Archive for November, 2004

YAY!!!

I got my first grad school application in and completed.  Whew!  Can I just say…ACK!?

It’s stressful.  The next step of my life hangs in the balance of this process.

I’m as tightly wound as a yo-yo gone bad.

I hide.  I hide from everything.  I hide to avoid conflict.  I hide to avoid intense questioning.  I hide to avoid embarrassment.

I hide behind books.  I hide behind my computer.  I hide under the blankets on my bed.  I hide by living as far out of town as I can.

I tend to hide more when I’m feeling uncomfortable or put on the spot.

Recently, while on vacation, I had a situation in which someone was trying to have a serious conversation with me.  I was playing on my computer when he came over to talk to me.  Instead of putting up my laptop, I continued to play on it while he talked.  He, of course, was irritated by that because I wasn’t paying complete attention to him during this serious situation.  I wasn’t because I was hiding.  I was allowing the laptop to become a barrier between him and me because I was afraid of where the conversation would go.

My hiding is a direct by-product of fear.  I use it to avoid the fear of what a deep conversation may show me.  I used it to avoid the fear of being bruised or hurt by words or people in general.

I didn’t realize I was hiding until recently.  That situation with the laptop turned into a situation that became bigger than the actual conversation ever would have become.  When I got home and discussed the situation with a friend, I realized what I had been doing.  I started looking at my life and looking at the different ways I hide.

When I was a kid, I would hide from the angry words and yelling voices by going into my room, grabbing my current favorite book, and crawling under the blankets into bed.  I could lose myself in those words and everything else, outside of my bed, would be lost into the hazy boundaries of “the real world.”

In my early 20s, I continued this behavior.  I lived with a very abusive man and I would hide behind books.  I took a book anywhere we went.  There were times when he would grab the books out of my hands and tear them apart so I could not read them anymore (and there is nothing more sacrilege to me than to tear apart a book…that tore me apart.

Now, in my 30s, I have moved myself physically from people to hide from anger and direct probing.  I have hidden behind computers.  I have hidden in my rural retreat.  I have hidden by distancing myself from people.

I don’t want to hide anymore.  I want to loosen these binds that I’ve put on myself and start to live again.

I want to be free.

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An aside:  I’ve finally decided to get some of my photography online.  If you’re interested, you can check out my gallery at Metasequoia Designs.

There is one incident from our childhood that my brothers and I always remember.  My sister was too young but it’s become a sort of interesting aspect of our memories.

There was a point when my parents could no longer afford a home.  We either sold off or packed up all of our belongings.

My parents did own a business and in the business site, there was a large bay (to pull in cars and trucks – my parents owned an automotive glass business).  Above the office was a large space where my dad had built a loft to hold various things that weren’t used daily and he had built stairs up to the loft.

That loft became our home.

There weren’t any rooms, just a wide open space.  There wasn’t any privacy.  The business only had a toilet and sink so personal hygiene was an issue.

My mom bought a brand new aluminum garbage can.  It was the type we all used to have before sanitation departments started giving us their cans to use for garbage.

My mom would fill that garbage can with warm water and in we would plop.  One after another, we would take baths in that can.

I think back on it now and I know she was doing all she could do just to make us clean and healthy and safe…and she made it fun for us, as kids.  It was an adventure.

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A few years ago I was dating a man and he took me to his parents house in another country.  At their house, you didn’t waste water.  So, when someone took a bath, they left the water for the next person.

I think it was too reminiscent of my times in that garbage can.  I couldn’t bear to share my bath water with someone else.  It really makes my skin crawl.

I would ALWAYS be the first one in that bath.  I never washed in someone else’s water. I couldn’t do it.  I would rather go without.