Eleanor lays me down on the hard packed earth and I close my eyes, seeing the same geometric patterns swirling behind them. When I focused hard enough I could stop their movement, but if I relinquished my control over them I could follow the cobwebs further and further down.
“What is this?” I ask, but before I can hear Eleanor’s response, I can feel my consciousness ripped away from this reality and shot across the galaxy until I am, once again, standing in the void.
“Why?” I shout to no one. “Why am I here? What am I doing?” My back arches as I howl these questions over and over again until it becomes a scream..
This was pointless. All of this was pointless.
There was no saving Eleanor. Everytime I tried, I failed. There was no redemption.
Was this what my existence had succumbed to? Me, alone with myself, in the darkness, becoming one with the Darkness. Was my existence just a shitty, meaningless pile of chaos?
Was I just part of the larger chaos that exists in everything that is alive?
Or is the Darkness asking me to accept that I am nothing?
Throughout my life, there were always those who accepted me for who I was, but there was always a voice, in the background of my consciousness, that would always remind me that I was nothing, that I was not worthy, that I couldn’t be worthy, that I was an unworthy being. Was that the Darkness all along?
When that voice would echo throughout my being, I wouldn’t speak out and I wouldn’t speak against it. Because I would always find truth in what it said.
It was a voice rooted in fear and shame.
Why did you do that?
That was stupid.
You’re stupid.
How could you do this to me?
This last voice was my mother’s. I could see her standing over me, yelling, after she had learned that I had cheated on a math test. The irony in this memory was that seeing it now I saw and heard in her words how my actions were a reflection on her, not me. While there was still shame and while I was still punished, her greatest concern in that moment was about herself and the teacher’s perception of her as a mother.
How could you do this to me?
In part there was a deeper connection in this phrase to a lack of accountability within myself for my own actions. How could I be accountable for what I did if what I did was a reflection on others and not myself.
How could you do this to me?
It was also a reflection on her control over me.
I could see in a distant memory a smaller version of myself throwing a tantrum in a crib. I am crying, thrashing back and forth, and she is there: my mother. She doesn’t pick me up or comfort me. Instead she holds me down. My anger grows, my crying grows louder. I try to thrash harder, but she holds me down, the pressure of her hand growing, until I give in to her will and lay still, exhausted. And then she leaves me alone in the darkness of my childhood room.
There’s a memory echo that follows; one that involves Eleanor. We’re driving home from the hospital. It’s late. Veronica is nauseous from the treatment and Eleanor is beyond tired. I could feel it as I was putting her into her carseat. Her little four-year old body was tight and tense. She wanted mommy, but mommy couldn’t handle Eleanor crawling on top of her at that moment and daddy wasn’t enough.
As soon as we pulled out of the hospital’s parking garage, the crying started; the boo-hoo-hooing growing into wails. It was dark and there was a lot of traffic and my temper was short. Turning onto a side street, I put the car into park, and turned around to Eleanor, yelling, “Do you want us to crash! Because that’s what’s going to happen if you keep crying like a little baby! Stop it. Stop it! Stop it!” But she didn’t stop it, because she was only a little more than a baby. Veronica put a hand on my arm and I shoved the anger down and started to drive again.
How often we echo the generations before us even when we intend not to.
A big part of my mother’s control was religious in nature with fear as a natural catalyst for that sense of control. Growing up in a household where Hell was very real meant a great deal of shame and fear to curb any natural enthusiasm to be rebellious against the rule of church law.
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So much of what was drilled into my head as a child was that I was born of sin and could only be redeemed by a power outside of myself: God. Every Sunday was the constant reminder of that, because we are sinful creatures and Jesus had to die for our sins and every Sunday he would offer a part of himself—his flesh and blood—so that we could be cleansed and saved once again.
At home, I was constantly reminded of how much of my actions were outside of my control. When I did something horrendously wrong, it was the devil’s influence on me. When I did something good, it was because of God’s good grace.
When I would mess up, my parents would remind me, while they spanked me with whatever hard thing that was available—a switch, kitchen utensils, a belt, a coal shovel—that when I sinned, I was giving in to Satan’s influence over me and forgetting that Jesus had died for me and was causing him to die over and over again because of my sin.
