The Story of Geoff: Ch. 3

                                            Chapter 3: What Went Wrong?


I was a wonderful child, according to my parents, who beam from ear to ear when reminiscing of my earliest years.

My mother says I never argued back with her, and she found that odd but pleasant.

I recall my dad spanking me once when I was eight, and I had a belt on that was hard to untie, and I had to help him untie it.

"Hold on Dad, let me get it. I did this knot thing since it's too big for me. Just a sec - almost ready. Okay you can spank me now."

And my dad gave me the weakest spanking ever that night.

My sister's spanking must have been harder because I remember her screaming bloody murder as I started walking up the stairs without so much as a tear in my eye.

My parents really marveled in me as a child. They didn't know I was being picked on at school or molested by a babysitter next door. Things that happen to lots of little girls, I suppose. And that by the age of 11 I'd become rebellious and sneak out to middle school dances since I wasn't allowed to go, and a few years after that I'd start throwing up my food, and shortly after that, I'd start smoking cigarettes and experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

Such is the epidemic of modern society's treatment of little girls. We let society molest them, even when they don't get raped.

They are stripped of their innocence. They are robbed of their simply put words and thoughts and views of the world, simply by having to grow up in it.

Today I sit around and my eyes water like a leaky faucet. What went wrong? I ask myself. Everything, God whispers back. It's like the earthquake in my life that pulled everything apart, so I need to rebuild from scratch. But I don't know where to begin, and I'm still picking up all the pieces, and it's so exhausting. The pieces of my brokenness. I don't know where this part goes. Or that. Much of it is reduced to ash. Nothingness. Irredeemable burnt up dust. I must start new. A new me. All over again.

My lawyer calls and says it will take five years before I can see a judge about my case concerning work. So I have another eternity to wait in potential sadness and misery. Only the prison bars are not some steel bars I can wrap my hands around. They're inwardly projected. I'm a prisoner in my mind. It races. This black hole of sad thoughts. Anxious thoughts. Regrets. What ifs. Where is he. Will he come back. Will anyone want me. Will God just take me. What will come of this.

A prisoner in my body. Where panic works its way around like ants, busy building homes and procreating new thoughts to worry about. Panic breeds panic. I have no medication for this, because it would interfere with my seizure medication. I don't drink caffeine. I don't drink alcohol. I sit with my panic and I write as to distract myself. When I stop, the panic returns. I turn on the TV, I cook, I vacuum, I play with the puppies, and then the panic returns. I take my Trazodone at night and go to sleep, only to wake at 3 a.m. and panic some more, and write, and take two more pills and then go back to sleep until morning, and have another day of panic. Panic and sadness and misery and tears.