Gia was always a quiet and withdrawn
child, it wasn’t without cause, for little Gia had many reasons for her
withdrawal and they were the things that both held her back in her youth and
made her pound feet to escape as she aged.
Gia, to this day, midway through her adulthood, still had fear in
her. It was that fear that held her now,
made her weary of getting close to others.
She had learned that those closest to her were also the same people that
inflicted pain, she mistrusted relationships and humans finding comfort more in
nature and animals for they were consistent, only allowing the seasons to
change their appearance.
Humans, Gia had learned, changed
depending on their needs, wants or desires and they changed for the worst when
their own anger and frustration caused them to inflict pain upon others. Gia knew the pain they could inflict; the
physical pain that eventually turned to a long lasting emotional pain, one Gia
could not shake and one that caused her to mistrust others. She tried to blame it on a lack of courage,
feeling like she should trust more, that it was her fault in some odd way that
she had suffered the abuse and that not everyone would be like her Uncle
Sam. Not everyone would take advantage
of a little girl like that and she should trust more. Instead, Gia trusted less and let very few
people into her world.
There was always a feeling that she
could not adapt to what others needed from her, give of herself and so she
stayed mostly to herself. Gia had
however, after a trail of disastrous relationships, found a man that got her
and understood her fears and the pain.
She was grateful to and for Brad, and she counted on him to lift her
when she fell. He stood by her day in
and day out, he understood her quietness and let her wallow in her thoughts
when she needed to and he listened when she needed to talk. He helped her to open up to cross streets
that held the unknown on the other side.
He let her know that it was not her that needed to adapt to others and
the world, but that it was those outside her world that needed to open their
eyes and see her for who she was.
Gia was starting to see things
differently through Brad’s eyes, but it was still hard for her to see everything,
let alone see it clearly. Pain, Gia
thought, was like looking in a mirror at the Circus, it distorted everything
you saw. Sometimes it seemed as if it
were clear and other times it warped her thoughts, her actions and made her
sink further from the human contacts she knew.
Gia wanted to just see things clearly, to feel things and emotions in
their natural state. She wanted the
mirror that she looked into and through to crumble in front of her, giving way
to the courage she knew was inside of her and just could not manage to
find. She leaned on Brad during these
moments and saw her strength in his reflection.
There were a lot of times of
reflection since Gia was a little girl, she remembers sitting on the swing in
the school yard near her home; her feet barely scrapping the ground beneath her
feet and barely swinging to and fro upon the swing. Mostly there was stillness, quietness to her
mood during those times and despite those adults that that were supposed to be
safe reaching out to her, Gia stayed inside of herself, deep within her own
thoughts. She didn’t understand her
pain, the why and how of it all, nor did she know that someday she would be
able to become pragmatic about it and place it, along with the blame right
where it belonged, in the heart and soul of the perpetrator. She did not know that her Uncle need not
accept the blame or responsibility for her hurt; she did not understand that
she would be able to give it directly to him, to lay it all at his feet. There was no way that in those moments Gia
could understand any of these facts, for right now her feet still dangled from
the seat of the swing that she sat upon.
Time would be what would help Gia,
time and Brad, for those two things took a while to come to her. Time gave her insight, it gave her the
ability to work past her hurt, though it would never be totally gone. Time gave her the ability to see Brad for who
he was, to learn to trust him, the ability to lean on him and to mature. Time gave their relationship the ability to
grow and mature into a positive light, one that allowed Gia to reflect in her
pain and to see her image grow. It was
the maturity, granted to her by that same time, which allowed Gia gained the age
that gave way to her pragmatic views these days. It helped her to place pieces, some larger
than others, of her pain into perspective and to let them rest; either at the
feet of those that inflicted the pain or in a dark untouched recess of her
mind.
That didn’t mean that Gia was pain
free these days, because she was still far from that, but she had found someplace
inside of herself that was filled with courage.
In that place she saw herself differently, she knew that all things were
possible in life. That place of courage
allowed her to slowly untwist the chains of pain that bound her to her past and
she did so one link at a time until she felt as though she could finally see
both ends of the chain. She no longer
felt as if she were one of the animals, abused and battered chained to a tree
without food and water. Gia now felt
that she was free to roam within nature, to walk along a path that directed her
towards the sunlight and not towards the darkness. Gia had found the beginning of her path of
her future and she knew that within her, and standing beside her, through Brad,
that she had a future and she could face her pain.
Gia’s Uncle could no longer touch
her; he could no longer hurt her and she had the strength to banish him from
her thoughts during the light of day. In
the night, when Gia was at her most vulnerable; in the darkness of her dreams
Brad would lay by her side and he would be her strength. Brad would be there, to reach out to her and
comfort her when the pain and evil would creep into her dreams, when she would
once again become that little girl. Brad
would allow her to reconcile the dreams with him, he would allow her to walk
her path, to sort it out and to do so without stumbling and he did that for her
because and through love, a steady strength and an understanding that she had
never known. Gia knew her strength came
in part from Brad and she knew that in part her strength came to her from
forgiveness. She was on her way to being
whole.
"It is through the love and care of another, their understanding and compassion that we learn to heal ourselves and gain acceptance." (me 2016)
No comments:
Post a Comment