The Why?

A friend asked me today why I felt the need to share my story with so many people (but not in those words.) She told me I was brave and courageous for sharing the intimate details of my life, but behind those remarks I saw the why? In addition, she told me that she saw two things in my writing, one, I'm hard on myself and two, pain about something from the past. She was right, I'm still hanging on although, slowly inching up and away from my old fears and wounds.

The process started a few years ago but I didn't actually start writing about it until last summer. I couldn't ignore the emotional ditch I built around myself, nor could I accept all the psychological obstacles from the past. I wanted to get away from myself, and climb out of my self imposed misery. I have been longing to purge my story for over ten years, and I simply could not repress it anymore.

A close friend and I decided to take a writing journey together, we started a writing club, if you will. We made a pact to write every week, fearlessly sharing and critiquing each others work- a safe haven, a catharsis for us both. We each had the desire to write, but also our own fears. Together we decided to find the courage to get it out and on the page. Although we started from the same place, we had different reasons for our unwillingness to succumb to complacency. We were/are in search of our own personal growth, and though we decided to take this leap together, we are ultimately alone, and that is true for all of us.

I made the decision to crawl may way, if need be, out of the trenches of my broken-words and will; and fight to find peace within myself. I knew it was and still is going to be tough to break myself down to nothing, to release layer, upon layer of the thick past on my reptilian brain. I knew I had to open some rusty old doors of old memories in order to set myself free. The need for change was tugging at my sleeve as if my limbs were out-growing my worn out clothes.

I was born and raised in Atlanta, and it has been hot here in the summertime for as long as I can remember. In the summer of 1978 my Mother decided that we (She and I, her friend and her friends daughter were moving to Houston, Texas.) My Mother drove one of those 1970's Ford Pintos, the dangerous ones with combustible rear engines. I was around four years old, and I remember how my momma bragged about that car being "Candy Apple Red," with "White Vinyl upholstery." She drove herself and the car into the ground after she left her second husband, Bill, and headed for Texas.

It was the dawn of disco and cocaine, the law didn't require children under a certain age to ride in a car seat or use a seat belt even, because I remember being tossed all around the back-seat of that car. My legs were all sticky and wet as I slid from side to side on the vinyl all throughout the trip. The salt just caked up on my legs from the sweat of the day, and the heat of the seats. The floor-board rattled with pink tab cans and food wrappers. At one point I tried climbing down in the debris as to escape the slip and slide seats, but the polyester floor mats were warm from the asphalt and the rev of her engine. The only air conditioning we knew was from the windows being rolled all the way down, therefore your hair got all tangled and ratty. She was determined to get to Houston, come "Hell or High Water!"

My Mother was like a kindling flame, it only took a certain spark to send her in one direction or another- her blood ran hot, and she was easily influenced. Her eyes were green as a garden snakes and had that same cold, yet wild uninhibited look. She was twenty-two at the time, but her darkness seemed timeless. Her hair was like gold silk; long, straight and stringy, but she was beautiful. Her unseen burden was heavy for her tiny frame, she was no more than 100 pounds, but her temper out weighed her. Her skin was fair with speckles on her dainty features, she always seemed so small to me, even when I was a child. Her smile was broad, yet one could not help notice her disturbed and haunting laugh. It was as if she looked right through you and then the bellow of disguise would erupt.

For the trip west (far away from her thoughts, where she thought she could out run herself) she armed me with a 24-pack of Crayola Crayons and a few drug store coloring books. When I ran out of pages to color, I started using the backs of the white seats as my canvass. They were so smooth and enticing with a creamy emptiness, I could have just melted into them. She spanked me really hard that day, calling me "Shannon Dina," as her voice deepened and distorted. My tiny fingers worked furiously, scrubbing the periwinkle scribble-scrabble; and my tears and sweat merged into a salty sea, as she boiled over and unleashed her fury.

When I start to recall everything, my life with her from the beginning, it always fills my eyes and runs down my cheeks-staining mascara like a grim trail. Some of my memories are mangled and torn, yet others are like old projector movies- clicking away. Last summer, thirty one years later, I was ready to start unearthing my past.

I remember when I first started writing about my experiences with her, my ears were popping because I was on an altitude climbing air-bus. The little girl in row 35, seat C kept looking back at me, anxiously batting her ocean eyes. My aisle seat was not very private, nor was I, nor am I still making any attempts at hiding anything, anymore!

So to answer the question "why?", is to say that I am on a self navigated mission to spread and share my truths. My sweet love, S, once said, "Shedding light makes things smaller." My plan is to shine on all the short pages in my life , I want the ways in which they hurt to shrivel. I want to record new messages that say I am loved enough, smart, good, safe, and deserving enough to matter.

I have a story to tell, and I starting with you, my theory is this: if I can brave baring my soul to family, friends, loved ones, neighbors and so forth; that my confidence will build and my courage will strengthen. And one day I will will set myself free to fly higher than I've ever flown before! My mission, duty, calling is to write and connect with all sorts of people on as many different levels as possible. I have a story to tell, and it starts with me.