By Jove! I think I've got it!
I'm relieved to tell you that an Aha! moment awakened me at 5AM.
The fact that I remember struggling to douse every last burning ember of deeply enflamed humiliation which, likened to a red hot poker, had consciously branded me 'outcast' during this MOST embarrassing moment of my youth, proves to be a highly significant detail.
It's not as though I've never told the end of this story before. I've unlocked the door to that dungeon while facilitating seminars concerning self esteem. However, each time this story was told, I was dispassionately numbed to yesteryear’s unresolved pain—as though the main character had been anyone but me.
For as long as I can remember, baring the end of this story (while leading seminars) did not unseat my personal sense of safety, whereas exposing that moment to you feels like sitting myself in the hot seat where an expressionless jury might decree the depth of Miss Piggy's humiliation as 'no biggy'.
Need I add that:
Along with societal dictates, experiences during prepubescent development influence our future relationships with the opposite sex ...
If you were to ask: Well, Annie, why could you, as an adult, sit yourself in the hot seat 'in person' but not in your blog? I'd answer with humility intact: I'm practiced at public speaking, meaning I can feel when my listeners are rallying round with safety nets, befriending and supporting my human vulnerabilities on mental wave lengths, pulsing with positively focused energy. And when the heart of my audience beats as one with mine, I feel free to leap toward self-trust based in mutual respect.
On the other hand, while penning this blog, I need to pump up that rising crest of self trust by myself, within myself. For days, I focused on strengthening my processor’s positively-charged mental wave length. That's not to say I sat down on a mat where, with eyes closed, my heart/spirit/brain connection engaged in mental yoga for hours, every day. What I mean to say is that while going about my day, I’d consciously patiently steadied my mind until a well balanced, self confident position of peaceful repose had clearly and wholly permeated my attitude with a host of inner strengths necessary to forge courageously ahead—naturally.
Upon awakening today, I’d felt readied to expel that horrendous memory from my psyche—without reigniting embers of residual pain, which had seared ever so deeply into my self esteem when bullying had clamored so cruelly throughout the van that our driver couldn't stand those mean-minded taunts branding me outcast anymore than I could—So here it comes—that red hot detail, which, until today, had felt too excruciatingly painful to post, catalyzing my decision to never sit myself down in the hot seat on a bench, where the self assertive voice of my spirit, quaking with fear, felt squished half to death between two sweaty, insensitive half grown men brandishing pokers, ever again ...
So, I’m sitting on a bench, hips lambasted on both sides by guys whose voices feel utterly free to spew insults at my body when in utter outrage the bus driver’s fist slams against the top of the steering column as though to release the masterful voice of authority to bust through the on-going harangue with a hugely shocking—GODDAMNIT!—as he spins the steering wheel so sharply curbside as to stun every brain aboard into silence ...
With the van swerving dangerously up against the curb, the driver slams on the brakes, yanks the key from the ignition, leaps out of his seat, and spinning around, emotionality clearly aflame, he looms ominously over a van loaded with children, whose heads (inclusive of mine) swivel upward in his direction while our fingers maintain a white knuckled grip onto edges of bench seats as if clinging to dear life.
At first, this raucous mini mob remains stunned to see the face of authority, splotched purple with fury, leering overhead, too close for comfort. And as the piercing glare of authority's steely eyes—shooting bullets straight into every pre-teened, slicked down, Brill Creamed, duck-tailed (or crew cut) head—holds each mind rapt throughout this electrifying stare down, tension feels so taut as to have snapped every brain aboard to attention, like troops trapped behind enemy lines awaiting orders to retreat into disgraced defeat or stand strong in readiness to charge the enemy, guns drawn in self defense of virility’s budding manhood.
Though this solid state of suspended apprehension lasts mere seconds, the memory of that which shatters this pregnant pause, sends chills down my spine to this very day.
Empowered by righteous indignation, these words roar out of authority's furious throat—
MY GOD! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, GUYS? FOR GOD SAKE—LEAVE HER ALONE! SOME DAY, EVERY ONE OF YOU JERKS IS GOING TO BEG THIS GIRL FOR A DATE!
Upon reflection, it's obvious that my 'friend' meant well—
Unfortunately, this scene does not end well for me, at all ...
Once shock subsides releasing comprehension to sink in—all hell breaks loose throughout the van, grinding the last fragments of my self esteem along with the voice of authority into sand under hysteria’s rising tsunami of maniacal hilarity, which drowns everything standing in the way of prepubescent bedlam reigning supreme ...
No comments:
Post a Comment