Horizon

So here I sit. Emotions thrashed, engaged in discussions about the existence/nonexistence of infant reactions to the loss of their mothers. Why? I need to set it aside for now or risk falling down the rabbit hole of my own anger and sadness.

And yet I have spent much of my life feeling sad and silenced. Asking for help and getting little or none. Being ridiculed and abused, and even worse, being complicit in that ridicule and rejection. How awful is that? I have to return to what my therapist told me last week about my being exceptional at having compassion for others, but being bloody awful at turning that compassion inward.

Writing this blog is helpful, certainly. It feels great to stretch my brain and write for myself. Not an academic paper, not for anyone's approval. Just to write and revel in the pleasure of the words that run to my fingertips as I type. It's like swimming for me, only perhaps even better. I feel at home in the words.

I was speaking with my beloved friend Thomenon yesterday. He has been through more trauma than I can imagine in one lifetime and keeps going; he is first among my cheering section and has a bitchy wit unmatched by anyone I've ever met. He's written brilliantly and poignantly about his experiences under the Khmer Rouge here. I have been honored to be his friend and editor along the way, and to have him mother me when I go astray. He was my maid of honor at my wedding, and in true fashion, I was in my wedding gown trying to get *him* ready for the processional. I digress, but he is a worthy digression.

So yesterday he was telling me that I have a novel in me. "Why do you fight writing so much?" I don't know. Maybe I think I'm not worthy. Maybe I am still buying into the horrible things that people said to me in my youth. Probably. As my brother A, and Mark, and pretty much everyone who's heard my story of reunion (plus prologue and epilogue) has said, it's better than fiction. Certainly seamy enough. Thomenon came up with hilarious chapter titles, sent me off to do some academic reading to ground myself, and told me to have fun.

After all, I may have inherited clots and blood disorders and an insanely powerful liver able to withstand pretty much whatever I throw at it, but maybe I also inherited good writing skills. I can try.