It was a particular brutal time in the work I was doing with a therapist. I was at a point where I was sharing for the first time with someone the gorier details of the abuse of my childhood. She was telling me I needed to find a way to forgive, which was like someone telling me I must climb Everest. I’d have these intense flash backs of the abuse. I would take each painful memory out, like a curio, examine it as if seeing it with new eyes. Somehow I was coming to terms, that even at her worst, my mother was no monster. She was someone who was insufficient as a parent, and who never held herself accountable for her actions, but at the core, the true tragedy is that she was doing the best she could with what she had. And the more I look at how little she had, the more I can forgive and let go.
And if she is not a monster, then I am not her victim. Correction, I am not a victim. Full stop.
But my identity, that little girl who got hurt, is bound up in being a victim, and it takes a lot of unraveling to build a whole new identity.
Oh man, anyone remember the silly sock chain letter thing? Where you had to buy a bunch of socks and mail them to the person at the top of the list, then move the next person in line up to the top and add yourself to the bottom... I don't remember the details, but I do remember my mom buying a whole bunch of socks and then mailing them, and then me patiently waiting for my cool socks to arrive. They never did though. I'd still like to get seven cool socks in the mail. Sigh.
It’s another of those personal narratives where I am, as usual, the victim of both the world and my mom’s insufficiencies. I remember thinking after posting that and after being told, very kindly by my therapist that it is now my job to take responsibility for my happiness: “I should buy some socks.” But I didn’t. I even went to the store to get the damn things, and I stared at the rack of silly socks - none of them practical – and talked myself out of getting any, and walked away.
So it was at a point where I was particularly seeking a redemption that I wasn’t yet ready to bestow upon myself that I came home to the largest amount of mail I’d ever received in my life. In some freak situation of postal fates colliding, I pulled up in front of my house to see that not just my 4o pound potting bench from Costco, but also two separate orders of books (one from Amazon, the other from a used book seller) had also arrived. The box with the potting bench was leaning against the door, and my mailbox was so crammed that the box itself nearly fell off as I struggled to unjam the books from it. I wondered “how is it possible that all three orders, ordered at different times and from different places, all arrived on the same day?” But wait, there was more in the mailbox… there was something from Wombat… and something from North Carolina.
I think the possibility of what it could be washed over me before I actually opened the packages.
Wombat sent Pug socks (of course!), along with something personal I promised to keep secret.
Well I know only one person in North Carolina, and though it was unsigned I know it was JL who sent the blue argyle socks with this note:
Remember when you mailed a bunch of socks to Random Strangers in the hope of getting some cool socks in return?
Well… sorry they’re so late…
I stood there in the middle of the living room, knowing something profound had occurred. I cried fat, joyful tears. I am not a victim of my past. I am not a victim of a sock-based pyramid scheme. I am just a lady in the middle of a country, doing the best she can.
The next day came another package, this one from Asherdan:
“Sooner or later, everyone deserves some socks in the post.
P.S. I figured they should be nice and loud just in case you ever pull a header into a drift and an animal thieves your boots.”
The ones Ash sent are red and yellow. I must admit I smelled them, half expecting a mild odour of hay and hoss manure, because, well, that’s what I imagine everything Ash touches smells like.
All I can say is that it’s pretty damn hard to keep imagining you guys as imaginary when you choose to prove yourself actual in such a concrete way.
Those socks arriving were a turning point. In the middle of my grieving, it was a sign post that I’m going to be okay, that the universe it not out to get me, and that sometimes, if you wait long enough, things do come back around, when you’re ready to accept the lesson and find the deeper meaning. It has been a summer marked by intense internal change. Those closest to me have noticed a shift in who I am. I have felt... well I suppose I have begun and made major progress toward healing. My anger is melting away, I am forgiving, which is hard but possible.
Thanks for giving me a moment of true joy guys. You. Are. Rad.
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