aspen-matis

It was suddenly Technicolor clear: the only thing holding me from giving myself vision this entire time had actually simply been me.I saw how in the fall and winter of my childhood, I'd walked through the golden aspens. And then I simply committed and gave myself my own eyes.I had once again proven that again alone, I was again enough.

It was heartbreaking to realize how we can fail the people we most love without even trying.

She had wanted me to hold rape inside me like a dark pearl, keep it in there, as it grew, as I grew cramped, as it overtook me as hidden things do. Secrets become lies. I'd carried in every step I took this lie, the shame of it.

I__ so drunk,_ I said through the bathroom door, though it wasn__ true. I__ declared it to him in my anxiety to take pressure and responsibility off of myself for what I wanted to do next. I had already decided I at least wanted to kiss him, be held. Yet my desire surprised me. I felt the weight of shame not only on rape now, but on sex too. I was confused by it. I felt unready to hold myself responsible for the decision if I slept with him.

Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably _ this name that I__ been given at birth that defined me before I__ had the chance to define myself.

I didn__ know what I would do. There was no way I could survive. I stared at my damp tent ceiling, feeling the frigid air against me, the frozen ground against my bottom, so cold my bare skin burned. I needed to get to the next trail-town, Mammoth Lakes. There was no one here to save me now.

I was beginning to feel compassion for myself.

I had stripped naked in front of men. Drunk. In morning__ somber brightness I tried to remember why I had done it. Total exposure had seemed like the only way to be seen more clearly, heard, but now it seemed the opposite: a wild act that would define me.

The small word, __o._ I__ see its deity.

In the aftermath of destruction, a silence settles _ the stillness of fresh loss. People__ cheerful chatter is fainter, the blue color of sky dimmer; now that horror is undeniable and feels inescapable, the value of life seems lessened.

The entire time, he__ only ever looked at my body, never at my face, his empty eyes hungry, never seeing me at all. I wasn__ the presence of a person, but a body. I could have said anything, he wouldn__ have heard me. He__ never responded, not by stopping, not with his words.

I needed to begin respecting my own body__ boundaries. I had to draw clear lines. Ones that were sound in my mind and therefore impermeable, and would always, no matter where I walked, protect me. Moving forward, I wanted rules.

It took me almost two thousand miles in the woods to see I had to do some hard work that wasn__ simply walking__hat I needed to begin respecting my own body__ boundaries. I had to draw clear lines. Ones that were sound in my mind and therefore impermeable, and would always, no matter where I walked, protect me. Moving forward, I wanted rules.First__hen I felt unsafe I__ leave, immediately. The first time, not the tenth time. Not after a hundred red flags smacked in wind violently, clear as trail signs pointing the way to SNAKES. Not after I__ been bitten__he violation. If I wasn__ interested, I would reject the man blatantly.

I'd have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threads like a Taser gun. I'd stun them. They'd bow to me. I'd let my no echo against the mountains.And better to feel bad for a moment saying no__nd stop it__han to get harmed.I would take better care.That small word, no. I'd see its deity.

She__ taken care of me in all the ways my body needed, but the devastation of my rape had made me feel the weight of the essential way she had neglected me: she hadn__ nurtured the potential of my strong and healthy independence.

It was my first lesson in the fragility of attraction.

I was desperate not to confront the fact that this really could be it__hat "nineteen" didn't matter, that there really was a point at which even young bodies fail. I was not immortal.

My relationship with my mother trapped me in the identity of a child.