My Father

I thought that I should explain the title of my blog. I am a tiny girl and always have been. In fact my entire family is. As a small child I was never really aware of my stature and indeed had no idea of the comments that would follow me through life. When I started school, I was immediately singled out by the other kids (girls mostly, boys liked me) and teased about my height or lack of it. At the dinner table that night I was not my usual jovial self. I was quiet and withdrawn. My father, who very seldom participated at the family dinner table, looked at me with a concerned look and asked me what was wrong. I was 4 and already quite articulate. I thought and chose my words carefully. "The other kids at school today were teasing me. They were laughing at me and calling me small." My father folded up his newspaper and placed it down on the table. He looked off to the corner of the kitchen and took a deep breath as I held mine in anticipation. He looked angry but I couldn't imagine that it was at me. I waited....He turned to me and said something that I would carry with me through life. My father spoke to me very seldom but when he did, he always said something profound. "Don't ever let them call you small Debbie.....You are short. Short is not the same as small, the tallest man in the world can be small." I knew what that meant even at 4. In that sentence I knew that short described my physical being but small somehow attacked who I was. I knew that I was short but I was not by any means a small person. I sat up in my chair and suddenly I was filled with pride. Still to this day, if someone calls me small, I politely correct them. "I am short, not small."

The Awakening

I remember my awakening. This is different from the first memory. An awakening is the moment you become aware of self. The realization that you are separate and apart from those around you. That your actions and words are within your control and affect the people that makes up your family. Unlike memories that only play back as movies in your mind affected by time, and recollections by others, an awakening is that moment in time when you begin to be. From here choices are your own. You realize you have control of your life, you have input and thought. It is the moment you in fact wake up. This is a powerful moment that can either be filled with joy or horror. It molds us and in part decides what we will choose to be. From here memories are attached to emotion, smell, colour. Memories before this are just snap shots in time, pictures with no border. After the awakening our memories are framed with feelings. Resentment, fear, we feel our memories after our awakening. It is a good thing too because if we were to remember every memory with emotion we would all be emotional cripples. Trauma surrounds early life and the fact that we remember very little of it is a gift. I remember when I awoke. I was about 7 years old, it was early in the morning, winter, and I was getting ready for school. My mother called for me to hurry and I ran down the stairs and sat down on the bottom one ready for my mother to help me adorn the many items of winter clothing that would protect me from the bitter cold of Ontario winters. I am not sure why I said what I said next. I can only assume that I was thinking about something fun I had done earlier in the week. I looked at my mother and said “I wish Wendy were my mother.” Wendy was a 15-year-old neighbour who use to baby-sit me sometimes. I guess I liked her very much, I don’t really remember feeling anything for her and I don’t think I saw anything of her after this day. Maybe that was fate or maybe orchestrated by my mom, I don’t know. I do remember that she had very red hair and lots of freckles. I made the statement with all the innocence of a 7-year-old child; unaware of the impact it would have on my mother. She stopped dressing me and I watched the blood drain from her face just as I felt the colour rise in my own. I was not sure why what I had said could have caused such a reaction. Without warning my mothers hands were around my throat and she was squeezing and shaking me back and forth. “You ungrateful little brat…” “How dare you…” she was saying. I felt my world going black as I struggled to breath, but at the same time somewhere within me something stirred. My mother was interacting with me however violent; she was focused on only me a very rare occurrence in my short life. What I said and did mattered. I was a 7-year-old girl who lived in Ottawa Ontario, who could say something and get a reaction. I was a person, an individual. I had thoughts independent of those around me. I had the ability to make people react with my mere words. That moment molded me. Whenever I feel powerless or ignored I lash out with words. Words, that I learned many years ago, force the recipient to focus their attention on me. Then for that moment I am in control of them.

It is hard to Imagine

Less than a year ago I was in another province living another life. Now I find myself here in Vancouver doing all the things I planned to do and still experiencing that same degree of dis-satisfaction with it all. I guess when you change locations you don't necessarily change the scenery. Although the scenery is something else here all the elements of my life, and who I am just changed location. We struggle to control the inner termoil by changing our environment, thinkng that in some way we can tame that thing inside of us that seeks to make us unhappy despite getting what we say we want it really is how we feel about ourselves that in the end desides our destiny.