Trying

 This is one of those deeper processing posts, so I don't know where it's going. Buckle up.

I saw an image, a face, in a music video that grabbed me deep.  I felt the yank of the flashback reaction.  If you have it you know.  No memory, just pure emotion I can tell is linked to something, but I don't know what.  So I pulled back to the face and paused.  I just stared at it staring at me.  What is in there?

I don't recognize the face. It's female, long-hair.  No, no inkling of knowing.  Frozen as it was, I wasn't having the reaction.  I advanced, frame by frame.  Still not so much.  But in the motion, there it was again.  It's the expression.

But have I seen it before?  Someone else?  A mirror?  I read about the phenomenon.  It took some search jockeying, but I discovered a new theory that memories can be locked to states of being so the brain has to be back in that state to access.  Not so sure about that, but it gave me a clue.

I tried searching for similar faces and that's when I found it.  Took a little more jockeying of search terms, but it's the hollow-eyed expression of recalled pain.  Not witnessing traumatizing events, not shock.  It's the look that the eyes are seeing through a haze of calcified hurt from which there was no escape, and in these moments, there is no escape from the recollection, the reliving what it did to us.

I've seen people see it in me and they react in various ways.  But I can tell you, when someone knows what they're seeing it takes only a microsecond and we're linked.

Now that I grasp it, I can recall so many times I've seen it live and known.  Seen people fear I saw it.  Seen people see it in me.  Seen us see each other.  And that's where the link happens.  Once we even dropped a conversation.  I had picked up something about someone and was doing a little fishing.  Once he hit the link, we both just stopped.  Understood, brother.  I see you.  What's for lunch?

Holiday Comfort

 It's that time of year again when Americans are force fed notions of familial warmth and delusions that all us well in a world that goes on in the same myopic self-delusions it always prefers to reality.

For one, "charity" gameshows dtill pay the celebs and make money on the ads. Does anyone honestly think the charities net the bulk of the money moving around those shows?

But my point is deeper than the obvious scams. In any year there are roughly 700,000 kids neglected and abused.  That gets worse around holidays.

It's really hard to buy into the good cheer when that means being threatened that you'd better pretend to be the family in the commercials and are wicked because you feel ill having to hug the person who made you eat your own vomit and then ignored you for the rest of the weekend.

This is my recollection.  I remember being shaken and threatened in a bsthroom if I didn't put on a smile and enjoy my mom's special day...and there was no one else sround to pretend for...it was just my oarents and brother!

So no, I don't recall all the joyous warm cocoa sing-along nostalgia.

The thing is, I really don't hate you for it.  If that's truly your feeling and you aren't faking it worse than I did, then by all means go enjoy it. Just don't force me to or lcall me the downer because I don't want to play.

In fact, I'm actually so concerned about you keeping your happy, I probably won't even mention the vomit when you talk about your favorite memories.  But I'm remembering it...over and over and over every time you bring it up from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

So yeah, what was that about spreading good will? Pardon me if it seems more like one of those celebrity gameshows than real concern. Because after 12/25, you'll continue to be the same self-centered oblivious ass you fake yourself into believing you aren't once a year.

But I don't want to leave this hopeless because I'm not the only one who has these memories.  If you're one of the 699,000 others, we have to get by, right?  I see you and our therapists tell us we can't change the culture, right?

So where do we go with it?  For me, I'm going to intentionally share that comfort. You DON'T have to do it.  You DON''T have to play.  It's ok.  You are not alone.