vociferous about democracy.
That day marked for me the first time that I became aware on a deeply personal level, that others did not feel or see the world as I did. That had been the creation of much emotional turbulence for years, and has left me with a unquenchable thirst to be touched deep down where I live. I have gone from one tepid relationship after another because of people's inability to be real with me. Of course I had attracted only those who were unable to live up to that standard.
I often joke that I must have had some remarkably sensual and sexual past lives, because this one has certainly been a drought. My inherited good looks are of little use if the internal terrain keeps dictating the external outcome. I have made immense progress over the past nine years identifying the recurring patterns and echoes of the past, but am still occassionally reminded how deeply emotional scars run.
The second event of my 11th year was far more controlling and responsible for much of the imperfect creation that had come out of me for nearly 25 years. Neither of these events should be viewed as weaknesses. I know the human desire to find a weakness in another in order to place a value on them. There is really nothing remarkable within our scripts. We have all played roles in these tragic comedies, but the scenery changes make us think there is an inherent uniqueness to the production.
These events were simply unsightly pieces of furniture, that had cluttered up my living space, which for whatever sentimental and/or fearful reasons had not been put to the curb for garbage disposal. I had let go of them a few years ago, and if someone had driven by and wanted them, then they were free to grab them up and laugh at me for my "weaknesses".
It is fascinating to me that a statement made in less than ten seconds could shape much of my adolescence and adulthood. There was no warning. The particular language was never used before in our house. Like most New England towns, things of personal nature were not discussed much in the open, so that children learned much of the nuances in life by accidental or deliberate eavesdropping. My father had been drinking all evening, as he did on Friday nights after work. He was only allowed the one night a week to let his hair down and his ghosts out.
We had been playing cards all evening, just the two of us. I actually looked forward to the nights that he drank, because it was our only quality time together. We both loved to play cards, and listen to music together. When my father was sober, he was a cold duck indeed - emotionless and uninspired. When he was drinking he was alive and demonstrative. While reaching across the table for a card, he had looked me directly in the eye, and matter-of-factly announced that if he "ever found out that I was an f***ing ****** he would cut my throat."
Time had stood still for me. I had no idea of what my external features betrayed, but every fiber of my being had been awoken in terror. I had known the word. As a boy, I had joined in and mercilessly picked on any other boy that demonstrated even the slightest of femininity. That was what was expected of pre-adolescent and adolescent boys in my hometown in the late 1970's. I was as much a [gay] hater as the next [gay] hater in line...problem was that I was also becoming aware that I was increasingly attracted to boys. My father had pinned down what I was unable to admit about myself to myself.
Of course since that day I have come into an acceptance of my sexuality, as have my parents, and much of the people in my lives. My father died knowing that I had been intimate with both women and men, and surprisingly did not cut my throat, or even seem all that interested in the revelation. I do not know what internal dialogue in my father's head had given birth to that statement that day, but the layer upon layer of masks that I have worn over the years in order to be whatever those around me expected of me, so as not to betray my sexuality to anyone, has been a monumental effort of peeling away varnishes to reveal the original patina underneath.
It is of little wonder to me that I have virtually no memories of my life prior to my 11th year. As I said, that was the alpha and omega for me. For the who that was the dream that I was having. I have little doubt that external situations will find me occasionally picking up that dream script again, but I have found it effortless to spot the signs of sleepiness in myself.
©2004 DC Vision
My parents were not lovers. They were not lovers with one another, and they were not lovers of their children. They arrived in each others' company years ago very damaged goods. They received an education in love by ancestors that knew nothing of emotional consolation and encouragement. They arrived at each other from a place of necessity, a place of fear.
I am but one of the products of this unbalanced relationship. There was no physical touching in our house. I have yet to hear my mother say "I love you" to any of her children. She is not a monster...she is a product. We are not victims...we are effects of effects of effects. Although living 25 years with my father, he died a stranger to me. I knew precious little of what made him wake up each day, and pick up a script that he had grown uninterested in years before my birth. I was a walk-on in his movie.
