“One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What is the something that binds a family together, what binds sisters to sisters, and brothers to brothers, and sisters to brothers and brothers to sisters?
What ingredient is needed to weld a family together?
Something held us together and something tore us apart, and I want to know what that something is and who was responsible for stealing the something.
We can all get together and be a family lined up as I see it, or as others see it, a united family.
If I were to join the lineup today, I would just be lining up I would not be reunited.
The ‘something’ is missing for me now.
Did I give it away or was it taken from me, or was it even there in the first place, perhaps it was just a total illusion all along.
Maybe all we ever were was a family line up.
A line up of abused kids.
We were bound by abuse.
When I stopped standing there in the abuse, when I left and walked away, I broke the bond that held me in place, I left the abuse, I walked out of the lineup.
I was bound there by abuse, by a shared secret, my insides matched their insides, and we were united.
United in a lineup of abuse.
I want to lineup again, but not in abuse.
I want to line up in a real family.
And that is the legacy I am trying to build for my children, so that they have a family that is united together without abuse.
