I recently finished the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed. The book was about two things 1) What it's like to walk thousands of miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, and 2) How you heal the holes in your heart by doing something like walk the Pacific Crest Trail.
I've spent a lot of time in therapy the past two years tapping out all of this garbage (my own version of the Pacific Crest Trail). Much of what you're reading here are Significant Events in my life that before tapping felt just as devastating in the present as the past. Fortunately, that's no longer the case. I recognize it sucked, and it shaped many of the (bad) decisions I made later, but it doesn't feel like a stake in the heart anymore. (Good thing, people. It's progress.)
Anyway, after reading Wild it gave me another means of understanding these things. These events all created holes in my heart. Lots and lots of holes. (Some of the biggest holes we have are things we believe about ourselves, but aren't actually true. It's just something someone else said that we accepted as true. And that is what we're addressing today...) So much of what will come after this is all the things I unknowingly did to fill those holes I didn't know I had. I tried to fill them with people and various things. None of that works. No person can fill that hole for you. No thing can fill it for you. Only you can heal that shit up. From this place where I am now... it astounds me that the greatest damage in most of our lives occurs in middle/junior high school and high school. We spend so much time after that trying to fill those holes, but often just making more. What a freakin' mess.
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| Circa 1978, a few years before this incident, but still... so damn unpretty. |
When: Sometime in junior high school
Where: Some class I can't even remember, but wasn't mine
Why: I don't even remember
So what happened? I brought a note to a teacher in a class that wasn't mine. Maybe it was from the library, since I worked in the library in junior high. I walked in the door and several boys started making barking noises. You know, like I was a dog. Ugly. As in not pretty.
The whole thing lasted maybe thirty seconds.
Of course, those boys weren't the only people in that school who made me feel that way. That happened on a daily basis.
But that one incident filled me with shame and humiliation YEARS after the fact. I'm positive those boys don't even remember it. Probably forgot it before the class period ended.
The one thing I'm certain that junior high school does is make people feel so damn unpretty. This feeling leaves a hole that many people spend their entire lives trying to fill. I've spent more time than I'd care to admit. Even now, I find myself looking in the mirror not liking anything from my hair to my shoes. It's only in the last few years that I've come to realize that voice is 13-year-old me still feeling insecure, unloved, and unpretty. I have to constantly tell her to shut the fuck up. (Pardon my language, but those negative tape loops are pervasive and only respond to vigorous language.)
One last thing before the song. I know some people didn't care for the movie Pretty Woman... for reasons to large to elaborate on here. However, I loved that movie if for nothing else, this one bit of dialogue that occurred somewhere in the middle of the movie. It spoke to this gaping hole in my own heart (that shockingly enough I didn't realize was STILL there). Now it says to me that way too many people allow negative tape loops to take over the brain. We allow other people and their cruelty to become our own way of speaking to ourselves, thinking about ourselves, etc. And that voice drives our choices. That voice convinces us to make terrible decisions. So, what was the dialogue?
Since you asked so nicely:
Vivian:
People put you down enough, you start to believe it.
Edward Lewis: I think you are a very bright, very special woman.
Vivian: The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?
(Courtesy of IMDB.) Bolding mine.
Edward Lewis: I think you are a very bright, very special woman.
Vivian: The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?
(Courtesy of IMDB.) Bolding mine.
Did you feel unpretty in school? Does the 13-year-old inside still sneak out and sucker punch you? Have you healed up the holes in your heart?
If you're enjoying these posts, feel free to share your own Soundtrack. This isn't a hop. No requirements at all, but a suggestion to do it one song at a time. (If you participated in the hop several years ago, you can still do this. Just post them one song at a time, with the freedom to add more songs if you'd like.) I'll link to all participants at the bottom of each of these posts:
StMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS
