After The Silence

My whole life, I didn’t even realize something was wrong. You go so long being a certain way you don’t even realize there’s anything else. This is the story of my life. A story where my protection became my prison. A story where I finally became human, once again.

Growing up rough, you never really have a home. Just four walls with no doors, no windows, no light, not even a bed. That box eventually fills up with tears until you’re fully submerged, without a pocket of air for your lungs to even grasp for. Instead of drowning, you adapt. You don’t grow gills or fins. More like, you grow a harsh carapace. Spiny, rigid, impenetrable. It becomes a part of you, attached, fused with the flesh of your heart. But it’s not fused by glue or sinew, it’s fused by fear. Fear that, like the carapace, can’t seem to let itself go, even when there’s no longer a need to feel fear.

Once I thought my inner child was dead. Buried somewhere in our colorless backyard under the gravel, maybe by one of the chain-link fence posts. But no. He wasn’t dead. Just hiding. All the love, joy, wonder, happiness I had were hiding with him, within the carapace.

When there are no more outside forces attacking you, the spines aim inward. Piercing. Torturing. Bleeding what’s left dry, like the heart of me was a pulsing pin cushion. Not only do you become a stranger to yourself, your family, your friends. You become a stranger to life itself.

For the last fifteen years of my life, I’ve felt nothing. No sadness, joy, happiness, love, warmth. Not even the cold could pierce the carapace. If there’s one thing this time has taught me, it’s that feeling nothing sure does feel like feeling something. A void. An abyss. A knowing that something should be there, but no idea what that something is. How could you mourn what you either can’t remember, or never had? How can you mourn when you can’t even cry?

I’ve smiled when it seemed like the right moments. Laughed when others laughed. Looked sad when others cried. Able to change my expressions like clay, but never knowing what those expressions meant. Eventually your awareness of the wrongness grows, like it did with me. For a while I thought myself a sociopath, robbed of my humanity from what happened to me as a child.

Until something, no, someone, proved it all wrong.

Within a few words, my carapace shattered. My claymation form melted away. And what was left underneath was what I thought once dead. Me.

It all hit me like the whole world had just come crashing down on my head at once. Pain. Loss. Joy. Happiness. Warmth. All of it. But most of all, fear. And love. To go so long without knowing these things to just suddenly knowing them. It seems unreal. Sounds unreal. But it feels so real.

Our hearts locking eyes was all it took. Her words were what melted away my soiled clay. The beats of her heart sending shockwaves to shatter. She had no idea what she had done for me. And for a while, I wasn’t sure either. Days were spent crying. So many tears from all the years backed up. The dam had finally cracked.

Love and fear. What I believe to be the two strongest emotions. The weeks following our meeting, and our confessions, that was all I felt. Fear of what I had lost for all those years. And fear for what I now had to lose. Love, for the one who had uncovered me in the ancient tomb I had made for myself.

At first all the feelings I had were directed towards her. It was all I could muster. Yet despite all this, I still wasn’t sure what was happening to me. Not until one early morning spent together. We were locked in an embrace, my head on her chest. And call it cliche, but something truly just clicked. And I wept.

I cried like I had never cried before. Not out of fear, or pain, but out of joy. Because for the first time in all those years, I felt peace. I felt home.

When she asked me what was wrong, I told her everything. She didn’t look at me or treat me like I was some soulless monster. She just loved me more. Held me there. Still to this day, it is the most comforting moment of my life.

When you’re told that you’re just a victim, a burden, other people have it worse. Horrible words to make you shrink. You don’t believe anyone will care. Just judge you. But she broke it all away.

As our love grew, she learned more about me. About my feelings for others. All the distrust, disgust, and disdain I had for the rest of humanity. She showed me it was wrong. That I was wrong.

For a while she compared my situation to teaching a robot how to feel things. She was kind of right. But now because of her, I finally had my problems diagnosed. Finally got help. Finally opened back up to the world.

Imagine the people around me’s surprise to my confession. My apologies for how I had been. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. I just couldn’t stop who I had to be.

Now I’m connecting again. With more than just her. Some family. Some friends. Life itself. I’m no longer a stranger. But I still have a long way to go.

I’m not afraid to feel anymore. No longer do I just have four barren walls. I have a home.

Today my inner child, me, I’m still trying. Still fighting. Still learning. But most importantly, I’m smiling. A real, beautiful smile.

And it’s all because of her.

Now I don’t see it as what I thought it was, a carapace. Really, it was more like a cocoon.

Now I’m beautiful.

Now I’m flying.