Lessons

The concrete beneath my feet turns dark as the pee I can no longer hold pools under me and drips down the step, but I will not move. At seven years old, it's been a long time since I peed myself and I am ashamed, but that is a small issue.

The bigger issue is my terror. I was told to wait on the steps for my father to pick me up after Catechism so I will stay on these steps until he arrives. I know better than to disobey him. I sat still and kept my eyes straight ahead pretending that the spreading stain had nothing to do with me.

I heard the car before I saw it. My father's old blue four door came around the corner of the parish building where the nuns taught our class as we prepared for our eventual First Communion. The wheels squealed as he suddenly stopped. As I stood I saw him lean across the front seat and open the door.

Wetness ran down the back of my knees and settled into my white socks as I walked towards the car. My relief turned to panic when I heard him scream, 'Where have you been? Why don't you ever listen?'

The anger and questions continued during the short drive home. No matter what I said; I had been wrong. I'd disobeyed. I lied. I'd wasted his time. I was bad. I've been bad. I was going to get the belt. When the car stopped I jumped out and ran into the house, throwing myself underneath the bottom bunk and shimmying far back against the wall. My mind raced with the same thought over and over: I was waiting. I did what you asked. I'm telling the truth.

My heart is pounding even now remembering the roar of his voice as he swept through the apartment, telling me to come for the spanking. At the memory of the mattress being tossed upward, and him reaching down to grab me by the leg and pull me out of that temporary space.

I do not remember the beating; it was one of many. I do remember my stepmother coming in later, silently, and wiping my bottom, thighs, and back with alcohol. I remember the cold sting of it, the smell of it: sharp and clean. She didn't mention the smell of the dried urine on my underwear. Maybe she thought it had happened as I was being punished.

Punished for doing what I was told. Punished for telling the truth. Because in our house, the only truth that mattered was the one my father believed. That truth varied from day to day, from moment to moment. People changed, moment to moment- it didn't matter if you loved them you couldn't depend on them and there was nothing I could do to change them.

At the age of seven I learned that truth was a shifting thing, not bound by absolutes, and disagreements with the official version were always squashed. Nothing, not even truth, was safe. Nothing, not even truth, was dependable.

Fast forward fifty seven years to 2024. I relearned some old lessons this year, and they were as painful as if I'd never learned them at all.

~ 1. Truth varies from day to day, from moment to moment. As a person that adamantly believes in absolutes this was a lesson that, once learned, I was eager to forget. Any thoughts of forgetting it were dashed by the reappearance of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and the complicity of the mainstream media.

From wild claims of people 'eating the dogs, eating the cats!' to protestations that he knew nothing of the works and plans of The Heritage Foundation, with which he closely worked in his first administration; Donald Trump lies as easily as breathing. And the news reports it as stone cold fact. Truth can be declared but might be lies in a brand new cover.

This was a lesson that I'd retained in the shadows of the pandemic and daily terror of having a toddler President, but I'd steadfastly pretended wasn't true. Alas, this is a lesson from 2024 that I had to relearn.

~2. Nothing is dependable and there is no security. Back in my retail days we were graded on our ability to be Champions of Change. Retail is certainly a willing teacher and enforcer of the need to embrace change and ambiguity. My childhood prepared me for a retail career and teed me up for a long-term marriage that crumbled. My skills were sorely tested in 2024 and the lesson needed to be relearned.

Political arena aside, soaring prices, health scares, fluctuating emotions, death of family and friends, and just plain getting older: things change, change, and then change again. With each turn of reality my ability to sleep, to rest, to become settled within my mind, is tested anew.

The result is the decision to control what I am actually able to control and attempt to speak truth and influence whatever else remains. Making peace with impermanence is likely a lesson that will always be with me, like a perpetual Summer school, until I graduate from this life.

~ 3. People change and there is nothing I can do about it. This lesson was hard because it's so damned all encompassing. For one thing- I am also 'people', therefore I am included in the change. So, too, are people I love.

Can I control my own changes? Maybe, just a bit. I can't control the failing of my joints, the way my knees wake me aching at night, and the way my stiff fingers refuse to hold tightly to that necessary coffee cup each morning. I can decide to color my hair but it will just keep growing in gray. I can look aside at my reflection but I can see the hollows under my eyes and the way my neck puckers in its own skin.

But that wee bit of control over myself? It's monumental compared to the ability to control anyone else. That is: I control nothing. You'd think that growing up with a mercurial parent that meted out random affection and pain on unanticipated whims would have already given me this lesson, but; no. It is a lesson I seem fated to repeat many more times.

This year the sorrow and sickness that came with some of the changes, the loss of relationships have been- they've been hard. And that stone-cold pebble of a word is one that I will share with you, then pick it up again and carry it close to me once more. I have learned the lesson, I feel its impact, but I have yet to understand all of the consequences. I am not blameless.

~ 4. I will tell the truth, even if I am not believed. This is the ultimate lesson of 2024. It's the same lesson that I learned way back when I was huddled in the dark against the wall under that bunk bed. Then- I said it to myself, quietly so my hiding spot might go undetected.

Now? Now I am saying it in social media comments when someone or some entity perpetuates lies. I tell the truth to myself, even if no one else listens. I will write the truth, even if I omit details regarding others as requested. I will not hide truth within a new cover.

I am not perfect- far from it. The mistakes I've made, including perpetuating the rage I received from my father, have lingering consequences. But I'm no longer hiding the truth, no longer keeping it to myself. That's my most important lesson from this year.