It still hurts

I am grateful that the rain did not make my head explode.
I am grateful that Adam so quickly loved and reassured me when I came home, comforted me and made me feel like everything was okay.
I am grateful for the phone conversation with my mother, how it revealed things that hurt but need to be understood.
I am grateful that the disability and all its repercussions are mild enough to be highly treatable, as the real truth of what cerebral palsy can do terrifies me beyond measure.
I am grateful that I have finally let myself break through so my mother and I can talk about what could have been done, what should have been done, what might have made my life different maybe better, if we had known the truth.

I wasted my childhood, didn't I?
It can't be changed, so I move on.
Memories are so hard to drown, aren't they? We try. We always try.
I did this to myself.
I almost destroyed who I was supposed to be.
Why did I do that? How could I do that? Why did it take so long before the shell cracked?
If we all have a purpose, a destiny, what was the point of those first twenty years of my life? I should tell myself not to blame myself, shouldn't I.
My life now is what I have always wanted. I have the people I have always wanted. Things are exactly as I have dreamed.
So, I have to let go. I have to say goodbye to those years, right? What can they do for me now? I've already learned those lessons? I already know what my parents and I should have done. We thought it was too mild to really bother taking care of. We didn't pay attention. We didn't think things could veer off and turn bad. We didn't see the future because we didn't know what cerebral palsy meant for the rest of a person's life. I wasn't severe, so I didn't need all that treatment.
I needed something. We just didn't know what.
And I think I will regret that for the rest of my life.

I don't want my mother to blame herself. I don't want to hear the pain and guilt and shock and regret in her voice. I wish neither of us had to hurt because of what we didn't know.

I do blame myself for choosing that life, but I guess I had a reason, and I can't dwell on it, I can't ever think I was not a strong, amazing person despite locking myself behind steel walls for years and years.

You know what I mean.

And now she -- the self who was then -- is the one who has been repressed. It feels... like joy. This is probably what it feels like to be a butterfly.

I am strong. I am so much stronger than I ever thought possible. From now on, I always will be.

I have to remember that the past can't be changed. I have to keep going. I have a new life, and I have to live it. Things can get better, because now I know.

That makes it hurt less.

No. That makes it not hurt at all, really. Because what I feel inside is nothing but pure love. For myself. Oh, gods, for myself. She is the past. She is my memory. I thank her for that, the Joanna of the past, thank her and curse her. I still love her. But I no longer bind myself to her.

This time, I will fly without a broken wing...

( Just so much that time cannot erase )

It still hurts

I am grateful that the rain did not make my head explode.
I am grateful that Adam so quickly loved and reassured me when I came home, comforted me and made me feel like everything was okay.
I am grateful for the phone conversation with my mother, how it revealed things that hurt but need to be understood.
I am grateful that the disability and all its repercussions are mild enough to be highly treatable, as the real truth of what cerebral palsy can do terrifies me beyond measure.
I am grateful that I have finally let myself break through so my mother and I can talk about what could have been done, what should have been done, what might have made my life different maybe better, if we had known the truth.

I wasted my childhood, didn't I?
It can't be changed, so I move on.
Memories are so hard to drown, aren't they? We try. We always try.
I did this to myself.
I almost destroyed who I was supposed to be.
Why did I do that? How could I do that? Why did it take so long before the shell cracked?
If we all have a purpose, a destiny, what was the point of those first twenty years of my life? I should tell myself not to blame myself, shouldn't I.
My life now is what I have always wanted. I have the people I have always wanted. Things are exactly as I have dreamed.
So, I have to let go. I have to say goodbye to those years, right? What can they do for me now? I've already learned those lessons? I already know what my parents and I should have done. We thought it was too mild to really bother taking care of. We didn't pay attention. We didn't think things could veer off and turn bad. We didn't see the future because we didn't know what cerebral palsy meant for the rest of a person's life. I wasn't severe, so I didn't need all that treatment.
I needed something. We just didn't know what.
And I think I will regret that for the rest of my life.

I don't want my mother to blame herself. I don't want to hear the pain and guilt and shock and regret in her voice. I wish neither of us had to hurt because of what we didn't know.

I do blame myself for choosing that life, but I guess I had a reason, and I can't dwell on it, I can't ever think I was not a strong, amazing person despite locking myself behind steel walls for years and years.

You know what I mean.

And now she -- the self who was then -- is the one who has been repressed. It feels... like joy. This is probably what it feels like to be a butterfly.

I am strong. I am so much stronger than I ever thought possible. From now on, I always will be.

I have to remember that the past can't be changed. I have to keep going. I have a new life, and I have to live it. Things can get better, because now I know.

That makes it hurt less.

No. That makes it not hurt at all, really. Because what I feel inside is nothing but pure love. For myself. Oh, gods, for myself. She is the past. She is my memory. I thank her for that, the Joanna of the past, thank her and curse her. I still love her. But I no longer bind myself to her.

This time, I will fly without a broken wing...

( Just so much that time cannot erase )

Caitlin R. Kiernan

One of my top favorite authors of all time. Gothic horror and dark fantasy. Contemporary and good friend of cult favorite Poppy Z Brite. She's worked with Neil Gaiman several times in most of his gorgeous anthologies.
I went on Amazon.com and bought yet another copy of the phenomenal heartbreaking debut novel Silk, its new sequel A Murder Of Angels which I am dying to read, and her never-before published first-written novel Five Of Cups. I already have Threshold and its sequel Low Red Moon.
All her stories have this stunning punch. She is poison nectar poetry, satin velvet lyrics under starlight.
Silk still makes me cry. I cannot wait to read its long-awaited sequel.

I can only hope to write the way she does. I try to. She's my inspiration -- her stories and Anne Bishop's "The Black Jewels" books. Gods, I love Anne Bishop. Makes me shiver and float and fall in love over and over and over.

Caitlin R. Kiernan

One of my top favorite authors of all time. Gothic horror and dark fantasy. Contemporary and good friend of cult favorite Poppy Z Brite. She's worked with Neil Gaiman several times in most of his gorgeous anthologies.
I went on Amazon.com and bought yet another copy of the phenomenal heartbreaking debut novel Silk, its new sequel A Murder Of Angels which I am dying to read, and her never-before published first-written novel Five Of Cups. I already have Threshold and its sequel Low Red Moon.
All her stories have this stunning punch. She is poison nectar poetry, satin velvet lyrics under starlight.
Silk still makes me cry. I cannot wait to read its long-awaited sequel.

I can only hope to write the way she does. I try to. She's my inspiration -- her stories and Anne Bishop's "The Black Jewels" books. Gods, I love Anne Bishop. Makes me shiver and float and fall in love over and over and over.