A recent conversation on writing with emotion has gotten me finding clouded spaces in my head. There are parts of my brain that remain behind locked doors, both out of choice and out of subconscious survival mechanisms. However, I am in a good and safe space these days that perhaps I can at least take a peek through the keyholes of some of these doors to let in some light.
I see auras. They aren’t colorful auras of the rainbow that some say they can see, but rather variations of light and dark. I base my decisions on whether or not to like someone or to allow myself to be in a space depending on the shades I see. When this started to happen I cannot say, but I imagine that I have had this way of viewing the world from birth. It has only been in recent years that I have come to acknowledge it as a flashlight that can guide me in what often feels like the dark.
My first memory of a shadow and darkness was while in my first family upon being adopted in the States. Words came out of my mouth, but the faceless shadow overhead neither understood nor reacted with lightness. This left my psyche confused and forever marked with a fear of being unheard and misunderstood. My world was mostly dark during the two or three years that I was in this family. Some flashes of light pass through my mind when I recall my first snow day.
The world was white outside. My older brothers and I went out into the snow to play. I giggled freely with joy and unadulterated mischievousness that comes from snowball fights and building snowmen. The sweet taste of warm apple cider still lingers on my lips as I warmed from the cold outside, letting the crisp freedom of the day fill my heart with a rare and fleeting moment of lightness.
That flash of memory would be the last light I would see for many years. It was also the day that I was taken away from this family in which I was just beginning to find my place. Grey confusion filled me, and still does even now, in trying to piece together the puzzle of why I was removed and the irony of it being one of the best days I had had up to that point.
Dark shades of grey remain as a fog of mystery over the next six months following that blissful snow day when I was supposedly under a protective umbrella of bright light. It wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I discovered the mechanisms of singing, swinging my legs in joy, and laughing out loud – the humorous side of me – had been nourished for a sweet six months, but my mind had hidden it away under an opaque grey cover.
It’s as if my heart and mind conspired together to wrap up all the love and joy that I must have had knowing that it would be the only thing to keep me alive in the years to come. So, I buried the art of laughter and humor deep inside until I no longer recognized it as a positive part of the world. Instead, I see it as a way to tell the truth in a mean way. Perhaps, though, I am still wanting to protect the light that lies beneath.
During the extremely dark years from ages 5 to 8, I never saw more than fleeting spots of light much like driving on a rarely traversed road at night. My many stories of physical abuse, psychological warfare, religious brainwashing, and confusion of sexual touches as expressions of love were all surrounded in darkness and lies. There is no humor to be found. Instead, I determined that life was only worth living if I was honest with myself and to others. Honesty provided me with a semblance of light like a fluorescent bulb in a dimly lit room.
It was his honesty that showed me how to let in the light when my father told me directly the most ironic statement, “You won’t last long in this family if you can’t learn to take a joke.” At eight-years-old, I cried deeply at this. There was so much in that one sentence that neither he nor I could have known its significance at the time. Would I last very long in my third adoptive family? His directness gave me freedom to be, to see, to feel honesty at last from those on whom I depended. More importantly, laughter and joy was required by the taking and telling of jokes.
Well, I did last with them and I will forever refer to my family, and my father especially, as my guardian angels of light. Aside from my husband, these are the only people with whom both honesty and humor are no longer shady auras of the dark, but are rather an immense ball of bright radiance.
So, although I still lack appreciation for the humorous aspects of life preferring directness that is found in being honest, I realize that if I allow myself to dive deeper within, my underlying emotions are actually rife with humor, which provides me with the strength to reflect on my early years with more smiles than tears.
