Here’s something to think about, I thought. For much of my life, I created many of what you might be inclined to call “castles in the air.” I’m not alone in this I’m sure. (Well, I hope I’m not.)
That tendency started early in my childhood when “anywhere but there” would have been preferable to my actual home life. It is beyond tempting to live in your head when what surrounds you is unstable and unpredictable.
I remember how savagely my mother fought me in adulthood when I tried to bring up some of the more dreadful childhood issues. She had a mantra. Several actually. “Everyone has heard about YOUR pain, Margot!” “That happens to girls all the time. That’s life.””This is what your father did to me!! She would then proceed to tell me a horrendous story (or several) about my Dad …. And most of all: “We don’t need to talk about “the bad thing.”
The bad thing would be the life-altering, wrist-slashing event Mom had when I was 11. After that, Mom ended up in a mental hospital. My sisters went who knows where. And I ended up with Dad.
It was around that time the wheels of my life pretty much flew off the bus as opposed to simply falling off. At least then, you might have had time to slow down the inevitable crash that was coming. The parents’ multiple businesses had failed. The bank was calling loans. As a result, not only was the family rent asunder, the money dried up.
The accusations flew thick and fast between my parents as to who exactly it was who was responsible for the downfall. They engaged their children as sounding boards and referees.
In early childhood from about 6 to 11 years old, we were awash in activities: piano, horse riding lessons, swimming lessons, Y membership and summer camp, and birthday parties galore. After “the bad thing,” those activities soon became distant memories and were now unattainable.
I was desperate even in early childhood for escape and order. I desperately wanted to attend the Netherwood School for Girls in Rothesay over an hour away from our home. The parents once took us on a drive to a nearby village called Codys where a seven-bedroom mini-mansion was up for sale. I would have moved in that afternoon. My heart sank as we turned around to drive back to Fredericton to head back to home, home.
The “castle in the air” never really materialized. My life has been marked by a series of moves and course-altering events. I have to come to understand that everyone’s life path might be marked by some chaos and drama. However, chaos and drama were my entire life experience.
When a counselor told me I was raised in a “void,” that both shocked and helped me tremendously. I didn’t feel safe or seen or protected or highly valued as a child. My life began to take greater shape in my head dreaming up impossible goals than into creating my actual life. When you have nothing, even anything is something, if only in your head.
Today, I have come to a fitful peace with the “void” I was raised in. I’ve been diligently seeking to replace unrealistic “castles in the air” with more tangible and grounded dreams and wishes. Looking back, my happy life experiences have now been distilled into a montage of sorts. The void was real and so were the happy memories I gathered along the way that sustained me.
I still nurture and appreciate the memory of little things that I found or devised in those troubled environments to bring me hope and joy. It kind of gives me a lift as it was a real accomplishment when I think back on it. Especially now that I can think back on all of it from a much better and happier place.
Expressive Compulsive 