Little Girls Bounce

The words of the title come from a chapter of the book I am writing. It has several little girls as characters on the pages. One thing that is true in this book is that little girls are resilient. 

Like a rubber ball, a girl can land in the mud with a splat. Either can be lost in the back corner of a closet or under the bed. All manner of bad things can happen to a ball or a little girl. The resilience doesn't take away the danger of it or the chance that something or someone can do mischief to the very essence of the ball or girl.

You might think that a rubber ball, because it is so spongy and resilient can't be hurt. It can. Little bounces on the concrete don't show too much. But over time, the red surface can start to show a little wear. Sun beats down on the ball left out too long in the weather. Oxidation breaks the chemical bonds. Over time, a shiny rubber ball shows the insults on its now-pitted surface. 

Girls show insults and neglect too. Quiet -- frighteningly, unnaturally quiet, or loud -- rebelliously, outrageously loud. Cuts. Bruises. Scars. Scarification toughens the skin and the heart. You can see it, if you look, the damage.

But if someone will pick up either, girl or ball, and try to engage their natural inclinations, their creator-given essence, the someone will find that either, ball or girl, will bounce. Things have changed in the chemical bonds and the soul of the girl, for sure. Never will either be the same as before the insults and damage. But bounce we do. And I am living proof.

My childhood and early adult years were damaging. For a long time, it looked as though I would never overcome the pain I felt or be what I was intended to be. I had to start to believe that I could overcome the damage of child sex abuse, a violent alcoholic father, and the rape I endured just as I was becoming a woman on my own. I had to see that I am valuable and worthy, no matter what scars I carry. It took my child's future looming before me to see that I had to parent myself as I was parenting her. I had to ask for help and take it. I had to work on the things I wanted to change. It was and still is hard work.

Now, I try to point out the truths I have learned to those who still hurt and haven't healed. I will tell you how it was with me. I will hear what you want to say. I will wish and pray for you to bounce back. You can.

Little girls bounce, and, I don't forget, little boys too.

Writing Through the Pain: one way to cope when your president triggers you

To start this post, I opened up Word and chose a blank sheet of virtual paper. Anything can happen on this page. Hold that thought.

I am reopening this blog, Prodigal Aspersions. Here, I wrote my way through several years of therapy when I didn’t have enough close friends to talk to. I talked to myself. Not surprising. I was always a loner as a kid – up a tree, in my grandparents’ attic, out in the fields, in the empty weekday church building. There weren’t any kids of my age in Keeling, Tennessee, just older or younger. But truth be told, I didn’t want any kids brought in. I never knew what to do with them and by the time I learned, I had come to enjoy my solitude.

I didn’t always enjoy my childhood. It was populated by some really good people – Bobby Coulston, Mr. Mac, my own granddaddy highlight the list. However, there were people who made my life one long dark night with new shadows and strange, ominous sounds, the kind of night where you hold your breath and stare at the shadow, willing it to be a newly broken branch or some clothes left on the line outside. Like when you see and hear frightening things in the night, I tried to make sense of my experiences. But there’s not a whole lot of insight available to a child of a violent alcoholic and who has an uncle who constantly tries to sexually assault her. Add the Asperger’s syndrome, shake, stir, and pour up a cup of dread.

I grew up. I got that therapy and still do. I talked and read. I came to understand that the chaos and terror around me had nothing to do with what and who I am. I was a little kid who should have been enjoyed and nurtured. It was not my fault. There were people, lots of people, who agreed with me.

I wrote things along the way – as therapy, in addition to therapy, for my own sense of worth and expression. I put them here and over in my other blog Dead Daddy. (Link at right.)

People found me. Looking for kinship, help, answers, they stumbled onto me. Not a whole lot of people, just the ones who needed what I had discovered, what I could say out loud.

I went back to college and to grad school and started writing academic papers, then my own work, and some side hustle gigs. I didn’t add much here.

I think I need to again. For those who are so tired of being triggered and poked and stabbed by sexual carelessness. For those who never said a word and now might want to figure out how. Because I need to do something positive for my own sake and work through returning demons that I thought were driven from the space outside the window of my soul’s night.

I am going to write here and at Dead Daddy. I know that writing can make it better and reading can too. I am going to do what I can to make it better. Anything can happen here. We are not clean, blank pages on a screen. Admittedly, we are people who have been through some hard times. If we were paper we would look rumpled, wrinked, maybe even crumpled up. But we are not paper. We are people. Our scars are our battle markings. The dented places in our skins are proof that we escaped from what held us. We can keep looking to make sense of the shadows of our nights. And we can write and talk about it. Or just read for now.

On this page, I can tell you how I became a battle-tested warrior. I can howl and I can laugh. Just wait. Hold on.

I will write. I will be here. It is what I can do today.

Cyn

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