Lessons from the Darkness

Before the mirror, the myriad of life I stood and staring back at me was a person that I did not know. Somehow through all the changing places, the changing faces of my life I have lost who I am, I have lost the only thing I ever strived to keep and that is me.

Its easy to blame the mistakes of tomorrow on the failings of the past, on the failings of others, if my childhood had been filled with happiness, if those that were parents, were actually parents, would things have really turned out differently? Would I be a different person?

Through all this blackness that descends me now I am searching for the lessons that I must learn, and searching for myself. I have lost both direction and purpose, reason and rhythm an empty vessel searching for something to fill it, yet I do not know what that filling is.

Stripping back the layers, the many changing faces, I cant say that I am at all happy with my life, the way it was and still is. I am not the person I was yesterday, nor the person I will be tomorrow. I have done many things in my life much blackness follows me much damage lays in my wake. I have moved from place to place, being one thing then another, changing faces of the lost and unknown, I have been many things to many people in many places, but I have never been myself, I simply swap and change to fit the place and then skip town and move on, if there is one thing that I am good at, that is running.

As a child I learnt to run, I learnt to hide, to hide my true feelings and never show weakness, I learnt to run from the passing blow, and the words that stung more than any broken bone, or smashed up dream, these skills I learnt I used in adult life and have spent my time building islands in the sand, shape changing, never laying foundations, trading one face for another, one life for another. Is it really fair to blame this thing that I see in the mirror, on my parents on the childhood I never had? Is it fair to fill myself with bitterness and regret for all the things I wanted but could never have? Is it fair to say that who I have become is the result of a childhood that never was, a result of hours and hours of silent tears, when all I sought was love? If I am honest, the answer I am afraid is it is not.

It is a fact that I am a wild flower, I never benefited from the nurture of a garden flower, I never received the love and attention given to ones prize rose bush, I was never groomed and bread, but left out in the wilderness to find my own way, left in the darkness always on the outside looking in. So often as a child did I dream inside my mind of this perfect life where by I wrote the world, and had the perfect life. The problem was as I grew I never stopped writing that world inside my mind, so instead of finding me, I simply swapped my face for the mask of another, and shape shifted through life.

I have done many things, most of which I am at best ashamed of, though I never took from another, never sucked the life from another as often I have seen done, never drained the very core of another dry, as some in this world seem disposed to do and whom for some reason always seem to come out on top. I have hurt people, both in a physical way and emotional way, but then again I guess we all have, but I have never really been who I am.

Somewhere in the wilderness I have lost myself, in all the changing faces, in all the changing story’s of a world that I never really felt I belonged in I have completely lost my way. I used to dream about doing something positive with my life, of changing the world, of making some kind of impact, of taking away the hurt that I felt as a child from others, so far what have I done? Simply nothing but inflict in ways the very hurt that I so wished to avoid.

I have to stand back and ask myself, am I a bad person? again in honesty I can not really answer this question. I never set out to hurt, but somehow in trying to live I have caused hurt. I am an angry person, another vital skill from my childhood, I learnt to fight and as I have mentioned before, when the red blood calls, I simply slip in to a person that scares even me, but on the flip side I hold morals, for years I saw my Dad batter my Mum who in turn battered me and then for good measure the dad battered me again, I have had my head slammed through a window, to be told this was my fault and felt the sting of the belt buckle across my face, yet no matter how angry I have become, no matter how frustrated never once have I raised my hand in anger to any partner, or indeed any female for that matter. There are times when I have slammed my fist repeatably into a wall, till blood fell and bones broke, but I have always swore that I would never inflict what I saw befall my mother. I have never fought with an innocent, just for fun, just to prove that I can, I know I can and that is all that matters. So where does this leave me on my journey to find myself?

I think I have to accept there are parts of my life now that I can not change, there are elements of the past that I am down right ashamed of and these things, though they taunt me in the dead of night, I have to write off with the understanding that from those times I must learn, and I think in my own kind of way I have learnt.

I also have to accept that the childhood I wanted, I will never have and I have to accept the time for running is over, and that I must stand and look at myself and start to heal, and that I must find my way again. I must also accept that this road is not going to be the easiest to travel, but to gain any real happiness in my life, to calm the sea’s to travel it I must.

I have to let go of the past and stop holding on to the bitterness that consumes, To accept what was and move forwards. I have to drop the changing faces, lay down the mask that once I wore to protect me and then find myself, the who and what I am, the person I have never been, because I have always been to afraid to stand out in the open.

I need to peal back the layers, lose the years and breath as me, but to strip back the coats, pull back the years of protection and find what I think I already know the answer to scares the hell out of me, but in order to be to really be free, I don’t think I have much option left, more years of endless misery or a chance of being happy with me.

I think my time in this darkness draws from me lessons to be learnt and with all the pieces on the floor, I must now set about reassembling them so that when I stand before that mirror once more, instead of a strange staring back at me, for the first time in my life I see myself standing there, staring back at me.

~ by Duma Key on August 8, 2009.