Backyard Tales – Chapter 2
Processing Emotions and Doing the Work
Another late night in my sanctuary, a few hours before dawn, awaiting the rain and sitting in my swing lightly bundled up.
I was listening to music, but my thoughts overshadowed my peace. Trying hard not to beat myself up over a comment a friend made. You know, those friends who comfortably tell you to “get a real job”. That phrase already has a permanent residence in the back right corner of my mind. I have to quiet it multiple times a day even though I see, more importantly, feel, my personal growth.
I still slip and fall down the depression slide despite how hard I tried to catch myself. The slide isn’t a smooth ride.
Just like when you’re wearing shorts and the slide leads to friction and screeching start-stop motions, my ride slows down just enough for me to catch glimpses of my career choices.
Childhood Driven Career
First, a county job filled with angry customers going through some of the worst times of their lives, like Divorces and Restraining Orders.
I start using the heels of my feet to help me go faster down the slide. I didn’t want to see what was coming again. How prophetically ideal this job was for me. Doing what I was trained to do as a child. I absorbed emotions. Greeted customers with the smile they needed … The smile I needed.
Absorbing their fears, anxieties, tears, and anger as I offered them an open ear and packets of paperwork they needed to complete.
@ekelebestunnerrr We don’t deserve dogs🥺🥺 #petsoftiktok #dogsoftiktok #foryou #trending #fypシ #viral ♬ Runaway – AURORA
I caught a little momentum in the slide, taking me to the heart of my career, education. Specializing in working with kids with behavioral challenges, angry parents, and a broken system that believes in “it takes a village”, but only for the select kids they feel are worthy.
The slide shoots me out, hitting the damn ground with a thud.
Sitting with a common yet pivotal thought in my healing journey, do I shut down … or do I continue to ride out these strong emotions, again, armed with the new tools I’ve amassed?
The next choice saved me from my habitual self-deprecation. Instinctively, I opened up the gallery on my phone to several videos and photos of one of the families I work for, “babysitting” their kids. For me, it’s the perfect opportunity for developing and strengthening emotional skills, offering time, language, and self-soothing techniques for their everyday lives. And I love it.
How lucky am I to have a family that loves me and has allowed me in their home and lives, watching their kids grow.
Then, this clip is the next thing I see.
The Person I Needed as a Child
@fallinginsociety Just thinking about this made me cry #innerchild #healing #feelings #therapy ♬ original sound – Fallinginsociety
Imagine yourself visiting your younger self. Pretty much the gist of it. Those who are on a healing journey have seen this before. The difference for me this time, it specifically gave me a location. A place amidst the countless jumbled memories of my truth, Mami’s truth, and reality.
Work by Charlotte Day Wilson comes on. This song, I can’t ignore, as it literally transcends me.
*Enjoy the next part while listening to the song.
It’s Gonna Take a Bit of Work …
I’m jolted back in time. Like a human slingshot ride. First launched, then retracted through time. My time portal, white lights (think hyper speed).
I land on the driveway of my childhood home. To the right is Papi’s old truck, and to the left is Mami’s car. Always the same “reliable” brand.
As I walk up, I see little Doña playing McDonald’s in Papi’s truck bed. The drive-thru window is the hump that covers the tire. Where I have all of my McDonald’s food, paper carefully colored, cut, and stapled. A faint sound of classic rock is playing on the radio in the background.
I keep going, walking through the covered patio with the tan 2-seater swing, a workshop area, and a game of checkers set up on a little table.
Resisting the swing, I follow the pathway, yet I can’t help but walk on the bright green perfectly manicured lawn and slowly dance around the lemon tree in the middle of the yard.
Seeing the shed snuggled in the corner, stopped my impromptu dance. I recalled the smell of gas before I opened the shed doors to the lawnmower. Of course, I still opened them to take in just one more intoxicating whiff despite the cobwebs in the corners of the shed.
It’s been nice, taking in the memories of the good times … I’m stalling. I don’t want to go in the house. I’m afraid of what I’d see again, this time closer than ever.
I continue inching my way towards the house. Not before one last short detour to the side of the house where my favorite memory takes place with Mami.
Lined with gravel, I see little Doña and Mami sitting on a lawn chair cushion playing Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, gliding down the river. I love when Mami was carefree.
