Deja Vu


The sun came down in cascading ringlets of auburn and hughes of ethereal violet to land directly on the bells of the flower. A pure white gateway to another world. One touch to this heavenly flower and you will be transported to another place, another time, possibly a different reality. I’m telling you this because it happened to me exactly like that. I reached out and touched those bells and was immediately if not forcefully taken from my present to the past. Not just the past in general, but my past. In particular to a pivital point in my history, one that surely sculpted me into the human I was to become. The extremely sharp chisel of a child’s past that shapes and molds and tears at them to make them themselves. It happened to be the first day of school.
I was not me, I was another. I had been brought back to myself at that time, yet as sure as I know myself, I knew my younger self. I knew the look on my face of fear and loathing. I didn’t feel what I felt at that time, but I certainly remembered it as if it had been branded on my brain. Well not “as if” It had been branded on my brain. I still bear the scars of those hideous bus rides.
I’m 40 years old, and only recently have I come to terms with what happened, the mental abuse I absorbed and kept like a dirty little secret. I held onto that little secret so hard it became one with me, I grew around it and engulfed it. Now it was part of me. I now have a chance to change all that, here I am back where it all began, and I could change the past, my past. I could make it all ok, I could make it different.
Oh just look at me, well look at the younger me. How frail, fragile, naive, unsuspecting. So full of fear and so full of hope. There is a brightness to my eyes I never knew existed before. Had it been extinguished before I became self aware? So beautiful, so full of life and possibilities. I’m taken aback. Was I really ever that innocent? Was I really ever that young?
I know I was, but my mind is still mine, it grew with me, so I have always known it. Ageing takes such slow paths, I only remember adult thoughts, even as a childhood memory, they are adult thoughts. As I look into this child, this self, I am experiencing a guilt an overwhelming guilt. I was a child, those bright blue eyes tell me so. No amount of adult tainted thought can wipe that away. I buckle to my knees. This is truly a revelation, an epiphany. I for so long thought it was my fault, that I did something to make myself the way I am today. I am overcome with grief. Any sane person would say “Be happy, it’s not your fault”, but its been my irrational belief for so long, that I made others act towards me the way they did. I was the freak and they did what they did because of me, they couldn’t help themselves. I am the bad one, and they are normal. These are words comforting to me in their self defeating way. They are like a warm blanket on a cold rainy day. How dare my blanket be ripped away. IT WAS MY FAULT GOD DAMN IT!
I need to settle down, I need to walk, I need to think about this. I have the power to change myself forever. To change the way I look at things, how I feel things, how people react to me. Is this something I want to do?
I have decided not to interfere. I am a good person and have learned a lot from my experiences, I don’t want to change that. I am happy with what I have become and the struggles I have gone through are a part of who I am today. If I interfere with the past, what will I become? I look at myself again and realize, I will make it through. I don’t relish the trials and tribulations this “me” will have to endure, but I know the outcome, he will be fine, I will be fine. Its good to love yourself.