10-28-21 I may have been the mean girl
I worked so crazy hard today to get three companies filed for GST quarters, speak to a recent widow about her partners personal taxes and reconcile a few other people in between. From the office I went straight to pick up a friend and go see The Shape of a Girl. This time Jelena Jensen was the actor in the one woman show. It really was interesting seeing the same show within a week of seeing Cheyenne do it. I picked up different things this time and was left feeling similar to last time. Shattered was accurate the first time, cracked was a better descriptor this time. Both triggered me. This time my friend and I sat in the car and talked. I shared my story of being bullied, the things the show dredged up. There are lines in the show that rip the memories right out of the past… FP, writing FP on our hands to signify Flea Proof. We would regularly signify who had fleas that day and be sure everyone knew we were safe…. Talk of the boy who jumped off the Patullo Bridge which is just up river of the one I wanted to jump off when I was 16… cultivating the ‘HaHa’ rather than become even more of a target by not pretending being the butt of the jokes was fine… being one of the group of girls and then skipping a grade and floundering… being chased through the park every day to the chant of ‘Knee socks, Knee socks’ because I was only 12 and my mom wouldn’t let me wear nylons like the older girls I was in class with… having a male teacher make comments loaded with sexual innuendo… opening my clarinet case in the concert band rehearsal in spite of the fact things had gotten quieter and people were staring, only to find a bag of Gains burger… yep, dog food, HaHa. And all of this, and so much more, happened to a gifted, sensitive child who’d lost her birth mom and sister, who struggled to find her missing piece and longed just to know she was loved. I was loved, am loved, have always been loved but until I was 10, life felt pretty great and from 11 on not so much. I carry those scars, no matter how much therapy, positive self talk and work I do. The memories rise up less often but sometimes I have to check myself to see what age is responding in a situation. I acknowledge that 58 year old me sometimes gets all defensive of my teen self. I over react or don’t give two shakes at all… The beautiful thing as I sat in the car with my friend listening to the rain coming down, each of us wiping away tears, was when she said don’t worry, you’ve always got me… and I may have been a mean girl.
triumphgal 