I don’t want you to forget me…

Tug. Tug. Tug.

The pull on the heartstrings is so palpable.

“Wait a minute. I’ll be right there. In another hour…I mean day…I mean tomorrow at noon…There. That’s it. Can you wait til then? That’s when we can play again. Promise.”

I felt her frown, deeply.

“But …but…I can’t wait that long, ” she said with tears streaming down her face..the silent kind…the kind you can hear and feel but perhaps dont see.

She’d become an expert at hiding her pain.

“What do you mean?” I challenged her. “You don’t exist without me. So what do you mean you can’t wait that long?” (I tried to convince myself that her pulls weren’t so important at that moment, that ‘other’ things were surely more pressing, that she could wait. Again. And perhaps even longer than I posited).

She responded boldly: ‘You keep. making. me. wait. You never have time for me anymore.’

I grew impatient.

Couldn’t she see I was working on that very important thing and didn’t wish to be bothered, let alone interrupted?

“Oh hush you, ” I responded.  “I’ve told you…I don’t have all the time I once did. We need to schedule our playtimes from here on out. Besides, you’re stronger now, more aware, courageous, surely more secure, wouldn’t you agree?”

Her blank stared darted straight through me. She could see through my cold uncompassionate response.

I could feel myself pushing her off.

And she sensed this.

She knew well that I knew the strength, courage, brevity, awareness were jointly held assets not belonging to just her. She knew well that we’d developed them….together. And more, she totally understood we were a team, inspite of my yearnings to go off on my own.

Yet, she cowered a bit in response to me.

“But..but I still need you….And…and…I don’t want you to forget me….”

Wow.

Her words startled me enough to pause what I was doing and listen….intently. (But who was I kidding, right? It was only a matter of time before I’d faced what I’d felt all along…that the little girl within was in need of deep nurturing…still….deep presence…still…a gentle promise that I would be there for her, indefinitely. So why was I squirming inside? Probably because of wanting to reassure her I hadn’t left her, ever, and wouldn’t…while knowing full well I somewhat had…..I mean, I was a grown adult right? So why was I having to hug this part of me within?)I paused. And I turned to her. And she was still somewhat cowering.

She continued….”There’s still so much more I need to learn to do, but you keep moving forward leaving me behind. I’m beginning to feel like I can’t reach you anymore. I mean fine. So we found housing. And fine. So we’re doing a biggie schedule now and fine we are evolving a work. But all that is the stuff. And I’m of the heart. And you are too. And I just don’t want you to forget that. Or me.”

And I am just whining like this because I want you to know I still need you….I’ll always still need you….and I am not really all that hip on you just moving on to the seeming more important things of life and leaving me behind.

I pause.

I reflect on what she’s offered.

She’s got a point.

It has been a while since I scooped her up and rocked her steady and held her heart and hugged her close only to realize that our hearts are one.

This child within, this now brave girl hasn’t always been so. Nope. Not even close. She often cried and squirmed and fretted and feared. She often gazed at the day like it was some big unknown and she didn’t know how to make it make sense.

For several months in a row (which probably turned into years) she clung to that survival mode….that mode of ‘be functional only. do the to do list. get set. get settled.”

She was fine when we lived at extended stay hotels calling them our housing …for now. Always emphasizing for now. She didn’t need reassurance as such though and reminded me several times.

“I’m okay here,” she’d confide.

How do you mean I’d ask.

“Meaning, this is so much simpler. There’s already furnishings and wifi and everything is clean and neat and the space is small and cozy, like a hug. This feels more at home than the other places. Let’s stay here a while. Plus there’s free coffee in the morning. And you like the taste.”

She had a point.

🙂

Indeed, I’d try to convince her that we were staying there “just for now” though just for now turned into 3 months in one motel and 4 in another and all of that after several short term stays and other subleases.

She actually liked the fact that this Extended Stay nook came with a private entry where walking through the lobby wasn’t a have to every time she emerged from her car to retreat to the room.

Yet she wasn’t per se missing Extended Stay in this now tug.

She was wanting a hug. And more. She was wanting me to not forget her or neglect her or leave her off to the side as if she was just a project that I’d completed and from which I felt ready to move on.

Indeed the part of me that always feels like a child within offered gentle reminders:

~ Take stock of where you were and where you’ve come.

~ Be fully aware that each decision, each moment mattered so much.

~ Be even more clear that she held me just as much as it seems like I held her.

And that now, per her reminding, we were holding each other once again.