Boxes on Boxes
Sometimes my best is only knowing they are there.
I visit my attic every day. Many people do not care for reviewing the past, but I do it often. Some people have to.
There are mostly boxes, saturated with color. But the colors are more feelings. Sometimes I find gray cubes with no discernable entry, the reasons for my regular visits. I know I have not yet fully integrated, I am less than whole. Not complete. And often at peace with this idea, though I want to be whole. Complete.
In truth, not even the bright, happy boxes can always be trusted. They masquerade as memories, but they are sometimes unexploded ordnance, and I must tiptoe around them.
Some things of no particular order or importance that I do remember include:
The slow driving under the influence and weaving across the lines in the road at 2:00 a.m. while four little girls join hands in the back of our van to quietly ask Jesus get us home safely.
Competing and placing in statewide mathematics competitions and baking cookies at the state bake-off with the Girl Scouts.
Learning to properly handle knives as tools and throw them for close quarters defense.
Becoming the most accurate longbow shooter for my age group.
The bass drum percussion in the floor when my parents lunged at each other and I imagined I was a venomous snake, hiding under the pages of books like fallen foliage.
Being very good at taking tests, scoring a 33 on my ACT my sophomore year of high school and missing one question on my ASVAB.
Being instructed to salt beer in an ice chest, “it only takes seven minutes to reach ice-cold.”
Starting with the Varsity basketball team in my freshman year as Center and Power Forward.
Giving my valedictory address while my dad was outside for a smoke.
Singing in three- and four-part harmony with my family.
Shoveling to complete muscle failure and the quiet, sweet communion with my sow, sent to butcher without my knowledge to the slaughterhouse I worked at when I was fifteen.
My tender-hearted Paw Paw bringing Crown Royal bags full of change and picking out a single candy for each of my sisters with our surplus.
The violent and emotional reaction I did not understand when my older sister squeezed my thigh in a tickle fight.
The fear I choked on when I tried to say I was violated in ways I now know to be diabolical but did not have words for yet.
Being taught how to shake hands to make a good impression.
But the gray cubes persist, no matter how far I go back. That is to say that I do not remember a substantial portion of my life. My walk sounds like shattered glass. I allow that I have coin purses of sharp, unlovable shards. I do not know yet how to arrange them, but I know the assembly must be very beautiful. Lovable, even. I want to love and welcome them as they are; they did not break themselves.
Sometimes I feel strong, squeezing, nicotine-stained hands grazing my body. They stink. I am tall for my age and thin and am being held tightly enough it takes genuine effort to breathe. I am clenched against the rigidity of a double-knit crotch, knowing the seam is not the source. I know there is a monster in the bottom of this box, and that I compartmentalized it. Some days I do not want to breathe with effort. Some days I want to breathe only through laughter. I can tell myself good stories.
Boundaries make it difficult for me because I cannot delineate exactly where I begin and the other little girls end. They say it’s a protection mechanism of the brilliant machinery of the brain, but it is possible I might have killed each girl on purpose. So that I do not have to remember. Have to see them, feel for them. Have to protect them.
In one box, there is a trip to the circus. I was six. I ate some of my sister’s popcorn. This circus was the first time I tasted cotton candy and boiled peanuts and was awed by an elephant’s presence. I stood there for a long time to witness. I felt for her bondage. I held my abuser’s hand. And yet it is a hallucination. An entire memory compartment filled up with a better, more loveable story.
I cried for the elephant but not for the girl.
I have never been to a circus.
In another box, I am playing in an attic with a beautiful dollhouse and wake the morning after with a big headache, in panties and no nightgown, next to the same man that hurt my closest uncle. He told a close friend before his suicide that he jumped into tunnels with a K-bar and a .45 and was less afraid of failing his team, falling on barbaric booby traps, and running into the Viet Cong in total darkness, than he was of the man, his uncle, that crawled into his bed when he was so small.
I wish I had known he got hurt, too.
I was told today and got cold and sweaty and just made it to my car before I could no longer see. I thought I’d done enough work that I could let myself feel this, but then I starved the girl with silence and tightly shut eyes, away from people that love me.
Everyone always said, like most soldiers, my uncle never really returned from the war, but now I don’t know which war they were talking about.
I think I know why he volunteered for the tunnels, though.
Anyway, there are still boxes in the attic. Maybe one day I will be brave enough, strong enough, wise enough to finish unpacking. Connect all the dots. Resurrect my Lazarus. Give that little girl her rightful place. I do try, and I am moving toward her tomb. Just not today.
I love that you know not everything heals and that even some of the things in those boxes — the ones that don’t feel so good — might need to be there; and you don’t force yourself to deal.
This is power and beauty and everything I needed in this moment. I always feel a step closer to wholeness when I read your posts.
Your writing is SO good, Julia. “The bass drum percussion in the floor when my parents lunged at each other and I imagined I was a venomous snake, hiding under the pages of books like fallen foliage.” Wow.
Opening those boxes is painful, but thanks for sharing what you’re finding.