The Sandbox Writing Challenge #18 – Lost and Found

12/16/15

Sometimes Lady Calen reminds me of Gandalf, or Yoda, a master who hands us a riddle, leaving us wondering, what now? Of course we know she takes her cues from Roberta Allen. So we shall not shoot this most wonderful messenger. Instead, we’ll “dig in” as she says, the words echoing to us from Impromptu Promptlings. This is the Eighteenth Sandbox Writing Challenge.  It is called, “Please have a seat…”

PROMPT: Imagine someone important to you sitting in this chair. What would you say to this person that you’ve NEVER SAID before?

WARNING: LONG WINDED post

A Chair. Like “The Empty Chair.” But that’s another whole story (by Jeffrey Deaver, in fact). I was picturing a different kind of chair when Calen described what it looked like. Now I see it’s an Adirondack chair. Well, that’s cool.

Walking over, I sit down in it, as I also stand back and watch. I, the sitter, shrink down, as if I’ve become smaller. I’m child size.

Here is something interesting. I look like the Child of Water from my Gaian Tarot deck (by Joanna Powell Colbert):

I know why. I’ve come to see her as myself, when I was small, about her age, when she was banished from the Kingdom of Fim. It wasn’t called that then, but that was a very long time ago, and she’s been missing all these years.

I came to see her as representative of that part of me, that wee me, because when a person banishes a part of themself, they cease, in a major way, to exist. Now I didn’t consciously know this until sometime last year, which was probably 55 to 60 years post banishment. But, as the saying goes, it’s better late than never.

I found this out from a Tarot reading I did for myself. I was doing a reading every morning, last year. There were a rash of readings which kept bringing up the AWAKENING card. This is known in traditional decks as The Major Arcana #20, The Judgement card. I mean this card was dogging me. And it was one of those cards that I often don’t quite get it when I see it. Seriously, folks, I don’t get the concept of judgment. Though, I’m sure a part of me got it.

Well, one morning, the Child of Water showed up in the spread along with the Awakening card. And I got slammed by the actual meaning of it all. I got Maxwell Hammered over the head because that’s exactly what I need to get the message sometimes.

That left me in a weepy heap on the floor, with the realization that The Child of Water represented, and has since become known to me as “Little Girl Lost.” What that translates to is realizing what I’ve done, all these years, to myself. I banished that part of me which I hated. I hated being her because I did not want to be in this body. I didn’t want to be in this body because I felt that it was the source of grief. Maybe, I even knew then, the grief which would be brought to me through this body, that I’d find myself a victim, and while it certainly was true through too much of my life, the abuse would quite often be at my own hand as at the hands of others who would care not for what they’ve done. But the victim often blames themself for it all, and that is just as much, if not more, an abuse as everything else.

Thus, there she sits, Little Girl Lost, innocent, and unaware of her own incarcertion.

There are no explantions for what I did. However, with the knowledge of what I did to her, I can only say, I am truly sorry. The words will mean little, unless I take action in the form of restitution.

I’ll let you know how that goes sometime down the line.

Post Script:

I might have put someone else in that chair, but I would not be able to forgive another, unless I am willing and able to forgive myself, first. I see it as akin to not being able to honestly love others if you cannot truly love yourself.