Ice Skating

In therapy, I have been talking about the pain I have been holding onto. Old pain, new pain, a jumble of pain.

I told my therapist I feel like I have trapped that pain under a sheet of ice that I am skating on, in order to just survive. Obviously, I need to survive. I am skating and holding on to the hands of my three children, and if the ice starts melting we are all so very fucked. 

That is my analogy. It feels really right. It feels right because, although I pour my heart out into this space, there are many things I still don't say about old pain and new pain, a jumble of pain.

I told my therapist this past week that there have been many moments in life when I have felt like screaming "this isn't fair!!!!" Like, throwing myself down on the ground, arms and legs flailing, tears blinding my eyes, in front of the person who was hurting me, and just screaming at them that they were not being fair to me, and why was being fair to me so fucking hard. Just why?

Part of why I never threw tantrums is because I didn't feel like they would make a difference. I would still get hurt, because the people I would throw tantrums in front of did not know how to be fair. I just would exhaust myself with the screaming, and they would keep being hurtful.

So I didn't do that. I didn't throw tantrums. They threw tantrums, and I didn't want to be like them. I held the tantrums inside and just hoped they would change without me needing to have a tantrum, and when they didn't change I just moved away from them. I took steps back. I let them hurt, and I hoped they wouldn't keep hurting, and when they kept hurting I took steps back so the pain didn't hurt me as much. 

The down on the ground tantrum, it is the water beneath the ice. It is an ocean of fuck you, that was not fair, and why the fuck did you treat me that way? Why the fuck are you treating me this way? Why the fuck did I deserve to be treated that way? Why the fuck do I deserve to be treated this way? 

It isn't fair. It isn't fair. It isn't fair. 

But it is those words I continue to skate over, holding on very tightly to my children's hands. I am hearing my kids laughter as we skate together. They only have a slight understanding of the water beneath the surface, and it is my job to make them unafraid of drowning. I subtly avoid the spots where it looks like the ice is melting, and I just keep us moving. I have to keep us moving. The ice is there to keep us moving, so my children can keep laughing.