I was responsible for my actions, but also not in control due to external forces. But more than that, I was unworthy and constantly reminded of that.
I remember a time when, shortly after learning about the Rapture and the Book of Revelations, I was at a department store with my family and I lost track of them. I wandered aisle by aisle looking for them and I couldn’t find them. The longer I looked, the more I thought about the prophesied end times and that maybe, just maybe, my entire family was raptured except for me, because I was a bad kid. I was a sinner and had done something—I wasn’t sure what—that caused me to not get taken up with the rest of my family.
There was a lot of shame and guilt associated with any mistakes I made. Even with small mistakes, I would chastise myself: slamming the heel of my hand into the side of my head, saying over and over again, “You’re stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could you do that? You’re such a dummy.”
Every time I would mess up, I would also turn inward, examining each micro-step that led to the mistake I made. Over and over again I would replay the situation until I had rewritten reality to fit with my sense of shame over the matter. But I would take those learnings and hold fast to it, building a tight sense of control over anything I could control.
There was a client dinner that I was at, a few years ago, where, as an ice breaker, we were asked: what’s your greatest fear? A woman to my left jumped in first and one by one everyone shared what their greatest fear was. By default, I was the last to go, and it gave me plenty of time to think about what I feared the most. At that point, Veronica wasn’t sick. If she had been, my answer would have been easier. Instead, I thought through everything that made me uncomfortable—roller coasters, flying, dying, losing my mental capacity—and there was a common thread: control. What gave me the greatest sense of fear was a lack of control. As long as I had the tightest grip possible on my destiny I was happy.
But I wasn’t happy.
I had tried to maintain control throughout Veronica’s sickness and death and failed.
I had tried to maintain control over Eleanor’s future and I failed.
I had tried to wrestle control through the fabric of space and time and I failed.
Fear, shame, and control. That was all there was to me. If you stripped away every layer of skin, muscle, sinew and bone what would be left? A spirit of control. And by that nature, a spirit of chaos.
To let go—to surrender control—to someone else or something else was something I could never really do. Even during those times where I’d tell myself that I was letting go, there was always a piece of me that maintained a piece of control.
What would happen if I let go?
This fear is deeply rooted into the fabric of my being. I can see it, having grown like a tree within my center. To truly let go—to truly give up control—I would lose who I am. That’s a big part of the fear. If I let go, would something darker emerge?
But is that all there is to me? Fear, shame, and control? If that is who I am then why am I still existing? Is that truly all that defines me?
Who am I?
Am I what I fear? The shame I feel? The sense of control I hold on to?
If I was defined by that, I would be made of illusion.
Am I what I can hear, touch, taste, see or smell? If so, I’d be defined by the sound, sensation, color, smells, and flavors I was experiencing.
If I am none of these, who am I?
Am I what I can hear? The expansive darkness in the void is quiet, but I can see myself hearing and through that observation I wonder whether I am the observer or the one observing.
As I focus on each of these sensations, I can feel the pull of something deeper; an energy that is reverberating deep within me. Something beyond the self-conscious inquiry of my sense of self, but something that was conscious.
When it emerges, it appears reptilian, serpent-like, and robotic. It slithers into my visual field, its head rotating to observe me and as its body moves, its eyes continue to fix on me.
It saw me and knew me.
“What are you?” I ask.
I am here, I hear it reply. I am within you, above you, and beneath you.
It was there; revealing itself in the serpent and in the earth and dirt beneath me.
It was there; amidst the green grass, the trees swaying in the wind, and in the babbling brook I drank from ages ago.
It was here; amidst the warriors and the maiden, mother, and crone.
It was here: within me, sliding in through my open mouth and nose and settling itself underneath my skin, vibrating and tingling throughout my entire being.
A gentle hand laid upon my chest.
Opening my eyes, I see Eleanor.
I am still there, laying on the hard packed dirt of the domed building. Eleanor’s face glows through an orb of light, the thatched roof behind her forming an earthen crown around her head. My baby was so beautiful.
“Dad,” Eleanor said. “You have to let go.”
Closing my eyes again, I saw what laid beyond, and folded myself within its embrace.