Thanksgiving

The house of my childhood
was not a place where I felt
seen
nurtured
held
appreciated for who I was
It was full of the cognitive dissonance
of everyone else’s reassurance:
“Your family is amazing and perfect”
making it all the harder to see
the rotten truth surrounding me

Last Friday morning, I volunteered to drive
some kids to a chorus event
out in the burbs
coincidentally, the slice of geography
where I’d spent my childhood.
After dropping them off,
my hands instinctively knew
exactly where to go,
turning the steering wheel towards
my high school
Heart swelling, palms sweaty as I pulled up
a nervous excitement took over
Each cell of my Body
reminding me of what
my Brain had long forgotten:
I. was. safe. here.

I absolutely loved school, and it loved me back
Twenty years later,
we had both changed quite a bit
But my body remembered:
You. are. safe. here.

After a brief visit with
my tenth-grade-teacher-turned-principal
I fell apart the moment I reached my car
The grief and the gratitude
wound up, bound up together
Gratitude for this haven
for the teachers who nurtured me
Grief for the home that should have been
Grief for my parents,
the ones whose duty it was
to take care of me, keep me safe

Sitting in the visitor’s parking spot
I called my old teacher
the one who insists I now call by her first name.
”How are you doing?” she says
Even though I said “OK”
She sensed the crack in my voice
”You don’t sound OK to me, sweetie”

And the tears they came
for the parents I didn’t have
the ones who could have
held space for my pain
instead of telling me to look for the positive

the ones who could have
built something real
instead of a family’s facade

the ones who could have
listened and believed me
instead of gaslighting me

the ones who could have
centered my pain
above their own

Why couldn’t I have had a parent like that?

So on this day of Thanks
I carry the lightness and the burden of freedom

even through all the pain, all the aftermath
through the grief I carry
over the parents I never had
and the ones I did have,
absent from my table
absent from my life today
I am so fucking glad I escaped.