Coping with the past

I was told something in a forum that was one of the most horrifying and cruel stories about what happened to them as a child. I was so upset. When i feel that way i write. It is very personal (for both parties) however i believe it can apply to many peoples experiences.

This is what i wrote to this person -

I am sitting here alone in this cold room, no matter how high I turn up the heater this damn room never loses its chill. My hands click away on the keyboard and I write, simply write. I write because I am compelled to. Throughout my life I have often retreated to a quiet room, to try and make sense of it all. Thoughts are swirling, concepts, theories, kind words, sad words, words of comfort, respect, admiration, God I am flooded with a million words at once and I pray I can give them all to you. Yet prayer is more than a form of expressing hope, it is also a means of collecting our thoughts and what my thoughts tell me is that nothing I write here will truly be enough. In fact I think this is more about my needs than yours. Writing is a form of release for me, a means to express my deepest feelings and to show what lies beneath. So what is that pray tell? Well I like to think that inside us all is our truest self, our oldest self, the part of us that has been around for millennia. I like to think that within there lives the collection of our experiences both good and bad, and with each experience comes a new understanding and a new insight into not only ourselves but each other. I keep thinking about that damn ladder, the one I consider I climb as life goes on, but today I have learnt something new. That ladder makes no sense because at any given time we could fall off it and have to start again, and that makes no sense to me. I already climbed it so why should I do it again? One minute I think Im nearing the top and then whammo, I realise that the end was a trick of the light and I realise ive hardly started. Life just isn’t this simple. ……….We are capable of anything given the conditions, the only thing that stops us from doing one thing and not the other is choice. God what bullshit we can come up with to explain life, what arrogance to think it can ever be understood. The only thing that is real is what I am doing right now. I can try and work out why im doing this or I can just keep doing it because it is making me feel good. My most precious and peaceful times are when I am not second-guessing myself. When I am writing, gardening, making love, watching my dogs, talking to my sister. What clarity, what peace, nothing else matters, nothing I have been through good and bad is infringing upon my time right now. Ah but shit! Now see….. I stop doing that and for a second I was left with my own thoughts…………………..that’s dangerous stuff Daniel, I don’t want to suppress my hurts, I don’t want them to be there during my moments of silence but they always manage to. I’m reminded of when I told Jenny some of my secret hurts, the ones even the silence didn’t hear. It was a series of catalysts that got me to that moment and I was able to express to her what was lying beneath. God I felt good after that. Its like a freedom, an exorcism of old ghosts haunting my body. The consequences of letting these ghosts out are not to be taken lightly, I could have gone either way at that point, LOL, now we come back to choice again! I define myself by how I limit my choices, not all options are useful ones, so therefore I limit myself to ensure my times of peace are increased. At one point in my life I allowed myself the ultimate choice, to live or not to live, I made the right choice and from then on my second option was forever removed. I live here as Daniel for as long as I can, I accept that I was not given the right to a life free of hurt and nor would I choose it. It scares me to think of the man I would have been if I didn’t have those experiences, a worse one I know that at least, a shell, a robot.

You are living a defining moment and thanks to your trust in us we have been blessed to have you share it with us. I can’t properly tell you how good that makes me feel. Thank you for introducing me to your ghosts, they have partly made you who you are now……….partly. Once they are let go (and they will go) you will be able to fill those empty spaces with whatever you choose. If I got to make the choice for you it would be for you to be so filled up with moments of love with your family and friends that your soul will be overflowing with joy. We would all give you this if we could however there really is no need -because you have the opportunity to give it to yourself if you choose it.

Its got a little warmer in here, the light has just broken through the clouds. Just outside the window a rainbow lorikeet is calling to its mates and they come flying over. Isn’t it funny how they always stick together and function better as a group, I guess they realise that they don’t have to do everything alone, that God didn’t mean for them to function that way.