I Am The Room

Learning To Stay With Me.

The room became smaller and smaller after my brother was hit by a car, while riding his bike the summer of 1977.

Before it happened….it seemed…..there was all sorts of room for me. My big laugh was a welcome reprieve from the financial stressors my family was under. My light was celebrated and made bigger by being witnessed. My joy was delighted in and invited in.

After it happened….I didn’t realize I had lost something. My brother was home and recovering, my family back intact. In my young mind, if the room looked the same, with the same people inhabiting it…..then life was back to normal. Yet there was nothing normal about the bomb that had been thrown into our family. A healthy family might have been able to withstand the strain an accident like that puts on a family and mine was anything but healthy before or after. The aftermath applied pressure to a wound that was already bleeding and one that nobody seemed to know how to care for.

The room got smaller and smaller.

Until there was no room for laughter, no room for light and no room for joy.

The very gifts I brought that were once invited in, were now standing outside the door to a Do Not Disturb sign. Too loud. Too opinionated. Too dramatic. They thought they were so cute didn’t they? Who did they think they were coming into the room like that? They always had to be so big…..in fact….who were they pretending to be anyway?!

I spent my childhood trying to fit into that room. Reading the room to get a feeling for the temperature and adjust accordingly. Being who was needed. Getting smaller so the egos in the room didn’t feel challenged. Adapting for survival and connection.

I lived the next few decades in that room metaphorically. Trying to figure out why my personality made my parents feel the way it did. Trying to explain myself. Trying to help them understand themselves so they could hopefully understand me. Trying to be known. Trying to be received. Trying to be trusted enough to be believed in who I am. I adjusted the light. Adjusted the laugh. Adjusted the joy.

Only to be met with….still too bright. Too big. Too much. Who do you think you are?

Left with the lurking feeling that somehow it was all a performance. Who was I anyway and how could I translate it better so they could love me well?

As I have been engaged with another round of understanding myself….I have been collecting all the parts of me and bringing them back home. Parts I hadn’t given much thought to for quite some time. Parts I didn’t fully understand, even when I thought I did.

I stumbled upon my youngest part….there she was playing in the corner. I could tell by watching she has a big imagination and a big internal world. She was over there being big all by herself. It turns out, she had poked her head out after the conflict with my Mom last summer. She was wondering if there was room for her yet. The main parts of me had been so busy trying to get my Mom to understand that they hadn’t noticed her.

But as I continued to do the work….I kept feeling a familiar tug. I began to turn towards the tug…..and as I turned….the parts of me trying to be understood by my parents, turned with me. We all turned towards her…..the little bright light in the corner.

One day, she looked back at me….and I recognized her immediately.

My light.

My laugh.

My joy.

I could FEEL her in my body and I knew immediately it was Sunshine. The nickname she had been given before the room all but disappeared. There she was and as I talked with her and reacquainted…..I met the original version of me.

And I realized…..

I am not a performance.

My laughter is real.

My opinions are real.

My storytelling is real.

My fierceness is real.

My light is real.

My joy is real.

I am exactly as big as I am.

And just like that….the room got bigger. Bigger because I realized, I am the damn room. And in this room there’s plenty of space for Sunshine.

I don’t need to justify her.

I don’t need to explain her.

I don’t need to prove her.
I don’t need her to be understood by them.

She is real and she always has been. She was just in the wrong room and had been locked in there for a very long time. That room wasn’t big enough for her light or her love.

Yesterday was my 54th birthday and there was a homecoming for Sunshine.

It turns out the wise woman she had been looking for was looking back at me.

The voice that had told me I would be okay all those times….was my own.

Sunshine was no longer waiting for someone to arrive.

I have arrived.