Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
We may wear the skin of adults, but on the inside we remain children: naked and awed before the great confounding mystery of life. No matter how grown up we may see ourselves as having become, so much of what we carry within the deepest parts of ourselves is but a magnified echo of our earliest experiences.
***
The turning of 2018 to 2019 had been my most intense period of journaling ever: looking at the arc of my life with more depth and honesty than I'd ever attempted, acknowledging the heights while dredging up the depths, attempting to assess and understand myself like never before. The process had been immensely fruitful and profoundly liberating, and I felt I'd reached the conclusion. But then, I was out for a walk and something suddenly came roaring back...
***
It was my 4th birthday. Out in the yard at daycare, my playmate urged to me take the ball from him and throw it at another kid in an intentional act of bullying. I dutifully obliged, and then watched with blossoming dread as the ball hit the other kid in the face and he began to cry. The sickening feeling of horror at what I'd done lingered with me in a deep way. The only other memory I have tied to that incident is of looking at a cute stitching my aunt had made me for my birthday, and feeling I didn't deserve something so nice, like the beauty of my life had been irrevocably poisoned.
***
The sudden recall of that memory brought a strange sense of certainty: that it was an immense source of blockage in my life, that it was a secret key I'd unknowingly been searching for all along. It occurred to me, with a poignant sort of sadness, that I'd avoided the memory of that innocent playground incident so thoroughly that I'd never really forgiven myself. Whether this single memory had somehow shaped the habits of my entire life, or whether it was a mere signpost to a deeper understanding of those habits, it struck me how I'd always held myself back in such an extreme way, always been so deathly afraid of hurting people - almost as if I equated any act of strength, even the most positive, with that dreadful act on the playground.
***
***
In this improvisation, I explored the feelings dredged up by this rather intense process of personal exploration: the sense of profoundly beautiful sadness, of lingering bitterness and rage, of peace and clarity, and ultimately of unresolved possibilities lurking as deeper revelations waiting to unfold...
We may wear the skin of adults, but on the inside we remain children: naked and awed before the great confounding mystery of life. No matter how grown up we may see ourselves as having become, so much of what we carry within the deepest parts of ourselves is but a magnified echo of our earliest experiences.
***
The turning of 2018 to 2019 had been my most intense period of journaling ever: looking at the arc of my life with more depth and honesty than I'd ever attempted, acknowledging the heights while dredging up the depths, attempting to assess and understand myself like never before. The process had been immensely fruitful and profoundly liberating, and I felt I'd reached the conclusion. But then, I was out for a walk and something suddenly came roaring back...
***
It was my 4th birthday. Out in the yard at daycare, my playmate urged to me take the ball from him and throw it at another kid in an intentional act of bullying. I dutifully obliged, and then watched with blossoming dread as the ball hit the other kid in the face and he began to cry. The sickening feeling of horror at what I'd done lingered with me in a deep way. The only other memory I have tied to that incident is of looking at a cute stitching my aunt had made me for my birthday, and feeling I didn't deserve something so nice, like the beauty of my life had been irrevocably poisoned.
***
The sudden recall of that memory brought a strange sense of certainty: that it was an immense source of blockage in my life, that it was a secret key I'd unknowingly been searching for all along. It occurred to me, with a poignant sort of sadness, that I'd avoided the memory of that innocent playground incident so thoroughly that I'd never really forgiven myself. Whether this single memory had somehow shaped the habits of my entire life, or whether it was a mere signpost to a deeper understanding of those habits, it struck me how I'd always held myself back in such an extreme way, always been so deathly afraid of hurting people - almost as if I equated any act of strength, even the most positive, with that dreadful act on the playground.
***
***
In this improvisation, I explored the feelings dredged up by this rather intense process of personal exploration: the sense of profoundly beautiful sadness, of lingering bitterness and rage, of peace and clarity, and ultimately of unresolved possibilities lurking as deeper revelations waiting to unfold...
