In some sense I don’t know how I got here. I craved to see the full extent of my pain and in retrospect it’s bigger than I imagined. In any other world I should have been psychotic, I think. Maybe I’m strong, or I had good support. I was just not alone enough. In any case, I’m here now.
There has been a thread in me for as long as I can remember. Back into childhood, even. When I can find it, it tethers me to the future. Life is long. In the moments – decades – of life-ending despair, the thread. You underestimate how much things can change. Hold on. Maybe this is what other people call hope.
I like to strengthen the thread now, my present self giving gifts back into my past. I visit the place I lived when I first uncovered my memories of being abused and I imagine showing her my life now, stoking her conviction. She is at a job that’s not right and I am running a nonprofit that helps people do this healing work. She is about to get sexually assaulted again and I am dating someone who, I think, could be my husband. A fifteen minute walk away. It’s strange how drastic the change has been.
I imagine my future self doing the same, sending me a feeling of confidence, okayness, from a world I’m not yet in. I try to traverse the thread forward and I see the negative space of challenges I do not yet understand. Pregnancy; motherhood. Building a decades-long relationship. Balancing a family and a career. I know nothing of these. Maybe the worst is yet to come; maybe my world will crumble. The thread: maybe so. And then, there will be more.