The tone is incredulous. Brows pinch like the corseted life they imagine me in. One person literally shook their head at me. My faux pas so shocking they used their own head and neck to try and shimmy society’s shame off of me.
“You’re going alone?” they query.
This is not once, or twice, or five times. It is a worldview. It is my society.
I understand. I didn’t always see what was happening. I am sure I still don’t see it all. But I do see this.
(Do you know what the real question is? Do you hear it right away? Have you been taught this existence too? Can you translate it?)
““Aren’t you worried you are not capable? Don’t you worry someone will harm you?””
‘Yes. Of course. Aren’t you?’ I want to reply.
They know with precision what kept me home for so many years. Their dismay comes from the idea that I still haven’t learned the lesson. How is that possible? They had me convinced for decades, ages— I was broken. Destroyed and incapable of repairing myself.
Because that is how these things go. You have to heal yourself.
What a feat.
They can still whisper inside my head, notions married the marrow in my bones. Words in places I don’t want to be touched.
““Where exactly did I get the idea I could travel to Iceland alone?””
This is a violation they feel is their duty to inflict.
““Don’t I remember what happened before?””
Not only do I remember— I know. I had to fix myself before I was myself. Both ends simultaneous: Build/ Repair.
I hadn’t even left home. I don’t mean at eighteen— off to make a life. I mean I was hurt at home before I could ever leave— Hurt at home by someone who was only there to keep me safe, not because I was too young to leave, because I was too young to leave alone.
Since then I knew I would have to decipher who was going to harm me and who would let me exist and wander the world.
I am still learning, and I know things I wish I didn’t, but the most important to me? I am capable.
I am not ruined, this culture is.
It is this dead dust I walk on, those walking around me who taught me I was less than. They told me I was unworthy because of who I allowed myself to become: a victim. This ranking is what we call culture here, no common thread other than a faux hierarchy. No national soul to speak of, so we crush any sign of one in a person.
It is all a waste.
(There are times past-me would have spat in my face for saying this… and so I only speak for the me of now, for this tiny moment— I may not be able to stand behind these words forever, maybe not even tomorrow…) But the worst of everything that happened to me is all the time I gave away thinking about all that happened to me. That’s what I feel I messed up. That is how I played my assigned part.
I could have been more.
I could have been myself.
Despite them, but I was too scared.
But.
I still can be more if I can get the bindings off of me.
I cannot let the notion that something else bad might happen to me stop me from living what is left of my life.
What if I choke on dinner, what if my body is strewn with cancer but I just don’t yet know it? Those days happen too.
—Are you going to eat? Have you fasted for your lab work yet? Do you need anything? Do you have care arranged for your children should something happen to you?
I didn’t put any quotation marks around those questions because no one asked them— not even in their minds, but you knew that. The questions people ask when they wonder their prejudices aloud— they are not asking after my welfare. They are not even asking if I am capable.
Do you know what the real question is? Did you hear it right away? Have you been taught the ways?
““Do you have the audacity?””
This is what they want to know. For if I do, if I dare, then come what may. It doesn’t matter how I return. I will be marked.
Better for them if I do return broken. It would serve to prove their point— then I could be an example.
Never them mind what happened when I didn’t leave home… left to deal with it all alone.
I understand more than most, I am damned if I do and if I don’t.
I’m being gentle, it is morning here. Let us not fight. But I needed to say that I see it. There is a collective swirling around that says I have no business traveling alone and working on something, anything apart from a family.
The contract states: All offers shall become null and void if I bring myself any harm. As ingrained in me as I was announced “girl” it is understood all fault of any harm is not on the perpetrator but on me. In addition, as was thoroughly explained with the statement, “but you’re pretty” any harm will be doubly my fault. (Maybe triple— what was I wearing?) Further, all rights, privileges, existence, dreams, and plans herein shall be forfeited, et cetera, et cetera.
This is what we have built and taught people. This is the normal here.
““This isn’t your place. Nowhere is. This isn’t safe for you there (or here)— nowhere is. You are not capable…none of you are.””
““How dare you.””
You see it, right? I am not given a real choice. If I stay, I break and I have spent all the time broken that I will spend.
But if I go maybe, just maybe?? a fractal of this world could break instead.
So I have decided. Starting now I will keep track, and each and every time I get such a question, chalk it up, that’s a trip.
Off l go.
Yes, Alone.
Until it becomes a pointless question I will do my part to make it pointless.
I have the audacity.
"If I stay, I break and I have spent all the time broken that I will spend."
Yesssss, let's gooooo! Head shakers tend to forget they can break too. Specifically, I'm thinking: kneecaps.