Athena-Nadine
December 28th, 2002, 03:22 AM
...again.
*...sigh...*
Another year gone. Another year full of changes, endings, and beginnings.
The last fifteen months have been harder than any I've so far lived through. I've never had to deal with so much loss, on such a grand scale, in such a short time. First, September 11th--I can't even begin to describe the horror of that day. I lost family, friends...and almost myself.
It's been so difficult for me to speak of, since it happened. Oh, there are people who saw what it did to me, who saw my spirit and body nearly broken, who stood by me and watched me slowly put myself back together. But even they, the family of my heart, don't completely know the depths to which I was wounded.
When I was a little girl, I often felt isolated from others. That feeling is something I've never quite been able to get rid of, though I know I'm not alone--not really, not anymore. My mother was too young for children when I was born. My father was an alcoholic. By the time I was six, there were four of us, with me as the oldest (now there are five--my baby brother was born less than a month before my fourteenth birthday). By that time, my mother was only twenty-two, and my father was thirty-four. My father worked full-time, and went out at night, so we barely saw him, except when he came home drunk and woke us all up with his screaming. When I was six, I saw him hit my mother for the first time.
I was always sent to the After School Center during the week, as my mother was in college then. I was an extremely shy child, and rarely played with any of the other children. Back then, I used to sit on a window sill and watch the world go by. I used to sit there, looking up at the Manhattan Skyline, dreaming of the day I could leave all the pain and go there. From my school in Brooklyn, the buildings always looked so clean, and so bright. There always seemed to be such promise in that tiny island across the river. And sitting there, sad, hurting, and lonely, those buildings became my friends. I sat at that window, day after day, and told those buildings everything. There was nothing about me they didn't know.
The Twin Towers. They were so big to a tiny, lost, six-year-old girl (they were just as big to the woman I became). They stood there, stretching to the sky. To me, they seemed to carry all my hopes and dreams up with them. They never berated me, never judged me, never taunted me. They just stood there, silent sentinals. The were the only solid, stable things in my young life. As a child, I used to imagine they watched over me, and kept me safe. When I would sit at that window, visiting them, for that little while, I was free of the pain and fear I knew all too well at home. Even as I became older, even as I began to figure out who I was, and began to love myself in spite of my upbringing, I still paid my respects to those buildings every time I looked up from wherever I was and saw them standing there, guarding the dreams of who knows how many?
When those buildings were destroyed, more than my cousin was taken down with them. More than two of my closest friends died with them. More than my body was wounded. The horror of the people I, and so many others, lost that day wounded me deeply. The pain of three months' illness, and the cracking of my ribs from coughing, still returns to haunt me occasionally when the weather is too cold and dry. Yet beyond all that, for me there was a deeper loss. When those buildings were so mercilessly torn down, the six-year-old, wide-eyed, hopeful little girl I was went with them.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City opened in 1973, the year I was born. Until September 11, 2001, they stood and watched over me my entire life. They shared every event of any consequence I ever lived through. And that day, I could do nothing but stand on the street and watch them go down, breathing in their last breath as they fell, taking my heart with them.
Some days I wish I could have had the luxury of being one of the billions who saw it happen on television, but those thoughts leave almost as soon as they come. Those buildings watched me grow. They shared my joys, my sorrows, my pain, everything. As much as I often wish I didn't have to live through their death, I am grateful that I could be with them in their last moments, as they were so often there for me.
*...sigh...*
This is one of the first times I've really said anything about any of this, and even now, almost a year and a half after the fact, I can't keep from crying to think of it. Funny that it took me months to cry the first time. Sometimes, these days, I feel like all I do is cry.
After that, this past year has been nothing but one trial after another. In January, I lost someone more dear to me than I can say, and I thought that heartbreak, so close on the heels of the previous one, would destroy me. This entire year has been a struggle financially (there's the understatement of the year), and still is. This particular trial has been even more difficult because money hadn't been a problem for me for so long. I've had to face the past hurt I caused another person I loved and try to make amends so I could move on. I've lost friends because I lashed out at them or neglected them in my pain. I wrecked my car, with no way to fix it right now because the money had to go to more important things. I lost my father to a stroke that has left him worse than dead.
I still have no idea how I've managed to retain as much of myself as I have. I still have no idea how I keep finding the strength to get up every day, to go on, to hope. I'm finding Hope to be the most difficult thing now. For the first time in my life, I'm afraid to allow myself to do so. I grew up in an abusive home, and managed to overcome that by sheer strength of will. I've been raped, beaten, and emotionally abused by others who swore they loved me, and got through that more or less intact. Until this year, Hope was never even a question. As far as emotional pain goes, I have an extremely high tolerance for it. I guess my limits were finally broken.
*...ponders...*
Even after all that, my heart tries to hope. Things aren't really all that bad. For the first time in my life, I have people who will stand by me through anything, and already have. And they continue to do so. Through all the coldness and emptiness in my heart and soul, they've been there for me, tirelessly bringing me light and warmth, no matter the cost to themselves.
So here I am at the beginning again. My car is still in the garage, my father is still in the hospital, and everything else I've lost is still gone. But I have a new job that has promise for the future. I have friends and family who love me. I have myself, and all the strength that implies. And I have...him. Maybe. More than anything else, I have Hope again.
Though I still hurt from everything that's happened, and I know I probably always will, though I still wake in the middle of the night, crying from the nightmares of falling buildings, though I'm still afraid at times that I'm going to crack under the weight of it all, I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
*...soft smile...*
I suppose it's fitting that my thirtieth birthday is next Friday, coinciding with the New Year.
