V.C. Andrews - Wildflowers 05 by Into the Garden

Author:Into the Garden
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-17T01:36:46+00:00

11

Exposed

For all of us the revelation of family secrets and lies made the world seem less and less solid. It was as though the very ground we walked upon could become thin ice at any moment. We would fall through, screaming and crying until we hit rock bottom, forced to confront another ugly truth about ourselves or our lives. Even with a warm, secure and loving family, young people my age struggled to find the answer to the haunting questions, "Who am I?

Who am I supposed to be?"

After it's all over, the early childhood, a chain of birthdays woven with candlelight, piles of presents, voices of relatives singing and praising your promise and future, after the years of schooling, fitting yourself into different size desks, memorizing, reciting, reporting, and performing for jury after jury of teachers, counselors, and administrators, you still feel inadequate, alone, vulnerable, and naked in a world that can be unforgiving and terribly demanding.

Sometimes, you cling to your family like some shipwrecked passenger clutching a lifesaver, but when you look into their eyes, you see their impatience and their expectation. You hear what they're thinking you should be swimming on your own by now. You'll only drag all of us down if you don't.

If you're lucky, really lucky, you find someone to love who will in turn love you and the loneliness and fear is greatly reduced. Often, it seems from what we've all experienced, you can make the wrong choice and just when you thought it was safe enough to let go of the lifesaver, you're tossing and turning and on the verge of drowning again.

But what if you've never really had a loving family? What if all your birthdays were treated as minor inconveniences and all your presents were grudgingly shoved your way? What if all your candles were snuffed too quickly and whenever you reached for that lifesaver, you were tossed i -deflated tube and left to struggle on your own?

And what if after you had come through the darkness and finally looked for the light and for hope and promise, you found only a prism of lies twisting and turning, making you dizzy and sending you spinning in a whirlpool of memories you now knew were all illusions? Into what stream, what pool would you dip your hands to wash your face in smiles?

Where would you go to hear the melody of laughter?

What place in yourself would you reach into to draw out some happy moment to share even if you did find someone with whom you could share?

How would you know the difference between yourself and your shadow? Would anyone blame you for stopping and asking everyone, every passerby, every acquaintance, every stranger the same question?

Do you know who I am? Do you know where I can go to find that out?

I had a mother who was captured only in a small pile of letters. I had a father who was someone frozen in old photographs, a face without a voice, a hand without a touch, eyes that never saw me and ears that never heard me.

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