Voice of the Throw Away's

Life can certainly be full of interesting turns of events at times.

When I was a kid I didn't dream of a future for myself. It seemed like a waste of time. I never thought I would have one and if I did it would not amount to anything anyway, so I just did not dream. Partly because when I did someone was always right behind me shattering them. It was better to not wish or dream so when things did not come true I would not know what I was missing. I was what is known as a 'throw away kid.' The ones that no one had any hope for or wanted, the ones that people never even really saw as human. We were simply useless vessels using up some of their precious O2.
We are the ones whose job it is to absorb all of the evil and bitterness in people so the 'good' people don't get jaded by the malevolence of human nature. It's like we get singled out before we are even born to be the ones to sacrifices at any and all costs. So we do, do we know better? Maybe. When we are young no we don't, we just continue to take it knowing nothing different. We pray to be seen by someone, ANYONE, but we always just get looked over or straight through. We do what we need to do to just survive anyway we can. In our own silent hell we can't figure out what we did wrong or what we need to do to be loved, accepted, or just be noticed for something other than what everyone sees on the outside. It never happens. We continue to just flicker in and out of sight. We hide in the shadows but scream in the dark.
They don't bother trying to educate us because God forbid we learn there might be something better out there. Oh no, of course not. They don't want us to take those positions that are deemed to have worth because that would be taking something away from all the 'good' people in the world. Why would anyone want a throw away kid right? No they want us to continue to soak it up and be the whipping posts, the violence takers and whatever else. After all we are good at it. We can take it; it does not hurt us anymore. If it happened to one of the 'good ones' it would shatter their world to a million pieces and who knows if they would come back from it. Us, we always do, maybe a little more numb, or separated from ourselves then before, but we come back.
I had a conversation the other day from someone from my past. She came into my life at that critical time where my hope was waning fast. She is someone that does not understand the throw away kid aspect of life. She has never experienced it. She is an idealist that wants to save all kids. She wants to be the intercessor in the lives of kids like I was. In our many conversations she has asked me what it was I needed or wanted at that time. She asked me again the other day.
I had the answer in my head but could not get it out of my mouth without bursting into tears. I wanted to be saved. To be rescued from my own private hell. I wanted someone to reach out their hand to me and tell me it would all be OK. I wanted and needed to feel worth that next breath of air or the space my little bruised body took up on this earth. All those people who said they wanted to take me home with them and make things right, I never showed it but I wanted them to do it. To help me salvage anything that was laudable. I wanted to be Peter Pan; I wanted to be taken to Never Never Land. Where all is good and nothing bad happened to us and our worst fear would be of Captain Hook and Smeety. Where we could fly by just thinking happy thoughts. Where every kid there are ones no one wants and that is what makes them all equal. Or be the kid Mary Poppins came to help. Where we could jump into a chalk picture on the sidewalk and run in a horse race with horses off a merry go round. Or go to a friend's house and laugh so hard you floated up to the ceiling and had to think of something sad to come back down, dancing and singing on roofs with chimney sweeps, or where going to fly a kite solved all that ailed a young soul. Those are the kind of wishes you only get once in a life time. I either used mine too soon or too late. I should have saved it for a couple of years later. It was then my light was snuffed out, almost permanently. I was really a loss cause after that.
Interestingly enough this person from my past she reading something's to me that was not pleasant to hear. Frankly I still think I only heard half of it. I know I did not get the emotional impact I was suppose to get from it I did try though, I was afraid to feel the words she was reading like I know I should have, that I know I need to so I can put it on the table and walk away from it and be able to share my story with anyone it will help. I did not even remember some of what she read. Oh I remembered the events but not the emotions. I took some Benadryl before hand to try and keep myself calm so I would not shake or what have you, (it worked she commented that I seemed so calm) I would not take my sunglasses off, and was more worried about her then I was myself, I was afraid of her reaction to it all. The worse part of it is that think I may actually need to hear it one more time for the full impact to resonate with me to hear the emotions that child wrote about the one that seems so far away from now. I guess it would have to be without shades or hair in the way. However, sometimes things are beyond being able to ask for twice. Even if you do the guilt of asking never goes away. You always feel guilty for asking anything like it's a burden. So you just don't ask again. For many there are dates or times of the year that are more difficult than others. Where the events of life leave you feeling raw and exposed and most vulnerable. It could be a month, or a day on a month that has substantial memories attached to them, anniversaries of sorts. Maybe this year it could be my release day? Ah who am kidding, don't ever be an inconvenience to someone by asking for something more than once. That is the limit. So I blew that one too. So I won't be asking for that help again. Over and done with right? If you miss the opportunity the first time don't expect or ask for it to come around again. At least that is what I was taught.
