Undoubtedly, you've heard some version of this old wisdom:
"It's easier to teach it the right way, the first time, then to have to help them relearn the correction after."
Me=Living Proof.
I've spent my day(yesterday, by the time I find a niche in which to type the words I've scribbled here on my traveling notepad) moving through the necessary. The planned. The coffee and breakfast and soccer and cleanup...the mothering...the partnering...the being.
And...panicking. Internally allocating brain power to find a solution while my body goes through the motions of everything else. Trying to bend time to my will...to find 'a time' in the limited time available. A time to force myself into a solitary walk through as many stores as needed, trying on as many options as needed, until I find the right attire for the imminent but not yet realized next thing. I've worked myself into a frenzy, deep inside, of spiraling shame and desperation. The failure of not already having accomplished this, somehow, overwhelming me.
A.
Failure.
To accomplish.
In anticipation.
Of the need.
In anticipation.
In advance.
In preparation.
In prevention...a preventative measure of offensive-planning as defensive-strategy.
Anticipation as prevention for further harm...
Because...
That is how childhood trauma manifests.
The abuse and neglect.
The alternating between silence and outbursts.
The completely instability...unreliable, unpredictable, unpreventable flipping of undetectable switches: hot-then cold
effusive-then blank
critical-then demanding
virtuous-then violent
The child in that environment? Tries to create stability. Tries to earn the constancy and reliability of love. To read the room. To translate all the nonverbal cues, from facial expression to footfall to the very heft of air. To anticipate...every word...every mood...every warning...every need...every noticing. Anticipate...and meet, and narrowly...deftly...expertly avoid the explosion...the punishment...the pain.
That child becomes an expert in anticipatory fulfillment.
And that child?
That child who learned it wrong the first time? Who grew up believing that life was not about the living of it, but the anticipatory prevention?
Living proof.
Grows up to endlessly repeat that learned behavior. Constantly alert. Constantly scanning. Constantly adjusting...diminishing...disappearing. Constantly tense. Constantly tired.
Hyper-vigilant...even 'at rest'.
The adult who needs waterproof notepaper in the shower because, even then, her brain is calculating all the possible needs and demands and disappointments.
The woman whose closet floor is piled high with 'go-bags' for every possibility. The one for soccer...the one for medical appointments...one for church...daily outings...weekend outings...
Each one full, in anticipation, of carefully chosen items to: answer the hypothetical needs of her family, serve as redirects, bandage wounds and fix moods....etc...
The one that moves, even now, in her own home, in a dance of anticipatory needs met. Her mind a mine-field of intense calibrations and solution-locations. Every food item and sensory tool and book and craft supply and medication and...and...and...logged in a pictorial memory storage system...acquisition of solution never out of reach.
The 'me' that never rests.
When my grandmother died...my Großmutter...my grandmother on my adopted-mother's side...
When my grandmother died, I did not attend her funeral. In fact, it wasn't until well over a decade later that I was able to sit, graveside, and say my farewell. (I have a beautiful photo of that day. Myself, and my eldest son. On the grass by the gravestone. Where I introduced him to her. And we sat, and reminisced, and I walked him through my memories, and told her all about him. We'd made a special trip, that day. We walked the sidewalk that led to the park I'd played in. We stood across from her home. We poked along the main street where I'd once traveled with her in her errands of a summer.)
At the time of her passing, I was pregnant with my eldest. Trapped in a nightmare of a marriage. Young, pregnant, and miles removed from those I'd once called family.
No one called to tell me of her passing. Rather, I learned of it in a church newsletter-an email to the full parish body of my childhood church, from the minister. I remember the shock of those words on my screen. Black on white. Pixelated sympathy for 'the family' of...
I don't remember crying. I do remember hugging my dogs. Two of them. Tristan and Stanton. One...Tristan...an old soul of a black lab who absorbed my pain. And Stanton...a puppy at heart...skittish feet prancing in discomfiture of my need.
I made the calls.
First to husband to inform and settle travel arrangements.
Then to bank to confirm 'a larger transaction'...hotel accommodation on our tiny budget.
Then...to 'them'. Intentional. To ask. To grieve. To comfort.
But instead...
In the space of half an hour, I learned that my Großmutter had passed...was criticized for 'likely' not already owning something appropriate to wear (reminder-I was well into maternity clothes at this time, carefully sourced from local thrift shops and repaired for wear...because oh, we were poor.) and in no uncertain terms told that my presence would not be welcome.
Yes.
She worked herself into a tantrum over an imagined problem of attire (which didn't exist, as I had little but black in my meager wardrobe at the time anyway) and barred me from the farewell.
I. Was. Devastated.
But I digress...
Pregnant, and grieving, and unwelcome...I added another layer to my anticipatory fulfillment.
Always. Own. The. Appropriate. Attire, regardless of need or space or budget.
Anticipate the needs and have fulfillment at the ready.
Let anticipation take up more space in the closet and the shelf and the life...than daily living does.
Which brings me to now. The now of waiting. The now of anticipation.
The now of months spent doing the work and, yes, emptying the closet and the drawers.
The now of ridding myself of things that don't fit...garments that are snug or loose...or not needed in my everyday. The now of having offloaded 'the anticipatorily acceptable wardrobe' and filled in the emptiness with things that *spark joy*.
The now.
No correspondence in this waiting. No daily briefing or update.
No 'today was a good day' or 'he didn't eat today'.
No guideline on the timeline.
A limbo of waiting.
A knowing...there will be a funeral. Perhaps more. A viewing? A memorial? A gathering elsewhere? Who knows? Not I.
But there it is.
The anticipation. The required participation in my wrongly learned pattern. The need to acquire something 'appropriate'. Something non-descript. Something to diminish my stature and skin and being into an invisible shadow along the back wall. Something no one...not even the iron lady...can find offense with. Something that serves as the ticket...that earns me my seat...that allows me to enter into grief with 'the family'.
It would have been easier, I think, to have not learned it wrong that first time. To not have had to spend my life...my whole damn life thus far...in constant preventative maintenance.
To wait for people to tell me how they are instead of scanning them for clues.
To move through my space without hyper-vigilance.
To let a breeze pass me by without analyzing its smell for potential threat.
To be able to let go and play.
To have space on my closet floor for a scatter of shoes.
To not be the living proof that proves the point.
To buy the dress if/when the call comes.