I need a time machine

 I've been very much immersed in working on my memoir recently. That has  involved a lot of rereading of my old journals to pin down dates and events and just to recapture some of the things I thought, felt, fought, dreamed... I almost said "she thought..." In many ways I am very detached from that girl-almost-a-woman. Was she really me or am I really her descendant? I am not 'her' per se, at least not completely. 

I just realized today that I feel very sorry for that young woman back in 1963. I am impatient with her also but I wish I could go back and give her some advice, some encouragement and most of all, a big hug. She was so troubled and so lonely and so very needful of a friend--and of a bunch of hugs. She was in a very withdrawn and touch-me-not place right then and felt she had almost no friends. There were some pen pals and two younger girls still in high school that she did not see as often as she would have wished, but besides that, there was no one. 

Her graduation from high school the year before was almost like something she had read or an excerpt from a television program. It did not seem real or important at all. How could someone be so isolated in the middle of the 20th Century? It was not pioneer wagon train and horse and buggy days after all! Of course there was no internet or cell phones or many things we take forgranted now but there were phones, the US mail, radio and TV, trains, planes and automobiles! 

To understand you have to have some awareness of what an enmeshed family is like and that complicated by emotional incest and a pair of mentally and emotionally troubled adults that were supposed to be heading that family.  As badly as she often wanted to leave--to jump in the first pickup truck that went down the street or go hitchhike on 89A that ran by a quarer of a mile from her house, she could not. Several times she wrote in her private notes how she felt she had to stay there and try to hold things together while her parents argued, dug themselves ever deeper into a financial morass and had various physical health issues as well as their mental ones. She felt she had to be the responsible adult for them and her two younger brothers. Going outside to seek help was unthinkable. Family matters must remain inside those walls and not be shown or told to anyone! No one outside could be trusted to begin with and a cloud of shame and confusion also hung over her. Secondarily, she deeply cared for the herd of horses, mules and burros for which she was generally the primary care taker. If she was not there who would see they were fed and watered, exercised, doctored and cleaned up after, who would? They would die of neglect or run off or...

I recently read a bit about a new book that I have ordered and actually have waiting on Kindle to read. It is called Secrets At The Big House --I apologize that I negected to note the author--and apparently is a kind of memoir and attempted self-help guidebook for some of the walking wounded damaged by issues in their childhood or youth. Here is the quote that captured me while I was looking at other things on Amazon: 

"But from inside The Big House, my mother’s hysterical, histrionic fits were covered up by her parents, her brother and the loyal servants. She was a master manipulator.

We were never sure where our mother’s terrible wrath and rage came from, at least not as children. We suffered her anger in the ignorance and innocence of childhood. We suffered her lack of patience, her irritability. Her inconsistency. We swallowed her detachment, choking on her never ending criticism, her cruelty and her judgments.

How easily words poison the mind.  My mother was a master at poisoning minds.  She made sure any budding sprigs of self-esteem and pride in myself were nipped short before they even had a chance to grow.  

First, she delivered the initial blow that would open the wound, then she made sure the wound never healed by continuously pouring the stingy poison of more hurtful words on to it.

My self-image was poisoned and she suffocated my natural optimism and joy. It would take many years to undo the damage she inflicted upon my psyche."

Substitute father and he for mother and she, exchange extreme poverty for the wealth and high society and I could merge into that narrative. There were no servants and others outside the immediate family to cover anything, just me/her and the nightmare that went on far too long. In time a composite effort by some good people who somehow picked up the subtle clues and sensed thngs were wrong and did their best to alleviate it, at least for me, and a few true guardian angels helped me find freedom. It was not easy and I was troubled by guilt for a long time, but I made it. I am here today some decades later to share the story and try to give others a bit of hope, courage and daring so they too may find freedom and release. 

I want to reach out to anyone else who is one of the walking wounded. You can  escape; you can in time rebuild yourself. Dream it, dare it, and DO IT!!   Feel free to write me any time or even call. I may not answer the phone but will call back shortly if you leave a voice mail and a number. 575-404-8573 or azwriter427@yahoo.com.  I will never deny or turn my back on a kindred soul in this journey. I pray you can find peace and wholeness for yourself.