See that is the mentality that never goes away no matter how old we 'throw away kids' get. We feel guilt if we involve anyone in our worlds. In the murk and mire or even joys and successes of it, even if it is to maybe help provide knowledge to those that might be able to change things for other 'throw aways.' That guilt never goes away. We always feel like we are a perpetual burden on everyone around us. We do our best to smile and just say everything is fine. Let me define what FINE means in the mind of throw away's. FINE = we are handling it. Don't get too close or I'll break, if I smile and say it enough maybe they will even believe that there is nothing wrong with us. It means we are screaming so loud inside and are shocked no one on the outside can't hear it. It's a way of saying things are a mess but we can't tell you or we will get in trouble, it means look deeper please don't give up. It means hug us, tell us we will be fine, don't let our defenses stop you if we crumble just don't tell anyone or think worse of us for it. However, we also know that is exactly what happens. They hear fine and assume it is true. So they walk away satisfied feeling like they had performed their duty of charity at least asking a question to the throw away. They are grateful as they walk away that part of their day is over, now they can focus on those kids who are not a waste of oxygen.
Eventually we throw aways grow up and become adults. Sometimes we turn out OK other times we don't. Even if we do we never lose that mentality of the world taking everything they can from us and giving nothing in return. My motto has always been if I lived off of other peoples love I would have been dead by 5 years old. You do what you need to do for yourself. That has its own issue because then people think you are selfish, when the opposite is true. I don't know what it would take to overcome that mentality but I know have tried and will continue to do so. I don't give up easy. It just gets tiring when around every corner is a reminder of just how worthless we really are. That 'throw away' status is a hard one to shake.
I remember reading a scientific study once that said that infants and children can actually die from lack of human touch and affection, that their brain actually stops growing. I think I was in middle school at the time. I remember thinking that can't be true because I was alive. My brain had not shrunk. Then I realized it did not only say affection. It just said human touch and stimulation. Well, being that it did not define the kind of touch, I figured my brain must be huge. I got touched all the time. Violence is touch, slapping, hitting that is all touching. I could not figure out why my brain was not getting so big it would blow apart my skull. Irrational thoughts from a kid.
When we get thrown back into roles we held as a child, where the responsibility is ours to shoulder. Where we are the caretakers of everyone else's emotions of physical well being, we step up to take it when no one else does. We do what we do not as martyrs but as the sacrifices we were ordained to be. The ironic thing is we love harder and deeper than most ever will. Even those that hurt us we don't give up hearing those words. When they need us for something that is where we find our worth. What most don't know is how lonely this actually is. People think it is so noble to take care of someone older. Noble? I am not sure about, it's lonely and isolating. We do it because we have to. Because we love the people we care for at all costs no matter what they have done or continue to do to us. Why we still love… Maybe because we have to. Like we feel that if we stop loving them that it will permanently close the door for the return to come our way. Like we have that power in our hands to make them love us. Even though we know it is a futile adventure.
Even if after you serve what is wanted for dinner and get it thrown in your face. Even if after your best friend betrays you on such a level that forgiveness can't get past the deep sting of infidelity of spilled secrets and the old record of pain that continuously plays in our head. That friend that has always been our sanctuary in times of tribulation, that place where tears are OK, feelings are understood and comfort is given. Where a hug or being held by that friend as you weep is not seen as threatening to the one shedding the tears. The one that tells you it will be ok soon enough. The one that you don't feel like a needy, clingy freak around when you need to talk. When that confidence in the friendship is broken it should not come as a surprise but it always does. All you can do is ask yourself what you did wrong for that to happen. You want to apologize to the person even if you did nothing wrong just to get back what you had; but you don't because you can't bow to it again.
That is when you look around to try and take a new inventory and realize that once again you are totally on your own. Even at this point in life it is second nature. However, you try not to allow yourself to fall into those old thought patterns of not shutting everyone out, and our trying to make new friends and let them into what pains our heart, but when you go up to the roof and get a glimpse at the big picture what you see is a dry and barren land where there is no oasis in sight, no trees to offer shade from the storms, or arms to hold you to tell you that things will be OK again.
So you polish the tears from your blurry eyes, clean up the tomato sauce mess, go back and make something else and hope that this one won't illicit the same response as before. You try not to feel all those things that the words and phrases of 'how can you be so stupid' when will you ever learn' you have always been a screw up' when will you ever do anything right' bring up from old. You try not to hear them and if you do you try and steel yourself to not feel the burning hot knife that just cut you apart from stem to sternum and left you bleeding inside. You try not to let them get to you, but get to you they do. Yet, we continue to try to love, give and lay ourselves out for anyone and everyone to persist in walking all over you but when asked your response it is always fine, that is what is safe.
You put your head down on the pillow and cry a little harder and relive the emotions and thoughts of the little child inside you that had to grow up so fast she never had a childhood to even speak of. The one with the wishes I could not express to my friend the other day when she asked me what I wanted or needed then. That I wanted to be saved. To be rescued from my own private hell. I wanted someone to reach out their hand to me and tell me it would all be OK. I wanted and needed to feel worth that next breath of air or the space my little bruised body took up on this earth.
Yet, now as an adult you realize just how stupid it is to even think that much less want or need it.
And still…. We continue to love even the ones who hurt us in hopes of someone making the trip to Never Never Land or popping through that chalk picture on the sidewalk and rescuing us from the throw aways. You learn that hope does not spring eternal, and friendships are conditional and superficial and never meant to be two ways streets.
So we stop crying because it does nothing to help.
This is the voice of throw away kids. Monotone, numb, scared, fearless, lonely, and searching for that person to start the rescue mission they can only convey through their eyes.

Oh well, more rabbit tale wonderings.