10:50 p.m. - 02/02/03
[[(come home come home come home comehome comehome:comehome]))
to be honest, I'm not here right now. half of me is wandering through sixth grade, and the part that isn't keeps me moving through the motions, but still has one eye checking inward, trying to gather enough information to know what can be done. it's funny because I never thought of sixth grade as much of a turning point year for me- other than that it was the year I started feeling terribly bored in school and not wanting to be there so much. it's odd because I'm terribly bored in school right now also and irritated at the mindless work that keeps me from thinking about more important things. (irritated, sometimes grateful.) it's the second night of "I need to write and I'm not sure I want to journal." I don't really know what there is to say right now.
I feel raw inside. that's the word I used just now in an e-mail, and that's the word that seems right. sore cuts inside me begging bandages. I feel intensely a need for love and a need to be alone. I want to go deeply inside myself and I want to run in the opposite direction (shut-down, numbness.) I need to know it's different this time. walking through what happened does not mean setting up a house there. it means taking the hands of my friends, and the hands of the doctor, and going inside something that's more important than I could let it be back then. listen, sweetheart. I'm going to let you talk to me. I'm going to let you tell me what went on, what you couldn't tell anyone, what you didn't know how to handle, how to face. I'm going to listen to you without judgment, without a single hateful word. and if I stumble in that, I'll set it up again. you don't need to worry. you don't need to feel alone. there is so much love in our life now, and I will make sure that you feel it, too. I will make sure that you find the same healing I have found because of your bravery in the face of all that pain.
I'm not afraid of your demons, but I don't doubt how big they are. I'm not afraid of them because I know there's nothing more important to me right now than being able to run inside myself and find you, pick you up and hold you close. Guess what, sweetie? It's me. It's me you wrote into your novels, searched down in your schools, called out through your therapy. It's me that you prayed would come to save you, that you transferred into television characters, that you begged your best guardians to be. It's me who will lie with you all night, will adopt you, take you home, will let you be safe-and-nothing-else forever. It's me who you can wake up anytime, who will sit with you through hard meals and hard nights, who understands it all and won't let it overtake. It's me who knows the darkness is worth fearing and runs into it anyway, aware. Prepared to conquer any poison as it comes.
I believe in you. I believe in us, this time. It isn't what it used to be. I know that you've stayed locked inside that world, inside the judgment you received from everyone including me, and the truth is darling, you didn't deserve it. You will never in this life do anything that warrants what you have already withstood. I'm so grateful to you. I know that I don't always express it the way that I need to; I know that it seems I hate you when I dismantle everything you did to stay alive, but I'm so grateful that you did. I know how impossible it was, my dear, my sweet...my God, I know. I know how incredibly painful it seemed, how isolated you were, how no one taught you to speak up, and you didn't know how to fight alone. I know that you made your own ways. You created them. Out of nothing, out of paper, and pen, and out of yourself. You took your life and fashioned from it generals and allies, government and human services. You made a village inside yourself, a region. You sewed something that could protect you, and I know that the seams look clumsy to my eyes now, and at times you feel judged, but baby, it's not you I'm fighting against. It's not; it's really, really not. It's the pain that nearly killed you. You were ten, honey. Twelve, nine, seven, thirteen, six. You never deserved this. You never did anything that wasn't purely innocent and purely meant to help you on your way. Don't ever think I've given up on you or quit loving you. I know you did your best. I know your the reason I'm here. I owe you everything. Not depression, not the ed, not si, not anxiety, not phobias, not codependency- that's all shit. It's you. It's your courage, your creativity, your genuine *force* that gave me the chance to live, and God, I can't thank you enough for that. I can't thank you enough for the fact that I wake up everyday, that I have these friends I never thought I would. I can't thank you enough for Rogers and for strength, and hon- for life. I'm alive because of you. Because you didn't give up, because you fought, because you let them in to fix it when you knew you couldn't fight it anymore. Oh, God, I love you. And you've more then earned your keep for always. You don't have to go away. You don't have to stay silent. You don't have to hide your pain or your pride or your brilliance ever again. Just play. Just run out into that yard and play. I will watch over what the grownups must. And I will hold you and make sure you have a home. I will do what must be done so that you always have love, from me, and from others. Your silliness, your precocity, your conscience, your creativity, your love for all around you will be taken in. I'll let them see it, sweetie; and they'll love. They'll love you. They'll love you like I do now.
I'm sorry it's so late. I'm sorry it's taken us this long. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through with no one, with not even yourself- your own strength- on a level that you could access it. I'm so sorry that you had to resort to those means, not because of the pain I feel in dismantling them but because you didn't deserve it. You didn't deserve it, and no matter what, you never will. You're my child. You're my essence. You're my good, my pure good, my teacher, my origin, my home. And I will give you all the good I find, equally. You'll never have to fight alone again. I won't give up, and I won't hoarde my health from you. I love you too much now.
I forgive you. Baby, honey, love- you're fine. You're beautiful. I love you; I forgive you. It's all good. We're good. I will hold close to this and I will keep forgiving it until it's natural. Someday I'll forgive myself for not knowing better until now. I want to forgive myself, too. I want this all to just be about doing the best we can now the way we've done our best until now- instead of how we did what with what when. I don't want that to matter anymore. What people tell us, what people think of us, what we have done and no longer want to do- these things do not define. What defines us is essential, is without flaws, is magically human and alive. And I want you to know yourlself the way I know you. I want to know myself the way I know you. I want to believe in every part of me and stay safe in that.
I want to go to the home inside me and stay there, always, with myself.
chord
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