Voices

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” - Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

 

Memories are funny things. A sight, a smell, even a sound can lead you down the garden path and through a door into your past. For me it was the question "What did your mother teach you?". And it didn't so much as lead me down a garden path but forcibly drag me kicking and screaming before flinging me over a cliff into a muddy pit. The list of what she failed to teach me is significant and the list of what she did teach me is divided under the headings of healthy & unhealthy with the latter having the most entries. Yet, in spite of that, I have the voice in my head that says "But she is your Mother".

 

That voice is the one that I give into every time. It's the one that makes me want to cry and then instead restrict for ever fighting against it. It's the voice that tells me that nothing I ever do will be good enough. It accuses me in every way possible and leaves no room for amends. It drives me until I am ready to drop and then berates me for selfishness.

 

And yet...

 

Every once and awhile another voice sneaks in between the accusations. It's soft and soothing. It says that everything doesn't have to be perfect. It says that it's ok to get angry and it's ok to cry. It speaks of a place where there is safety. It promises time to rest, and for a moment the voice of accusation doesn't seem so loud.