Here is another few lines from “Sickened” by Julie Gregory.
“I lived my life in a bubble. First it was her bubble. Then it was of my own making. And now, freshly stripped of the delusion that had protectively swathed me for years, I was embryonic – too raw to interface directly with the world. People aren’t just influential to me; a thin layer of them fuses onto me like hot cling wrap. Their words become my words, their voice inflections merge seamlessly into my own, their opinions form a transparency over the faint etchings of my own developing ones.
I look back through stacks of photographs of me after the fire. In each picture, I hold the facial tics and expressions of whoever I am involved with at the time. My face adopts the characteristics of the other, their fine lines, the exact way the jaw muscles freeze or the flex within their smile. My face morphs to take on their identity.
Then I look at a baby picture of myself at six months old, lying on my belly, a natural smile lightening up my face. My own natural smile, unbroken, intact. This is the only picture I have of my own face, not someone else’s. I wonder am I destined to drag around the past like a discarded placenta? I wonder how far do I boil back in order to reclaim my self? I was how many pieces did I lose along the way? Where do I find them? Can I put them back? How many times do you glue a broken vase before you toss it?
I had been taken to the bone. My mother had fingered into me like the hollow of a melon and scooped me out. And now, years later, you could press belly to backbone.
Books are my friends, where it’s okay to be silent….
All my time is spent slipped silently between their pages, finding some truth to go with the mirrors. They are self-help gurus who parent me positively and show me how to believe in myself. They suggest underlying spiritual philosophies: That each soul chooses its parents and all its experiences in order to learn the lessons it needs to develop fully. That if the soul’s human form knew what it was supposed to learn beforehand, the ego would short-circuit the process of discovery. They tell me that, because of this double blind experiment, where you find yourself in this painful process is exactly where you need to be.
That if you lived in a dark cave you’d need time to adjust to the light when the rock was rolled away.
That Hawaii had to be a volcanic eruption of toxic goo and ash before it became so lush and beautiful.
That if you watched the clothes in a washer, it would look like they’re getting dirtier as they slosh through filthy water. But it’s only after this agitation cycle that you can pull out fresh, clean clothes.
I bolster myself with platitudes: “We are who we are not despite adversity, but because of it” and “They say the truth hurts, but the only thing truth hurts, are illusions.” I sink the studs into soft dirt, and bank my new foundation.
My books talk to me like the child I am and coax me into developing autonomously. They metaphorically hang all the colored pictures I make on the fridge when I race home with them. They never tell me: Lighten up, you think too much. If anything, they say, Hey, you, with the frontal lobe, turn off the TV, stop the noise, and consider this deeply. They never dismiss me with Get over it. Or if I turn to my father: What are you talking about? My brother: I don’t remember anything. Or my mother when I squeak out that I was too young to be taking the gun out of her mouth: “Jesus Julie, where is a mother supposed to turn to for support if not to her own daughter? You think the sun rises and sets on you, like you don’t have any problems? I can think of a hundred times you…”
I pile my books around me before I sleep and they are the psychic guardrails that keep me from falling out of bed at night.” Julie Gregory
