I tried float therapy today.
I lay there, naked, in a pool full of epsom salt in total darkness.
A total claustrophobic nightmare for some; a deeply safe space for me.
I spent most of my childhood hiding in tiny, dark spaces.
Fighting was like listening to music in my house; there was a unique beat, rhythm, and pattern to each argument which, like any long-running musical, eventually becomes predictable. Their hard-hitting footsteps, like a pounding bass drum, boom-boom-boomed down the hallway and that was my cue to find a space to drown out all the noise.
I liked lying on backseat floor of our big, maroon van that was parked in the garage. It was like wearing ear plugs molded specifically to the shape of my ears. I’d close my eyes and dream and dream and dream…
Sometimes I was famous like Mary Kate or Ashley Olson and people would stand up and applaud me for being cute, blonde and quirky- not chubby, thick-haired, and near-sighted. I dreamt Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures would be sitting next to me stroking my hair and telling me I was the most beautiful girl in the world, or that Brett Adams in my class would finally love me for being smart and funny even though I wasn’t pretty.
Mostly, I would just scream. I knew…I knew…nobody would hear me.
These were the years my eyes went bad. Maybe God was shielding me from being able to see; so I could dream instead.
****
Today, I’m in a pool, on my back, in the dark, once again.
And I feel safe.
My mind went back to elementary school-I had not one single friend back then. I truly could not relate to the joy of other children. I used to circle the playground round and round and round until the recess bell rang, singing songs to myself repeatedly, counting my steps, one two three one two three one two three…observing my peers jump-roping, chanting, throwing basketballs into hoops, cheering, laughing, playing….
This girl named Nu called me dumb one time because she asked me a question and I wouldn’t respond (I was, what is known now in education, as a selective mute.) So I created a game where if I circled the play structure at least 30 times before the bell rang, Nu would magically fall off the monkey bars and break both of her legs.
In a strange twist of fate, I still circle the playground, round and round and round as an adult thanks to mandated-teacher-recess-duty.
But, this time, the adult Maria gets to watch her own daughter as she swings effortlessly from one monkey bar to the other. The adult Maria gets to watch her daughter make up choreographed dances with her friends, try handball for the first (and only) time, run and hide in the ‘stinky’ bathroom, play “dare or dare” (no matter how many times I’ve told her truth is also part of that game.) The adult Maria also gets to hear “MOMMY WATCH ME!” at least six times in 20 minutes.
She isn’t alone.
She never will be.
She has me.
In the dark, tiny pool I thought about how often I get to hug my baby throughout the day- when she’s upset about a friend not sharing, or excited about finishing an art project, or nervous about getting pink eye… I get the gift of lifting her up in my arms and swinging her in a circle and telling her she is my favorite person in the whole world (pink eye, or not.)
I also had another vision- the one of adult Maria running to my younger self; that little, scared, lonely girl circling the play structure…
…and lifting her up and and swinging her in a circle, round and round and round, and telling her, she is my favorite person in the whole world.
Maybe healing is just that-finally holding the child we once were and refusing to let her circle alone.
parallellines.blog 