Distance...

I've spent hours and hours and hours trying to write about a thought I had.  It just occurred to me that I should just write about something else ... only I'm exhausted from trying to write for two days.  So, I thought I would be brief.

[It's okay to laugh at the thought of my being brief.]

A while ago, I tried writing about how I do not really have a sense of time, since I do not remember my life, just flashes here and there.  I carefully collect and, perhaps, hoard the stories of my life, but they are just that stories and not memories.  Three decades and a bit more have passed since I set out for college.  Yet, for me, were I to remember, it would be like I left yesterday.  Only, I suppose, if I could remember, then I would have a sense of time.

To be more blunt, it has been almost seven years since the last time I was raped.  That is a marvel, actually, such a long time without an assault.  Only, for me, that day is yesterday for those seven years mean just the same as if it were seven months or seven days.  In that sense, then, it might be understandable that I do have the sense that that part of my life has finally come to an end, that re-victimization—a terrible commonality for the majority of children who are abused—is no longer the hallmark of my existence.

The thought I had was this:  Perhaps one of the reasons I struggle so much with the shame of my past is that the past is not really past for me.  There is no sense of distance.  The then is now.

SIGH.


I did have one small victory today.  I was talking with my best friend whilst I walked Amos (Becky was so kind to keep me company via Sprint) and we got on the topic of the black and white photos I took.  She mentioned the contrast between the color and black and white version of the photo of the stump.  And I found words!  I mean, it seems I rarely find the right words, the words I wanted to find these days.  My response was that the black and white photo of the stump showed its character better. And then I mused:  I think I see the world in black and white.

I didn't explain.  I knew what I meant.  It is not that I see the world as black or white, that I fail to understand that we live in a world of greys, even though are world is bound by absolutes.  It is just that I think that I see the world as if flipping through a stack of black and white photographs ... that I oft see beauty and character that you wouldn't notice if all you ever saw was in color.

I am glad that I took the second photo of the stump.

I see history and age and perseverance and life and death and remembrance.

And I am glad that I took the photo of the lilies.

I know what I see.
What do you?