Last night I dreamt of a girl, not just any girl, she was eleven and had long, black, pretty hair and an innocent pale face with a little nose and serious lips and a chin that had not seen as many meals as she needed and her mother didn’t want her anymore and her father had disappeared. And I wanted to take her in and tell her how much she is loved and worthy and good, but someone else adopted her, and I knew I’d never get to see her much, but I still told her never let anyone tell her she is less than something special and no matter who says what, she belongs in this world. And it got me thinking about something else I wrote before I went to bed, something about being The Other and how being left out to stand alone and exposed to the howling winds of winter and a planet that does not value anyone who is alone, anyone who has been abandoned, anyone less than the lucky ones with family behind them, friends, and people who understand or who has checked a box on identity, is just a Darwinian sitting duck for everyone else out there who cannot put down their weapons. And when you are The Other (nod to Simone de Beauvoir and Carlos Fuentes) you inherit the heavy things in life, like poverty and sickness and anger and hurt and things like stones that have been hurled against you that no one else could carry, should carry, and I did not want her to strap more things to her frail back and have her have to trudge everyday with that backpack full of horrible memories and the entire weight of the world. I did not want her on guard, to look and see and hear everywhere reminders of how she was left alone at such a tender age and be reminded again and again and again of abandonment and have her have to run to the nearest person for comfort even if that person was obviously no good for her. I wanted to tell her about things like red flags and how to spot a predator and how to keep safe in an unsafe world, and how some people don’t have your best interests at heart and would prefer to add to your pain because they are carrying their own illness and they have never healed or even try to heal and so they inflict their brokenness on you. And of course you want to feel bad for them because you understand what it means to hurt, and so you hurt alongside them, but the difference is, you don’t take your hurt out on others, and they will use every opportunity to do it to you. But dumping this on a mere child isn’t exactly healthy – their little minds cannot process such horrors and children have already had to endure so very very very much, and all the words in the dictionary will not help someone who has yet to form their own words and probably cannot even speak because when you are The Other no one will listen anyway and then they wonder why you set fires in the classroom and bring a knife to school and make yourself get thrown out because at least when you talk to the principal, someone is paying attention. And don’t you get it? This is how the world works, one hurt person hurting more, and they even more, and so it goes down the line until every last one of us operates in fight or flight, and I cannot tell which of those I am in right now, probably a lot of both. And I can tell you how horrible it is to have to walk outside the door and be faced with triggers everywhere, the way a color or face or sound brings you back to those dark places you’ve tried to escape for decade but can’t. And you see it’s not just me who is breaking down and feeling beyond repair. It is everything, everywhere, the infrastructure will not hold, and I feel it in my aging bones that I cannot carry my own bigger backpack so how could I possibly adopt that little girl who needs someone strong right now? And so in the dream, I give her some silly little gift, and I have to get home, so I get on an elevator, but it’s crashing down, plummeting, because someone has cut the cables, and I think this is it, this is how I will meet my end, in an elevator, alone, and I do that thing they say to do when an elevator is falling – I jump because someone told me in middle school that if you jump or at least hoist yourself up with the railings, gravity will hold you, and you can hover and it will hurt less on impact, you may even survive the fall. but this might have been a myth, and this is just a dream, and I am awakening to an understanding that I have been The Other for far too long, too long, that there are more of us in the world than anyone wants to admit because it’s a whole lot easier to turn your head on someone alone than a crowd of angry protesters who have simply have had enough. And so I tell that little girl, at least I do in my mind, please, feel free to write me anytime. I might not always be there, but I will always be thinking of you and you are never alone. You are never alone. Say it like a mantra, post it in your locker, that you are not alone, and no one should have to be. Because yes it is so unfair to put that on a child and when it comes right down to it, we all are still our own children and not one of us has entirely healed, especially when you have been The Other and you cannot forget. Copyright March 2, 2024, Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, all rights reserved
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
