My Childhood Wounds
There is a moment in life that most people miss to see it. It is not marked on
calendars but around the age of 60, it appears and it changes everything. It
is a moment when your soul changes direction.
This isn’t a sudden break. It is a last drop in already full glass after you
quietly stop caring about the people you cared before. The desire to please
them fades. The need to prove anything to anyone dissolves. Long-held emotions
come to surface. The soul starts to move backward in past, not in retreat, but
in a symbolic return to heal the childhood wounds, to burn something left
behind in the rush of life.
The moment when my soul changed direction
Last week was a hectic time. My daughter was in hospital since Sunday evening,
awaiting delivery, almost 48 hours. I spent my time on the edge, expecting the
birth of my grandson any moment. At the same time, I was so busy at work and
job tasks were piling up. I worked hard, from 7 am to the late at night.
At Tuesday night I had a dream, it was more a vision than dream. I have not
experienced anything similar before. I walked on a huge city square. I was
feeling confident and self-aware. I knew that I am dreaming.
I was astonished by the size of an open, public space in the heart of some
city on the top of a hill. I noticed tall, very tall black entities coming
towards me. They were awesome, so powerful, so tall, it looked like they are
on stilts, on pillars standing at 5 or 6 meters above the ground. They had
strange clothes. I looked at them with curiosity of a small child but somehow
I knew I should not be doing that.
I moved to the side and they passed by but three of them turned towards me. I
put down my had and without looking I quietly passed by them. I was on a wide
space with polished streets. The sky was blue and it was a day. Suddenly I
heard my name. Clearly I heard it in my head and I heard it again. I did not
recognized the voice. I did not answer.
Then, a horizon in front of me opened and a planet appeared surrounding with
clouds. I observed the planet, I don't know, maybe it was Earth, maybe not.
The clear blue planet became orange and then pale yellow, like it was burned
or something. Maybe it is the end of the world and this was a warning. I don't
know. I was fascinated and confused, this was too much, I became excited and I
woke up.
So far I was leading my life building my ego and now I am returning to my
soul. This is the moment. After this dream I feel I have changed. I no longer
can tolerate masks or pretense. My future demands truth.
This truth may severe relationships because deep psychological wounds come
from the closest people, mother and father. Despite outward appearance and our
care for parents, many of us feel a deep, unnoticed despise towards them. This
isn't hate, it's more like disappointment that leads to indifference.
My childhood wounds
After 60, many begin to re-examine their life story: parents, childhood,
marriage, children, work, choices... and the old surface. Everything returns,
not to hurt, but to be seen, introspected, understood and finally healed.
We no longer crave a new title, house or car, or phone. We want silence, peace
looking at beauty and meaning of simple existence. This is a time of cleansing
of the past, a time to open inner drawers, discard fears, say the truth and
forgive those who never knew how to love.
Look in the past we finally see ourselves without masks, without makeup,
without lies.
My mother, a math teacher who wasted her life
I love my mother the most but to be honest, if she would had lived in Canada
she would be arrested for her behavior. She used to beat me since I was 3
years old. I was a hyperactive, happy and cheerful child while she was
deeply frustrated woman. I liked her but I feared her.
I remember, I was 7 years old when in school yard a metal goal post fall
over on my head. I almost died that day, my forehead was broken. Somebody
took me to hospital. I was laying on surgical bed when my father and mother
came, I was still covered in blood when I said to my mother: "Do not beat me I was just
playing."
My mother loved math problems, libraries, books, concerts, long walks on
city streets, somehow she liked aristocracy, city. She hated villages and
people with short nails.
As far as I know she was sick and she was treated for Angina Pectoris and
other heart problems. She destroyed her liver with too much pain killers and
other pills, she got liver autoimmune disease and then cirrhosis. She died
of liver cancer in age of 72.
My father was ashamed of me
I escaped the bad things in my childhood
by playing basketball. I was
good in basketball but I was a skinny kid. In my high school I was (190
cm) 6'2' feet tall but weight only (70 kg) that's 150 pounds. My father
never came to see any of basketball games I played, he never took me
outside, he never walked with me anywhere.
My father was a nice looking guy, a women charmer. He cheated on my mother
and at the same time he was so jealous of her. My mother felt it, she
argued with him, they were not talking to each other for many days.
The day I was leaving to Canada I had conversation with my father. He told
me seriously: "You are leaving, who will take care of me when I get old?" My
daughter was 8 months old back then and we had only borrowed money
to start living a new life 10,000 km away and he was thinking about his
old age.
Later, I rejected inheritance from him in the name of my sister. Now, I
have nothing in Serbia, I think I will never ever visit my hometown
again.
Oh, my father taught me not to be cheap. He is a cheap ass, a miser guy.
In the last 30 years, I gave him a lot, thousands of dollars, for life and
re-building the house. He never bought anything to my daughter. Not a
single present. His entire life he was like that. A long time ago I
decided not to be like him.
Simple being
I've spent most of my life living for others: my partners, my daughter,
parents, work, social duties. Now, there is a space, and it is in this
space that my soul waking up. It no longer wants to be useful; it wants to
be real.
Old memories may return with great force. This isn't just nostalgia; it's
the soul healing the wounds. It wants to understand what still hurts, what
remains unanswered. For that, it calls for silence.
My soul is changing direction, everything hidden begins to rise. I am
going to be who I am at last, and without fear. I'm letting go old
versions of myself, of stories others told about me, of the need to be
useful, productive, or perfect.
I understand that my greatest lessons came from the pain of my childhood.
The invisible strength is what carries me even now. It shows up in the way
how I look at people and the reason I forgive them or not.
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