The Memory (trigger warning: some mildly graphic content)

The memory was of a young girl me, walking home from school with my Mum. We’d taken a detour to the supermarket. The familiar supermarket— that was very much like my second home—felt odd. There was a heaviness in the air. A darkness. And that’s when we noticed the white chalk outline on the pavement out the front. A human body had laid there only an hour or two earlier, and it hadn’t been alive.

I won’t go into details about the conversation that was had between me and my Mum because, honestly, I can’t remember. All I know is that when the memory came up for me the other day: I was there in that street again. Little girl me, feeling the violence of the scene within my body. At the time, as I stood observing the chalk outline (in an otherwise ordinary, empty street) it had felt as though I was within the violent scene, watching it all unfold. It felt like hatred. It felt like fear. It felt like confusion. It felt like murder— and that’s where I’ll stop with the details.

It’s the way I experienced it all as a feeling that has me fairly well flabbergasted, and tends to explain why it feels like my sensitivities have been ‘muted’ for a great deal of my life. Because to feel to the degree that my body was clearly capable…little girl me obviously had quite the time digesting the harsh realities of the world. No wonder my protective mechanisms chose to shut it all down, to a degree.

That day, I felt the heavy ache in the air. I felt the violence that took place out the front of the supermarket, I even ‘saw’ it on the blank screen of my mind, even though the violence was long over with by the time we had arrived on the scene. How could my Mother have possibly made all that big stuff feel better for me when she had no idea what was going on inside of her little girl. All she knew was that the questions started firing (and let me tell you, they fired. For hours after, they fired.)

There is no point to this post. Only to say that I think I’ve found another healing breadcrumb which has opened up an even more miraculous can of worms for me to work my way through.

I also want to take this opportunity to encourage you all to be gentle with your own yucky memories as they arise. And to tell you I’m here, guys. And I see you. And I really do think they’re all better out than in.

So much mushy (we’ve totally got this) love. xx Brooke