*...sigh...*
Another year gone. Another year full of changes, endings, and beginnings.
The last fifteen months have been harder than any I've so far lived through. I've never had to deal with so much loss, on such a grand scale, in such a short time. First, September 11th--I can't even begin to describe the horror of that day. I lost family, friends...and almost myself.
It's been so difficult for me to speak of, since it happened. Oh, there are people who saw what it did to me, who saw my spirit and body nearly broken, who stood by me and watched me slowly put myself back together. But even they, the family of my heart, don't completely know the depths to which I was wounded.
When I was a little girl, I often felt isolated from others. That feeling is something I've never quite been able to get rid of, though I know I'm not alone--not really, not anymore. My mother was too young for children when I was born. My father was an alcoholic. By the time I was six, there were four of us, with me as the oldest (now there are five--my baby brother was born less than a month before my fourteenth birthday). By that time, my mother was only twenty-two, and my father was thirty-four. My father worked full-time, and went out at night, so we barely saw him, except when he came home drunk and woke us all up with his screaming. When I was six, I saw him hit my mother for the first time.
I was always sent to the After School Center during the week, as my mother was in college then. I was an extremely shy child, and rarely played with any of the other children. Back then, I used to sit on a window sill and watch the world go by. I used to sit there, looking up at the Manhattan Skyline, dreaming of the day I could leave all the pain and go there. From my school in Brooklyn, the buildings always looked so clean, and so bright. There always seemed to be such promise in that tiny island across the river. And sitting there, sad, hurting, and lonely, those buildings became my friends. I sat at that window, day after day, and told those buildings everything. There was nothing about me they didn't know.
The Twin Towers. They were so big to a tiny, lost, six-year-old girl (they were just as big to the woman I became). They stood there, stretching to the sky. To me, they seemed to carry all my hopes and dreams up with them. They never berated me, never judged me, never taunted me. They just stood there, silent sentinals. The were the only solid, stable things in my young life. As a child, I used to imagine they watched over me, and kept me safe. When I would sit at that window, visiting them, for that little while, I was free of the pain and fear I knew all too well at home. Even as I became older, even as I began to figure out who I was, and began to love myself in spite of my upbringing, I still paid my respects to those buildings every time I looked up from wherever I was and saw them standing there, guarding the dreams of who knows how many?
When those buildings were destroyed, more than my cousin was taken down with them. More than two of my closest friends died with them. More than my body was wounded. The horror of the people I, and so many others, lost that day wounded me deeply. The pain of three months' illness, and the cracking of my ribs from coughing, still returns to haunt me occasionally when the weather is too cold and dry. Yet beyond all that, for me there was a deeper loss. When those buildings were so mercilessly torn down, the six-year-old, wide-eyed, hopeful little girl I was went with them.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City opened in 1973, the year I was born. Until September 11, 2001, they stood and watched over me my entire life. They shared every event of any consequence I ever lived through. And that day, I could do nothing but stand on the street and watch them go down, breathing in their last breath as they fell, taking my heart with them.
Some days I wish I could have had the luxury of being one of the billions who saw it happen on television, but those thoughts leave almost as soon as they come. Those buildings watched me grow. They shared my joys, my sorrows, my pain, everything. As much as I often wish I didn't have to live through their death, I am grateful that I could be with them in their last moments, as they were so often there for me.
*...sigh...*
This is one of the first times I've really said anything about any of this, and even now, almost a year and a half after the fact, I can't keep from crying to think of it. Funny that it took me months to cry the first time. Sometimes, these days, I feel like all I do is cry.
After that, this past year has been nothing but one trial after another. In January, I lost someone more dear to me than I can say, and I thought that heartbreak, so close on the heels of the previous one, would destroy me. This entire year has been a struggle financially (there's the understatement of the year), and still is. This particular trial has been even more difficult because money hadn't been a problem for me for so long. I've had to face the past hurt I caused another person I loved and try to make amends so I could move on. I've lost friends because I lashed out at them or neglected them in my pain. I wrecked my car, with no way to fix it right now because the money had to go to more important things. I lost my father to a stroke that has left him worse than dead.
I still have no idea how I've managed to retain as much of myself as I have. I still have no idea how I keep finding the strength to get up every day, to go on, to hope. I'm finding Hope to be the most difficult thing now. For the first time in my life, I'm afraid to allow myself to do so. I grew up in an abusive home, and managed to overcome that by sheer strength of will. I've been raped, beaten, and emotionally abused by others who swore they loved me, and got through that more or less intact. Until this year, Hope was never even a question. As far as emotional pain goes, I have an extremely high tolerance for it. I guess my limits were finally broken.
*...ponders...*
Even after all that, my heart tries to hope. Things aren't really all that bad. For the first time in my life, I have people who will stand by me through anything, and already have. And they continue to do so. Through all the coldness and emptiness in my heart and soul, they've been there for me, tirelessly bringing me light and warmth, no matter the cost to themselves.
So here I am at the beginning again. My car is still in the garage, my father is still in the hospital, and everything else I've lost is still gone. But I have a new job that has promise for the future. I have friends and family who love me. I have myself, and all the strength that implies. And I have...him. Maybe. More than anything else, I have Hope again.
Though I still hurt from everything that's happened, and I know I probably always will, though I still wake in the middle of the night, crying from the nightmares of falling buildings, though I'm still afraid at times that I'm going to crack under the weight of it all, I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
*...soft smile...*
I suppose it's fitting that my thirtieth birthday is next Friday, coinciding with the New Year.