Up the cement stairs and placing my four right fingers under the screen door handle, thumb on the button, I open the screen door: to the right, the 70s-colored laundry appliances.
My eyes pan around the kitchen, Mami floating between the sink and stove, preparing seafood dishes and listening to “today’s hits” of the 80s.
In the middle of the kitchen, I see little Doña kneeling on uncooked white rice. She’s in trouble for something, silent and in pain. I bend down and whisper in her ear, “It’s almost over. You’re going to be okay. I love you.” and kiss her on the head.
Slowly going numb, I walk away and head towards the dining room. I stop where the linoleum meets the carpet. To the right is a short wall partition between the two rooms, with a vent cover placed ever so strategically to hide the hole where Mami kicked the wall after Papi didn’t come home after a fight one night.
I trace back through the living room where Mami is yelling at little Doña for not taking off her sweater for picture day. Mami is so angry she rips her teal button-down shirt open. Without thinking twice, little Doña runs for the front door, makes it down the concrete stairs, down the walkway, and the memory goes cloudy there.
I slowly walk over to little Doña, where she’s facing a cloudy void of memory lapse, bend down in front of her, gently take her hands in mine, look her in her eyes, and tell her, “This isn’t your fault. You’re still a little girl. It’s okay to forget sometimes. Your pictures came out beautiful. Mami will stop. You’re going to be okay”.
Back inside, I walk down the small hallway to little Doña’s bedroom. The door is open, and I see Papi’s back, an open ironing board with a hot iron on it, a belt in Papi’s hand … and little Doña’s huge colored eyes, confused and distant with dissociation. I crouch down behind Papi and put my hands on my knees and my pointer finger to my lips in a shushing motion. My heart knew that wasn’t enough. Instinctively a shadow of my spirit glides through Papi, to shelter little Doña with an embrace. Dissociating with her, into somewhere unknown, but a place that still feels safer than her own bedroom.
When I come back, I’m in the hallway looking to the left, the bathroom, a peachy room of grime and dirt in dreams even though it was always meticulously clean.
I keep walking to the last room of the house, the dedicated toy room, where the birth of playing babies and school happens. I start blacking out with rage. Do I tell her? Plant the seed in her mind now, that being the best mommy to her dolls and stuffed animals is the closest thing to being a mommy she’ll get. I should cut through the thick coarse umbilical cord of hope and dreams that carries on for years and years. Better the pain now than a life of delusional fantasies of safe relationships that will give her the family she always wanted.
No. I have to fight back against the negativity in my soul. Fight against the pain and fear already dormant in little Doña. She’s already heard enough. Maybe, just maybe, the hugs, encouragement, and support you brought to her this day will stay with her like an angel in her ear when the doubts and fear in her life take over. Maybe that will change the trajectory of her life.
Almost … Again, I flash back into the toy room and sit down crisscross applesauce next to little Doña. I start playing babies and school with her. I tell her I love her. That she’s such a great person, even when she doesn’t listen to Mami. Even when she makes mistakes. Little Doña hugs me. I hold on as long she does, and just a second longer, and whisper in her ear, “You’re such an amazing girl”.
I ask for her rainbow diary with the heart lock. She brings it to me, smiling, proud. I start writing on a purple-lined page … “Always listen to your heart. If someone does something that makes you uncomfortable, it’s okay to say no and walk away. You don’t have to sit through the pain to make the other person feel better. Say how you feel, even if the other person doesn’t like it or tries to make you doubt yourself. No matter who it is”. Out loud I tell her, “Whenever you’re sad or scared, read this page to yourself”. I read the last line to her, “You’re going to bring so much love to the world. Love yourself first”. I hand her the diary back.
As soon as it leaves my hands, with a bright flash, I’m back in my swing.
Coincidence?
Without missing a beat, What a Difference a Day Makes by Dinah Washington starts to play.
I start to notice the similarities between my childhood yard and my sanctuary.
Gravel in the back, patio with a swing … and I feel a hundred pounds lighter. Airy, happy, fulfilled, free, as I listen to Dinah sing,
“What a diff’rence a day made
24 little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Mmm, where there used to be rain
My yesterday was blue, dear
Today I’m a part of you, dear”