Did you have a happy childhood? This is a question that many a teacher, counsellor, coach, mentor or even co-worker may have asked you and to be honest, it never really affected me until I entered my 50s. I suppose it is the age of reckoning or midlife crossroads (I dislike the word “crisis”) where you take stock of your past in order to dissect or understand who you are here and now, either way it got me thinking and sent me down a rabbit hole of sorts.
I am an only child born to very protective parents and we moved around quite a bit due to the nature of my father’s job, a life journey that began even before I was even three years old. On the surface it sounds exciting and fun but the reality of the matter is that it meant a life of solitude, with no sibling to talk to or share my troubles with. It was either the cat, dog or my dolls, but the number of times I was allowed to play with unadulterated childhood glee in the afternoons with other children was extremely limited. In fact, I can pinpoint it to the four years we lived in a company compound in Kenya. The subsequent years were traumatic cycles of starting over in new schools, to some extent learning a new language, and always on my own. The other expat children in my schools always had siblings to lean on and it spelled a world of difference especially if you were the new kid on the block.
From the moment I stepped into Elementary and all the way through High School, life consisted on home, school, extra curricular activities (dance, tennis, art classes), and what little down time I had was spent alone in my room doing homework. Summers were for home leaves, interspersed with the years I spent entire summers in the hospital for reconstructive surgeries. This only compounded the issue because I was instructed to grin and bear the pain. No crying or wailing, and certainly no going out in public until everything had healed. There was a greater reason for my silence but that is a story for another time.
Children who grew up in the age of cell phones and internet will never understand this form of isolation, but I can confirm that it has left an indelible mark on my soul. It wasn’t until Middle School that I learned to share my thoughts and feelings with a friend, to understand that it was OK to share these things with them other than homework and a sandwich, and because all my friends came from larger families, they thought it was strange of me to be so hesitant to divulge my private life. Nevertheless, the concept of asking for help or advice was inconceivable to me until the last two years of High School, and by then I had finally figured out the concept of support systems and finding solace outside the four walls of my room.
Now that I am on the wrong side of 50, I still struggle with the concept of having others help you solve a problem. I will agonise a million times over before I ask for help on something. The idea of having to solve everything on my own is so deep-seeded that I don’t know if I will ever overcome the fear of rejection. Sure, I grew up as a typical expat child with great social skills and public relations, but the wall that surrounded my private sphere remained conspicuously locked up. Vulnerability was never to be exposed, as both my parents ingrained in me, so as far as the world was concerned all was just peachy with me, as proven by my grades, achievements, and to some extent, resilience.
However, if there is one thing my soul tribe has taught me over the years is that in order for them to be the friends I needed them to be, I had to learn to let them in and show them even a sliver of my vulnerability, and this was more terrifying than. The reason they are my friends and soul tribe after all is because they are individually and collectively a safe place to fall apart. At the core of being I know that I have a lot of people in my corner that I can turn to when caught between a rock and a hard place, but none of us are mind readers, no matter how well you know a person, so nobody can help if I don’t open my mouth. This is the curse of the only child, keeping everything bottled up inside, and you tend to open up only when you are on the verge of a precipice.
While we are on the subject, one has to keep in mind that your friends are not your therapists, and conversely, your therapist is not your friend. They each have their own role to play in our life, one heals and the other sustains. Please take a moment to look at the two photographs I have included with this entry. What we share with the public is just the tip of the mountain and the rest is shrouded in mystery – unless of course you are the type of person that divulges everything on social media every minute of the day. So to really get a sense of what the mountain consists of, you sometimes need to wait for the clouds to disperse and let the sunshine in, or even the rain.
Back to my initial question – did I have a happy childhood? No. But I don’t allow that to define me anymore.
FrogDiva Thoughts 