Everyone has a pivotal moment in their lives which is the recurring echo that drives all fears and pattern creativity. Mine was not exceptional, but only in the fact that it was mine. My 11th year was the alpha and omega point of my ego cementing. Two things have shaped my emotional life from that year which I freely share - not out of want of sympathy, or need for redemption, but out of a desire to demonstrate that scripts are not as menacing as we may think that they are. Our historical selves are not even real any more. But if they are made to be, then the future Self is never realized.
It was July 4th, 1976, and as an idealistic 11 year old I was marching around our yard in New England singing patriotic songs. It was an exciting day for a kid filled with wonder at the world. It was our country's 200th anniversary of being a nation, and I was high on it. I kept trying to get my family's attention by making comments about the momentous day, but all my attempts to rally up the relatives was falling to not only deaf ears, but to increasingly annoyed ones too. Finally, I was sent to my room for being so vociferous about democracy.
That day marked for me the first time that I became aware on a deeply personal level, that others did not feel or see the world as I did. That had been the creation of much emotional turbulence for years, and has left me with a unquenchable thirst to be touched deep down where I live. I have gone from one tepid relationship after another because of people's inability to be real with me. Of course I had attracted only those who were unable to live up to that standard.
I often joke that I must have had some remarkably sensual and sexual past lives, because this one has certainly been a drought. My inherited good looks are of little use if the internal terrain keeps dictating the external outcome. I have made immense progress over the past nine years identifying the recurring patterns and echoes of the past, but am still occassionally reminded how deeply emotional scars run.
The second event of my 11th year was far more controlling and responsible for much of the imperfect creation that had come out of me for nearly 25 years. Neither of these events should be viewed as weaknesses. I know the human desire to find a weakness in another in order to place a value on them. There is really nothing remarkable within our scripts. We have all played roles in these tragic comedies, but the scenery changes make us think there is an inherent uniqueness to the production.
These events were simply unsightly pieces of furniture, that had cluttered up my living space, which for whatever sentimental and/or fearful reasons had not been put to the curb for garbage disposal. I had let go of them a few years ago, and if someone had driven by and wanted them, then they were free to grab them up and laugh at me for my "weaknesses".
It is fascinating to me that a statement made in less than ten seconds could shape much of my adolescence and adulthood. There was no warning. The particular language was never used before in our house. Like most New England towns, things of personal nature were not discussed much in the open, so that children learned much of the nuances in life by accidental or deliberate eavesdropping. My father had been drinking all evening, as he did on Friday nights after work. He was only allowed the one night a week to let his hair down and his ghosts out.
We had been playing cards all evening, just the two of us. I actually looked forward to the nights that he drank, because it was our only quality time together. We both loved to play cards, and listen to music together. When my father was sober, he was a cold duck indeed - emotionless and uninspired. When he was drinking he was alive and demonstrative. While reaching across the table for a card, he had looked me directly in the eye, and matter-of-factly announced that if he "ever found out that I was an f***ing ****** he would cut my throat."
Time had stood still for me. I had no idea of what my external features betrayed, but every fiber of my being had been awoken in terror. I had known the word. As a boy, I had joined in and mercilessly picked on any other boy that demonstrated even the slightest of femininity. That was what was expected of pre-adolescent and adolescent boys in my hometown in the late 1970's. I was as much a [gay] hater as the next [gay] hater in line...problem was that I was also becoming aware that I was increasingly attracted to boys. My father had pinned down what I was unable to admit about myself to myself.
Of course since that day I have come into an acceptance of my sexuality, as have my parents, and much of the people in my lives. My father died knowing that I had been intimate with both women and men, and surprisingly did not cut my throat, or even seem all that interested in the revelation. I do not know what internal dialogue in my father's head had given birth to that statement that day, but the layer upon layer of masks that I have worn over the years in order to be whatever those around me expected of me, so as not to betray my sexuality to anyone, has been a monumental effort of peeling away varnishes to reveal the original patina underneath.
It is of little wonder to me that I have virtually no memories of my life prior to my 11th year. As I said, that was the alpha and omega for me. For the who that was the dream that I was having. I have little doubt that external situations will find me occasionally picking up that dream script again, but I have found it effortless to spot the signs of sleepiness in myself.
©2004 DC Vision
