The story is probably best told from my mom. She says I was in elementary school and we lived in a house at the top of a hill. Normally, she would stand in the kitchen and look out the porch to see us girls walking home with our friends. Thinking on that now it was just her way of watching out for us. A typical day would find my sisters and me surrounded by a group of friends. The laughing, teasing, talking, yelling, running, chasing just comes with the territory of being a kid. It’s actually a day that I forget until she reminds me by telling the story again.
If I think back hard enough to the things that shape me I can, like anyone, pinpoint where things really hit me hard enough to make an impression. Except that day when my mom watched me walk home in a crowd of people doing that thing that I do which is laugh (loudly) and aim for the target of being the center of attention. Somehow that trait seems to go well with the oversharing I lean towards. The oversharing that I’m trying hard to stop doing as I know not everyone who reads this tiny little piece of the blogosphere is doing so with any kind of good intention. It’s why I’m now password-protecting some posts.
But that’s a story for another time.
Trying to see it from my mom’s point of view I can imagine she was probably getting food ready for dinner and maybe spending some time reading during the day. As a kid I had no idea what my mother would be doing during the day so this is all imagined on my part. She watched me from the sliding glass door on the kitchen porch and followed my bubbly buoyancy all the way up the hill and then finally turned to see me at the door. While I imagined what she did all sorts of fun things during the day while we were away at school it’s only fair to say that she also imagined what we did at school while we were away from her.
Most of my elementary years were spent at Catholic school with nuns who had me convinced that the Lord could see and hear me at every moment. Once, my friend Henrietta, said the word “damn” when we were at recess and I stepped back from her should the Lord decide to strike her down right then and there. I was afraid of using any bad words.
That right there explains why I like using them so much now.
By the time we moved out to the suburbs from living in Chicago I had tried out a few bad words myself and was pleasantly surprised at both the reaction it got from other kids as well as still being able to breathe in and out because surely the Lord had been too busy with car thieves or kitten stranglers to worry about me doing a little cussing. On that day while I was out at recess I tried out the F word to disastrous results: a teacher overheard me.
The teacher wrote me up and it is a fact that anytime you hear about a teacher writing someone up it was never a good thing. She gave me a pink slip and I took the carbon copy home and was instructed to give it to my parents, have it signed, and return it back to school the next day where I was certain there would be flogging or some such public humiliation.
As soon as I walked in the front door of our house I burst into tears and sobbed so hard I did that choking/breathing in thing where I sucked in my breath and wasn’t able to talk. My mom never tells me where the story goes from there but she only tells it to explain something about me to myself that apparently still needs explaining after all this time: when something goes wrong and there is pain and hurt and shame I will put on a show. There will be smiles and laughter and all manner of covering it up so that no one ever has to know what is really going on.
I’m really going to have to stop doing that.
Catholic school, those were the days! i am saving for my two daughter’s therapy which will be extensive since i am the mom. The thing is, at least you know this about yourself, versus not knowing and having a heart attack from holding it in. Therapy hurts but helps too but i am the same way after therapy, lol. love the blog, just had to comment rather than the usual lurk.
I’m sorry to hear this space has become not completely safe for you. I’m hoping those with ill intentions don’t cause you to lock things down completely; or worse, disappear. And my therapist is sending me letters that I don’t respond to. At least one of us doing work.
I’m having a Pollyanna moment here–I can’t imagine anyone coming to your blog without good intentions. I think it’s your oversharing that touches me so much. Maybe I’m just afraid to be open like that, but I think you are very brave.
Do what you need to do to protect yourself, but know that part of what I think is so great about your blog in particular is that your readers/commenters are so supportive of you–when you’ve been depleted by something, I see the commenters trying to replenish your spirit. Of course, all of this love just moves me to tears…but we knew that already.
I am a therapist who attends therapy REGULARLY and I thank God for people like me! If it didn’t, I’d be an even bigger drama queen/sometimes-help-resistant-heifer than I am at times! I’ve found that I’m not the one who’s troubled, but other people keep troubling me!!! If they’d only leave me the hell alone….
“…when something goes wrong and there is pain and hurt and shame I will put on a show. There will be smiles and laughter and all manner of covering it up so that no one ever has to know what is really going on.” I thought everybody did that… Isn’t that why therapy was created?
I hope you find the space to be authentic without fear. Fuck ‘em.
I hear you- But it’s so hard NOT to do that. Some days I think when things suck that it is the only way I’m going to make through the day. When you figure out how not to do that please enlighten us!
I hear you. Oh I hear you. I have an appt on Feb 10 to start therapy. I’m actually looking forward to it.
I think I’d like to “put on a show” rather than climb into myself and have occasional outbursts -read LOSE MY SHIT- at everyone around me.
When you start protecting posts, please add me to the list.
Oh.My.Shit.
Sister Mary Frozen Holy Water and the good ol’ Catholic church are the reason I like to swear so much as well. Well, that and the fact that it’s just fuckin’ funny sometimes=)
Do you think you can genetically inherit the trait “Potty mouth?”
I think I may have.
My son is in Catholic school and they could use some SERIOUS therapy already. The whole school. Teachers and kids.
In my family,showing an emotion that was less than happy was frowned upon. As a matter of fact, I remember getting yelled at for crying. I’ve know nothing else than putting on a happy face even when I am coming undone inside. My mother died when I was young; I remember smiling at her funeral. I was not allowed to cry in front of my father. People think I’m “so strong”. It’s a facade; I can’t bring myself to show anyone an emotion. Your post just jarred that from me.
Kelly, I learned a long time ago, the ones who laugh the loudest also cry the hardest deep inside. I understand because I am one of them. Laughter is our secret language and the eyes are the windows to the soul.
You always amaze me with your writing skills and your insight…
Hi Kelly! Your ability to be real touches me every time. As a kid my emotions got “squashed” and my “potty mouth” tendencies were frowned upon. As an adult, I’m so much more free, and it feels liberating! Keep working! I’m loving the unstifled you! I hope you won’t go “underground” but if you do, please add me to the list of people you let in.