Yesterday I decided to return to my childhood home, the one I shared with my Grandparents.
It was a strange experience. Their house had been renovated and looked nothing like it did 30 years ago. The street was also changed, cars parked everywhere, houses painted and renovated, gardens different.
Some things however were constant... The dread, the fear. The house of the ice-cream seller hardly changed at all. The playground didn't look as if it had been updated in decades. I drove down the lane to where the ice-cream man had used to have storage units, to where I had been buried alive some 38 years ago. It looked the sme, just much more dilapidated.
New memories surfaced, a new name to add to the list of the abusers.
I didn't spend much time on that street. Scared still...
I drove through the village. Changed with time. Shops and Inns boarded up. It used to be a busy, bustling place. It looked more like a ghost town. I had many ghosts there. It used to be my playground.
I went to the graveyard where the grandparents and my mother are buried. I left flowers on her grave. I sat and talked to her awhile. I cried.
I drove to the nearest town, the one the grandfather used to work in. I went to the shop in where he used to work. Closed. New owners, a new name, but the same old memories. I endured horrors in the back workshop of that shop. I drove away.
I took some photographs, I don't know yet if I will keep them.
I had to go back, but I didn't know this until I was almst there. I had to face the demons.
It has had an adverse affect. I feel morbid. I feel afraid, yet somehow I also feel cleansed.
I haven't been there for a few years. I have recalled much since i was there last. I don't really want to go there again,
I need some time to absorb what I experienced. The new memories have upset me, adding an eighth name to the list of those that used me for their perverted lust.
I'll get through this. I am not that skinny little boy anymore. I am strong. I will grow, I will flourish.
Driving home many songs played through my head. The journey back was almost beautiful. I passed hedgerows aglow with snowdrops, interrupted occasionally by dazzling yellow daffodils. Catkins danced in the late afternoon breeze and red kites flew in the sky.
I experienced beauty, tinged with a sadness for the boy I once was. The man I should have been.
The man I will become.
Puff The Magic Dragon
The Ugly Bug Ball
Two Little Boys
This Used To Be My Playground
Going back to the place where abuse happened is always hard. I have only been back to the town where I was abused only a few times, but every time there are new memories. Things change but the memories never do. Always the same ghosts, always the same demons and always the memories. You are brave for facing your past the way you are. It is by no means an easy journey but as I learned the hard way, it is a necessary one. It's amazing what is learned and revealed about the self by re-visiting the things we don't always want to re-visit. **hugs**
ReplyDeleteYou will also find writing has the same effect. When I was writing poetry about my abuse, I found the more I wrote, the more that came flooding back, and the more that came flooding back, the darker my life became, and the darker it became, the more I wrote until...one day, there was nothing left to write. Occasionally something comes back that I write about. It still slips into my fantasy novels. But as for my poetry? Totally changed. It's the weirdest thing.
All the best. Much love and light, my new friend.
Facing the bad things that have happened is the only way to bury them. I think you are very brave to go there.
ReplyDelete*hugs*
Thank you Lavinia and CherryPie for your comforting and ind comments. I hope to go back again soon and lay more memories to rest.
ReplyDeleteThis is most moving and as usual you write with great skill. Your style is easy to read and gripping indeed! You have a great talent and what you are doing will be very sincere and also very important both for other survivors and also for the understanding of those who have not experienced childhood trauma/abuse. Blessings and best wishes John
ReplyDelete