Shards in Boxes

My life is shattered into small shards of access.  There are only a few who have ever seen all of me, all parts of me, not just what they were allowed to see.  I keep myself 'safe' that way.  If they only know what they are allowed to see, then my real true me is safe from them.

I think that being unloved and beat as a child by my mother, caused me to protect as much of me as I could from any more hurt.  Trying to keep what was happening at home a secret, was my first box, my biggest box, the box that I still have, and only T.H. and you my fellow bloggers know about.

Why is it a secret?  I have opened up that frightful box to several people through out the years, and have gotten a weird responses, causing me to shut my box up tight again.  What kind of responses have I gotten that would convince me to keep silent all of these years?  I will give you just a few.....

When I was 8 my maternal grandmother passed on.  She reined in to a great degree the severity of abuse that was dealt out to me.  Afterwards my mother came completely unglued, unhinged, and uncontrolled.  This time period was without a doubt the darkest of my days.  The beatings became nightmarish.  Pulling a drawer out of a dresser and beating me with it, until she broke the drawer.  And then beating me with the pieces, because I had broken the drawer.....  This became the time period that I began to fear the iron.  If she was ironing, she always would burn me with it, and laugh at my tears, or even worse beat me because I  tried to get away from it.  And she had this belt......

At some point in that school year, I couldn't take it any longer, and needed to be rescued from her.  She had cut off all contact with her family, so no help from them.  I stayed in at recess one day, I had decided to tell my teacher, because they had always told us children if you need help tell your teacher, or a policeman. To say I was nervous does not even come close.  I was humiliated about my abuse, and went to great lengths to hid the evidence.  Shaking and quivering I walked up the the teacher, who gave me a rather cold look and asked why I needed to see her..... I told her, and she didn't believe me!  The only way I could think to convince her, was to show her how my mothers rages had painted me with bruises.  Deeply shamed, I lifted my skirt to show my upper legs, and the teacher laughed and told me to stop fishing for sympathy.

I have been told I am a lier, and to stop whining everyone got spanked as a child.  To stop exaggerating.  I have had it thrown back in my face.  Using it to make fun of me.  In someways from the reactions I have gotten, it somehow becomes my modifier.  As if that is all that is important to know about me.  I have become a one note human.  And so, I stopped telling people, and closed that box for good.

As our children grew up, I could never figure out the right time or the right way to tell them about my childhood.  And now they are all grown, and I have said a few small things, but the large ugliness?  No, and never.  What good would it do?  How would it help them?  I can see only that it would hurt their very soft hearts.  I was bruised enough, I do not feel the need to pass the burden of my past to them.

I had a very best female friend in high school that never knew I used drugs.  Didn't know I had sex with many a boy, and never knew what was truly going on in my home, and the deep core of despair within me.  Bubbly silly girl stuff was placed in one box.  Drugs and carrying a bottle of Jack Daniels in my purse to keep a constant buzz, a different box.  Porn Boy knew more about me than any one in high school, he knew about the boys, and the drinking, and if suspected anything about my home life he never said.

And if my life was scattered among many a box before, moving to a small town where there was not even a hint of a slot for me to fit in, caused me to build more boxes.  For years there were only party lines in Hell Town.  And people were so not shy about listening in, as in they would yell out to their kid to stop doing whatever.  And use their names.  And would often break into the conversation to add their own views on the current topic.......  Causing me to bundle up more and more of me, to keep me safe.  But, no matter how many boxes I built, how tightly I closed down and hid more and more of me, it didn't help one bit.  One very socially powerful woman took some very innocent comment made by me the wrong way, and set out to destroy me.

She told everyone that I was going down to the local bar and jumping into the back seat with any and every guy I could find.  Now you have to remember Hell Town is small, no like small small. Around 300 people.  Most of the people that frequented that bar were all military men who had no other connection to the town except for the bar, so who was to say that she was lying? Right, no one.  Three long torturous months went by, when I rarely if ever left our home.  And when I did, whispers followed.  I did finally figure out a plan to discredit her, it took months to come to fruition, but the rumors were always there.

So, here I am, at 50.  And am getting very tired of hiding so very much of me.  T.H. has asked me not to open some of the boxes for the boys.  The sex, the drugs, the drinking, keep the box closed on those dear. I am sick of hiding my blog, sick of hiding the fact I am writing a blog.  I friended The Gay Onion, on my now old Facebook account, and when I realized that it led right back to this blog.  I almost had a panic attack.  Now to be harshly honest, I found the whole Facebook thing boring and dull as hell.
But, when my freedom here to blog out my true feelings, without having to edit, was threatened, my heart froze.  And I quickly dumped my account. Except for three people, all of rest of my "friends" on Facebook, were people who weren't even nice to me when I still lived in Hell Town.  Luckily, for the past few months I have been complaining about not enjoying the whole Facebook experience, and have spoken more and more about dumping my account.

So, is there anyway of dismantling any of these damned boxes?  I have been throwing away boxes that were built for living in Hell Town, and to tell you the truth, T.H. isn't happy about some of them.  I have become more open about somethings with the boys, and he is so not pleased.  I have stopped a great deal of the self editing, and am saying things that cause me to get the "Look" from him.  I am trying to unpack me, trying to finally attempt to express the true and real me.  Wanting to have as few boxes as possible.  A very upsetting side effect of me opening up to the boys, is that when we are allow without T.H., we act differently, than when he is with us..... So, I suppose I have just built a new box?  Why do we have to act differently around him?  Because he feels that some of the things we talk about are inappropriate.  Are they?  I do not know, to us they are not, but to him, yeah they are.

One blog friend has said that my blog is so wholesome, but my chats are anything but.  And that struck me hard.  I am still living in those fucking boxes.  From here on out?  Yeah, I am going to attempt to show more of me, open up more as my whole self, not just a box or two.  And maybe practicing with you my blog friends, will teach me how to live without my boxes in real life.