A Voice Found and Ready to Speak

I have spent the years since my MFA graduation restructuring my life, gaining strength of mind, finding joy, laughter, love, and meaningful work. I needed to be practical, and make sure I was on my way to building a retirement. It takes time to calm the distractions enough to focus on writing. I have missed my writer self immensely.

And so I begin…

A while ago, I discovered something. It was a discovery that hit me right in the middle of the stomach. Two emotions overwhelmed me: regret, and embarrassment. And with the force of those two emotions, a door to a new world blew opened. What was this discovery? What kind of power did this discovery have that gave me a complete paradigm shift in my life?

Let me try to explain it before I name it. Think of an object. Think of this object as beloved. This object is virtuous, fantastic, and fabulous. While holding this object, look at it from all sides. See its beauty, its goodness. Then, suddenly something changes. Now look at the object again. While you look at it, I will explain the result of this change:  This object does awful things, this object causes great heartache, this object is to blame for all that goes wrong, this object is bad, stingy, horrific, and dreadful. Geesh. This object must be maligned, and destroyed!

How does this object go from virtuous to wicked? Where did such perceptions of that object come from in the first place? As a child, the adults in my life influenced my perceptions. The most dominant person in my childhood, as with many, was my mother. She controlled my environment. She convinced me that her perceptions were right, and valid. She wanted me to believe that these objects that were once one hundred percent good were now one hundred percent bad. The poor woman had some major psychological issues that she had no idea she possessed.

This is how I grew up. My childhood was defined by the needs of someone who manifested the mental structure of a borderline personality disorder. The pattern was like this: A person would enter into our lives. This person would be all wonderful, all loving, all kinds of fun, until something would change. And that change was when my mother would declare that this person was now all bad. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the numbers of people who did awful things, caused great heartache, and were to blame for all that went wrong. The many good people who became so bad that they had to abruptly disappear from our lives forever baffled me.

It turns out that I do not have Borderline Personality Disorder; thus, there was always a part of me that had extreme difficulties with this “splitting behavior.” In that environment, I was not the norm. I was abnormal. I thought there was something wrong with me. Most of the time, the leaving of the all-good to all-bad person was dramatic. And I was always full of questions that were never answered. Thus, I had two things to do in my life’s journey. One was to find the answers, and the other was what to do with the answers once I had them.

What would cause my mother to declare that someone who was all good was now all bad? How could that happen so many times? Why did she have a circle around her who would fiercely defend, and believe her? I have insight because I was once in that circle. As a child, what choice did I have? Who could I turn to for different perspectives? If I caught a glimmer of a different perspective, I had to be brought back under her influence. As a result, under her influence, the perception of my reality was constantly being re-spun. She could keep me by her side that way. I would never leave her. That was her intention. As part of the characteristics of this disorder, abandonment was her all-consuming fear.

It wasn’t until I finally got myself in a somewhat stable adult relationship that I was able to hear the words other people said to me. Some of these strange words were: “That isn’t normal.” “Nothing is ever black or white.” “Tell me what you think about this-use your thoughts, your words based on your experience with this person.” Oh. I was schooled by people who genuinely cared for themselves, and for me, who could think outside of their own damaged selves, and valued consistent, and healthy relationships. The door blew open, my soul opened up, and wow, it was one deprived place.

I was on my way to a complete paradigm shift. I had to restructure my whole life, restructure my entire perceptions, and beliefs. I had to learn that nothing in life was black or white. This journey was and is a process. And, for me, the beginning of this shift was dramatic, and seemingly something I couldn’t survive. But, survive I did. And that is my story. The one I can return to writing now that I have had some distance from the beginning of this journey. And now that I have found a way to sustain myself through my own financial independence, and my own healthy relationships, I can use my voice. And I will use it without fear of my mother’s retaliation. Well, there is some fear there, as will become evident and validated…

Why I’m an Interpreter

Over the years, many have asked me if the reason I became an interpreter was because I had deaf family members. My grandmother was deaf in one ear, but I just had to make sure I talked into her hearing ear. So the answer is no, deafness in my family isn’t the reason.

In high school, I was in my own little world most of the time. I didn’t belong to any groups. I would sit in my calligraphy class and listen to the popular girls discuss their lives. I didn’t yearn for popularity. I thought, if that is how one must be to be popular, I’ll pass.

I needed one more class, an elective, to graduate. I had to quickly decide as registration was ending. I saw a class that said, “Sign Language.” Having no frame of reference for American Sign Language, I did, however, have a frame of reference for billboards. I thought it was a class on the special language of gigantic freeway signs, and we would be doing a lot of letter design and painting, an easy A.

When I walked into the classroom, deaf students were talking to each other with their hands, and checking out the new hearing class members. Oh. I liked the teacher right away. I felt at home for some reason and settled into my seat.

The community college down the road had a new interpreter training program. The working interpreters there wore smocks with front side pockets. I thought, that wasn’t too stylish, but I liked the idea of being identified as an interpreter (luckily smocks have gone far, far away into the land of make believe).

My idea was to learn how to interpret, get my AA degree, and then work as a way to continue on to the University to finish my degree in English with an emphasis in teaching special education. Being an interpreter, I had about two or three years in mind. Turns out, I’ve been one a lot longer than that.

They say burn-out in the field can be at five years. So now I would say, I’m a little bit on the crispy side. Truthfully, I still like to interpret when a class is an hour, or if longer, I have a team. But I have put in my time, and my direction has changed. Yet, I’m still in for awhile.

Life has a way of taking the best of plans and scribbling all over them. In high school, I was on somewhat of a utility road with my nibs and ink pots. High school wasn’t the place where I learned too much. But it helped steer me into a life I would have not known, and I am delighted with that concept. I have things to write about now.

Stretching Exercises

I am enjoying my time off from work. It’s giving me back my time, my exercise time and more importantly, my writing time. Right now, it is a little difficult to concentrate.

A little girl across the way screeches at her father and the two men he is talking with on the porch. She roars and slams the door. They continue talking, so she opens the door yells something unintelligible, roars some more and slams the door. Now she holds a pink, balloon animal and roars. That did it. Her father tells her to stay inside and he closes the door. Let’s see if this works.

There are other noises, of course. The siren from busy fire truck, the traffic rushing by are a few. But the worst one is coming from my wall clock. The pendulum is in a spasm and makes a high-pitched squeak. To take the clock down and try to soothe it will have to be my next task. I really want to write though. I’m a little rusty.

I have to ease my way back into this blogging thing and make it a habit. I love reading blogs. I’m compelled to create sound arguments for my opinions and they force me to deal with the issues that plague my writing, such as comma use. I know how to use commas, but when I write my first drafts, my comma use takes a back seat. I get too excited. Maybe that is what’s up with the pendulum—maybe it’s just dancing.

The little girl runs out the front door and hugs the two men before her father can lift her up and carry her back inside and close the door. Yeah, he has his hands full.