Wed. 11/25/20
(You may want to refer to the post titled ‘Dissociation’ dated 10/14/20 for explanations about Little Pearl (L.P.) and Michael.)
L.P. had some pretty darn good friends, and not just imaginary ones, I smile just thinking about them. Did you have friends like that – even briefly? Real or imagined? I called my imaginary friend Pat – and I never did figure out if Pat was male or female!
L.P.’s best friend in reality was ‘A’. We became inseparable once we formed an armistice. Like so many of my relationships that end up being positive, it had a rough beginning. I bit her when I was four years old! (That only happened once – I hope!) I remember telling my mother about whatever ‘drama of the day’ A. and I had towards the beginning of our tenuous friendship and my mom would say, “Well, I guess that means you two shouldn’t play together anymore”. Then the next day there we’d be, playing until we argued again.
I don’t remember when or how we finally worked out our differences, but once we did we were besties for the next decade or so.
Lord, we had fun. At five years of age we’d (poorly) write and put on plays for the neighborhood that only one or two people would come to (if THAT many!). We opened up a restaurant in her garage when we were six or seven years old believing her mom would let us use her food to make the simple stuff we had on the menu. But our first customer, my brother, ordered a sandwich and when we went to make it her mom was not pleased with what we planned to do with her groceries! Our first patron was our last, he never did get his meal, and I’m pretty sure that was the shortest time ever a restaurant was in existence. (It was probably a good thing it closed before the health department came and inspected the garage/dining area :).)
We lived in the suburbs. I walked to school which was less than a mile away and it seems there was always a friend or several to accompany me. One of those friends was ‘D’, who was a boy my age and we played together frequently. In one of our games the picnic table in my backyard would magically become our ‘ship’. We’d jump into the ocean (of grass) around it, and ‘swim’ until the ‘sharks’ would start circling and D would have to rescue me. (Do you know how hard it is to swim in grass??? :))
Now fast forward several decades. I’ve had issues with trying to get to know decent males since the preteen years. For reasons we’ll get into in a future post, they can terrify me more than the untrustworthy ones. So, not quite two years ago I start working one on one with the Great Guy I refer to every now and then. We’d meet once a week and work in a smaller room with no windows. He always treated me with a kindness and respect I forgot existed, or maybe never experienced in that type of setting. (If you don’t know or remember what happened to Little Pearl in a room like that, refer to the post “Still Innocent” dated 11/9/20.)
What happened one day early on in our working relationship was so – not sure how to describe it other than beautifully amazing from L.P.’s (and my) point of view. Great Guy was sitting just a little in front of and perpendicular to me. Little Pearl, who usually resides as a part of me, for that instant was a separate entity within. I still have a hard time explaining what happened, but for a brief moment it was as if L.P. peeked out of my left eye to look at Great Guy, just as he turned to look at me. She wondered why Great Guy wasn’t doing to her, treating her like all those other guys did in a room like that. In that precise second Little Pearl let down her guard and began to trust Great Guy implicitly. I can confidently say, THAT had never happened before.
Now you’d think that sort of revelation would have set the birds to singing and peace reigning in my heart as far as Great Guy is concerned right? But no, not in the least. Instead, that trust went in two directions that could really cause havoc with the way I was acting around him. First of all, I don’t usually have flashbacks or trauma memory recall around people because I don’t trust them to have my back in a vulnerable moment like that. Because L.P. now trusted him like she did, the flashbacks, memories and physical reactions to them would start occurring while we were together. He didn’t sign up for that, but he handled it so well (more on that later on). The second issue that arose was LP’s trust of a man actually terrifies the Michael within me. He has woken up and put on his defensive/protective demeanor in full force and the war within my mind is ON, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to broker a peace treaty with Michael ever since. I won’t get into all that the Michael part of me has done to sabotage Little Pearl’s trust and care for Great Guy today. That, too, will be a future post.
In spite of Michael’s interference Pearl still trusts Great Guy completely. One day I was driving and needed to make a left turn into a parking lot. There was a black pick up truck coming towards me, and even though it was getting pretty close I turned. The thought that went through my mind after I did that was Little Pearl saying, “It’s ok, that was Great Guy driving that truck, and he would never hurt me.” God, I could cry (in gratitude) every time I think of this.
I look forward to the day when we (the people I work with and I) figure out how to get Michael to trust, calm down and work with instead of against trust and love. (The work I’ve been doing to facilitate that will also be discussed in a future post.) Would you please pray that’ll happen soon?
Please God, thank and bless A, D, and the other friends throughout my life who’ve made this world fun! And please thank and bless Great Guy for showing me what decency and a good heart in a person of his gender looks like, up close and personal. He may not be able to tell by the way he gets treated sometimes, but please let him know how appreciated he is for who he is. If we ever meet again, help him to see through any defensive reactions, and most importantly, help me to treat him as well as he deserves. In Jesus name, Amen.
Meet you back here on Friday?
Today’s poem form is called ‘Haiku’. I wrote this for a creative writing class years ago. I hope you enjoy it!
Child’s laugh echoes down Shadowy halls, through closed doors. Embrace child in heart!
