absoluteinvolution: real, raw & relatable.

Trauma is interesting isn’t it?

The way our brains can rewrite our memories to either remember it differently, or not remember it at all. Compartmentalizing memories that your subconscious knows you’re better off forgetting, even though in your bones you know something doesn’t feel right; hasn’t ever felt right…

Trauma affects us differently, especially things like abandonment issues, severe abuse of all forms, feelings of unworthiness. The formative young years where you’re supposed to feel protected, loved and cared for. The first chapter of your life where you shouldn’t have to worry about a damn thing. Endless nights spent wondering why no one seemed to care, months spent wondering if they’d come back. Months turn to years and you’d get small glimpses of hope, that maybe things might start to turn into what might have some semblance of normalcy. Only for some new traumatic experience to happen and you start the same pattern of disbelief all over again. Even with all the shit I’ve endured since childhood and into my teenage and adult years, I’ve chosen to trust in love and the possibility I might receive it properly some day. Which honestly, is shocking to me.

Some might think I love the way I do because I never endured hardships, or that I was “raised off love”, or that I expect kindness and warmth from people. When in reality, I choose to believe in love and love the way I do, because I never had it growing up. Quite to opposite in fact. The person who was supposed to protect me as a child, wasn’t a protector at all. The person who was supposed to shield me from all the hardships of life, didn’t exist. Those who were meant to show me what love was, showed me the exact opposite. Expecting it from others because of that though? Never. If I couldn’t receive that from the people who were supposed to provide that in my life, why the hell would I expect a stranger to just give that to me?

Choosing to believe in love and light is a daily thing. A lifelong battle I will fight within myself. How much easier it would be to let the darkness to take me in like a tidal wave. Sweep me into the Ocean and be submerged by the current. Allow myself to be drained of my last breath as I finally feel what peace might be like. Doesn’t that sound easier? Maybe, but for some unholy reason I can’t allow myself that simplicity. Days like today, I didn’t want to keep believing in the warmth, or the kindness that may find me in the future. How could I? When all I’ve experienced for the last decade is betrayal, lies and deceit. Life is about balance though and that’s how I choose to deal with these situations.

I could go through life with that chip on my shoulder, not allowing a single person in. I could spend my life shutting everyone out. Running from any situation where someone gets a bit too close to my heart, or their behaviours trigger the unhealed parts of me that I try to keep hidden. Sometimes it feels like it would be the easier path to choose, but that’s just not who I am. I want to be the rays of light in someone’s life, I want to bring that compassion and softness to those who’ve never had it. There’s no revenge when someone takes a piece of my heart. I know they needed it when I was providing it, I know they needed that sliver of my soul more than I do.

They’ll take that piece of me with them throughout whatever years they have left on this Earth. Remembering my smile when I see things like the Northern Lights. My laugh when I laid next to them playing silly video games. They’ll place a crooked smile upon their face as they remember how I tear up at sad sappy movies, or cute animal videos. The way my eyes turned a lighter shade of brown when I was happy, or the weight that dropped off my shoulders when they hugged me and I melted into pure bliss. The little things that I could have chosen to suppress if I allowed my traumas to get the best of me.

I refuse to let the horrendous things I’ve experienced in my life to turn me to stone or close me off to the opportunity of true happiness. I will forever try to be light and love, with the absolute balance of the darkness of life. I may never find that poetic love, but I refuse to believe that it isn’t a possibility. Maybe though, that poetic love is not just one person, maybe that deep romance I seek is all of the experiences I will have in my life. A true novel of dark loves, passionate moments scattered over the decades.

I’ll be able to turn the pages of my mind like books in an extravagant musty library. Reading over chapters of devotion, adoration and passion that took precedence again and again. Choosing to skip over the novels where duplicity and dishonesty reigned strong. So that maybe some day, my mind only recalls the serenity and tranquility of my own time on Earth.

-A.