A few posts back I wrote about integration, how I’m trying to connect the stories of my life, stories that sometimes feel like stories from many lives, into one again.  I’ve spent a few hours here and there sitting with myself, letting memories from all of my years wash in and out and over me.  I have pages of sentence fragments now, little sparks of memories that I haven’t thought about for years.  I leave these feeling hugged somehow, like these stories have been for a long time like my 10-month-old son is now:  needing to make eye contact.  Needing that reassurance, often from across the room, that yes, Mama’s here.  She sees you.  That’s all.

One of these newly written sparks came from second grade, I think.  It was my first time spending the night at a friend’s house, and I was excited.  Devon was my friend’s name, and we played long and hard all Friday afternoon before the sun finally set and I creepingly began realizing how far away my house had become.  How much I wanted–no, needed–to see my parents before sleep.  How the light coming in from the streetlamps was different from the light at my house, and silhouettes were everywhere now, so many of them, none of which I could identify, let alone protect myself from, should that need arise.  I began to realize I would not wake up in my bed the next morning.

A yawning emptiness started filling me up.  My limbs got heavy.  Tears burned my cheeks.  And Deven, now sleeping peacefully by my side, slept on.  The silence in the house, sprinkled with unfamiliar sounds, felt like the foreignest of all foreign places, and me the only traveler for miles.  I had to go home.

And my determination grew fierce.  I was such a tender kid that I’m sure it took a good five, maybe more minutes to work up the courage to call home.  I didn’t want to bother anyone–here, or at my house.  But I finally made the call.

"Dad?"

"Yes, are you okay?"

I had begun to cry openly by then.

"I want to come home."

"Are you okay?  What’s going on?"

"I just want to come home."

"Is anything wrong?"

This was a hard one to answer.  No one had hurt me.  No one had been mean.  Devon’s family was asleep and Devon, bleary-eyed, confused, was standing in the kitchen next to me.  We had had a wonderful afternoon.  This was becoming embarrassing.

"N…o," I said, understanding justification was somehow needed, but having none to give, save that I was homesick and, well, just needed to come home.

My dad said he would be right over, and I waited a miserable ten minutes with my little backpack on my lap and Devon trying desperately to understand, why did I have to go?  I had no way of explaining it, and felt just awful for leaving, awful for wrecking a good day, and awful even more at the thought of staying til morning.  Leaving, by that point, had become the lesser of two evils.

"What happened?" Dad said when I got in the car.

"Nothing," I said, tears still on my cheeks.

"Are you sure?  I thought maybe something happened, and you couldn’t say on the phone."

"No," I said.  "Nothing happened."  He looked at me intently and knew this was true.  He seemed relieved.

My misery, however, had reached epic proportions, and no amount of my own pajamas and my own bed and my own street light coming through the blinds could take it away.  I didn’t sleep much at all that night.

The next morning shame clung to my chest, my hands, my feet.  I wanted to be very small, very tiny, tiny small, and have everyone forget I was born.  I squatted by my dad while he tinkered on the mower in the sun.

"Kristin?"  My mom’s head was peering from the back door.  "It’s Devon on the phone.  She’s wondering if you want to come play."

And for just that second, that moment when I understood that rainbow of words, the emptiness inside of me vanished.  The world started turning again.  The offender was pardoned, offered friendship, even, for the price of jumping ship.  I could not believe it.  I let go of my knees.

Shame kept me home that day, but the invitation stayed deep in the softest, most vulnerable parts of my heart.  It stays there still.  It stays there loving me, teaching me about grace.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 7th, 2006 at 10:11 am and is filed under Healing, Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.