While my external expression lacks words and anything graceful when I am sick, my internal world is often fraught with dialogue; rich with conversations I should have had with 'so-and-so' clear over to what I wish I had said with 'so-and-so'. Ranging in time from way back when I was just a tiny 5 yr. old to moments that have not happened, but I imagine they could. ;-)
Why bring this up? you wonder. Well it has to do with something I realized while in a mind fog of sicken stupor. Here's the scenario:
There is me at the age of 11-12 yrs. holding my younger brother in a menacing choke hold, but not really squeezing, however the threat that I can choke him has gotten just the attention I am looking for. Every other sibling is looking at me with horror - I appear to have lost it and with no adult home - who will step in to take control before it all goes much, much too far?
Angry I shout my words one.more.time, "If you can't say something nice, DON'T say anything at all!!!" My brother unfrozen from his fear is scrambling to get free. My arm tightens and he stops, "I mean it!" I shout. "If you CAN'T say anything nice, DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!" My ever calm sister, we'll call her 'Ee-Roy', holds my craziness with a gentle and steady gaze, "Liz. Let Jon go." Her quiet demand drops my frustrated and angry facade and I release my brother with a firm thud. He, of course, is pissed as hell and ready to fight. She tells him to leave me alone.
This was probably the last moment, or close to it, that I ever said those words, quoted from Bambi's own friend, Thumper.
Prior to this sad memory of minor violence on my part, I was observing people very close to me saying incredibly hurtful things to one another. I was observing internal sorrows neglected or ignored. I was observing violence derived from this internal pain. The internal pain strengthened with negative self-talk. Negative self-talk fueled by incredibly hurtful things and to my young self it must have felt like no one was trying to change it - so I had to.
However, no one wanted to listen to me. So I tried violence. Yet all it did was take me one huge step farther away from my siblings. (And years of restoration and reconciliation once I grew up.)
Shocked by my own behavior and realizing that I could not change what existed in a place called home - I think I began to 'give up' on 'taking care' of things that day. Yet following the principle that where there is a void something will fill the space - calm and reliable 'Ee-Roy' stepped in. She would have only been 9-10; becoming a mentor to five younger siblings and an older one.
Wrapping it Up
So here I was last week having 'conversations' in my head when this memory bobs to the surface like an old fashioned red-and-white fishing bobber, and it all began to make sense: the Appreciation Board and Share Appreciation cards - they are simply tools on a journey - along a Path that was designed for me long before I could wonder what 'purpose' meant. Perhaps Angels whispered in my ear, before I arrived X years ago, a message that impressed my spirit with the feeling: words matter.
Where ever this Path takes me, here is one thing I will promise you - I will not act with any violence, minor or otherwise, to get a message across. Those days are done. :-)
*except if my husband really irritates me, can I place him in a choke hold???? ;-)
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