Today is my first day of trying to accommodate my writing practice.
Today is my first day of doing everything else, but.
And I say that with tongue in cheek.
I am writing this, am I not?
Breathe.
In and out.
Listen to Dee Diggs on SoundCloud.
Let the intense therapy session I just had process through my body and move off into the air.
Think about snowboarding with my boyfriend.
Spending time with the man I love.
Remembering being a small child, small in hindsight, I can feel myself as this child, and I did not think of myself as small at that time, I don’t believe I ever felt myself as small. Although I was cold, so cold, breath fogging the air, blue black of the sky changing as the sun slowly rises over the park while I wait on the corner for the bus.
How cold I was.
Horrible garbage snow boots, that in my minds eye resembled ugly tires, with weird zip up sides and gromets, dark wool inserts that did not stop the freeze from seeping into the boot.
I am sure there is a name for them, you Google for me, eh?
They were black and gross.
Sometimes I think I even wore bread bags over my socks because they were not sealed well, or had holes?
I am not sure if that is my memory or belongs to my younger sister or to another child waiting for the bus in the grey blue air of the morning heading to Lakeview Elementary School on the North East Side of Madison.
Somebody was wearing bread bag liners in their boots.
I do remember how ugly they were, my boots, my coat, did I have mittens?
You would think I did.
I wanted the warm ones with fake fur cuffs that I saw girl classmates wear with their clever strings that attached to the mittens and lead from one arm to the other inside the coat so they wouldn’t be lost.
My sister often lost her mittens and I think I would give her mine.
I think.
Memory is fuzzy.
I just really remember the cold, the feeling of ugliness, the skin on my legs bright red when I would come home after school, playing in the snow still happened, I just sucked it up and went sledding at school or clambered up and down the big piles of snow it my garbage truck boots.
I recall stumbling across an Archie comic book once and there is this “fat” girl character who was having a winter clothes fantasy.
Panel one she sees Veronica all dolled up in her cute brown boots and fluffy white scrunchy ankle socks that look like cute little 80s leg warmers, Veronica is also wearing slimming leggings and a cute midriff puffer coat in purple and pink and an adorable pair of white fluffy earmuffs.
Fat girl imagines herself svelte and laughing next to Veronica.
New panel.
(this is called an ellipses)
Veronica walks past, with cute boy hanging off her arm, and gives fat girl side eye.
Fat girl is shown with ugly boots, a huge oversized down jacket and some stupid knit hat pulled over her face. She tucks her face down and in, emphasizing a double cowl of skin and shame in her downcast eyes.
I did not identify with Veronica, let me tell you.
I felt pretty othered most of my childhood in my hand me down clothes.
I felt othered for other reasons too, but that is for another blog.
Clothes that didn’t fit or weren’t quality, cheap things that fell apart, shoes from Kmart, dollar sneakers that tried to mimic Keds, in the summer, or the aforementioned engineer boots, snow boots (remember moon boots!? I would have killed for those).
I was bullied.
I was teased.
I was shamed.
I sucked it up.
I ignored it.
I submitted.
I froze.
I checked out.
I led other rag a muffins in the Section 8 housing on many outings and forays.
I was cold but I was going to build the best snow fort.
Dig the deepest holes in the towering plowed banks of snow.
Ice skate until I couldn’t feel anything and the cold was just another part of my body.
FYI.
I am a total baby now about cold.
Anyway.
These images came up to me and brought soft, heavy tears to my face in therapy.
Ah, parts work.
Internal Family Systems, to be exact, is what I am currently working on in therapy.
Even though I am a therapist, I still have many things to work out and many parts to integrate and sometimes one of those little girls pops up unexpectedly and I am blindsided with hurt and shame.
I freeze.
I submit.
I collapse.
Sometimes a foot is stomped!
Then I breathe and listen to my therapist and sit with them, all these various young parts, and hear them out and remember, oh, do I remember, watching the bright line of red rising in the west, across the snowfield of the park, the copse of trees in the right corner of the park that I would climb adroitly in the spring and summer, cloaked with snow and the flash of the yellow school bus lights turning the corner of the Northport Drive to come and pick us up for school.
I can see the dirty snowpack on the bus wheels and the foggy windows, and the yellow and black of the bus, the lights steaming and the sound of the crunch of the tires on the snow as it pulls up to pick us up and drive out of the low-income neighborhood to the more affluent one that bordered it and see the different kids get on afterwards in their matching winter clothes.
I sat smack against a window and watched the lights of the houses go by and ignored the kids, felt my sister’s mitten hands tucked under my right leg to get heat from my thigh and tried to find the right distance from the window where my breath wouldn’t fog it up so much that I couldn’t see the world go by.
I can sit here in my cozy chair, typing these words and still feel that cold vinyl bus seat underneath my legs right now as I type.
Many decades later.
Many, many, many growth moments.
19 years of sobriety.
I am different and able and loved.
Yet, once in a while, that small child peeps up and I am swallowed alive in her fear and shame and otherness.
Today though, I will allow her in, but not be driven by her.
She was strong and capable and got me through to where I am today, but she can rest now, stay warm and cozy underneath the covers for just a little longer with her brown tabby cat curled across her hip, his white mitten paws crossed one over other, his white fur boots tucked beneath his soft body, heating me up as I curl next to my man and dream about snowboarding again.
I’m still scared.
But.
I am going to try again.
I was scared to go to the climbing gym and I love going now.
I have hopes that this will happen with snowboarding.
That I will fly down the mountain with the clean, cold air on my face, my hands in warmest mittens, my body in those snow pants I always coveted and the cutest, yes, and most insulated, I am a fashion maven, but I’m not stupid, coat ever.
I will fall.
I already know that.
But I will get up and try again.
The indomitable part of that little girl can breathe fire in my heart and cheer me on.
And the grown-up part of me will make sure she is well fed, hydrated, rested, and loved.
Love.
That is all that I can give you.
And a warm pair of mittens.
And some fucking awesome snowboarding boots.
If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right.
For me.
And on that note. I have written and thought and have prepped myself to start this writing habit once again. To lean into the words and intentions and let them, the words, flow out onto the page, like a bright jackrabbit snowboard carving down a hill.
Even if it is just the bunny hill.
Auntiebubba 