#symphonyodd

Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever feel whole again.  That statement alone suggests that there was a feeling of wholeness to begin with.  Anna is sure that is an impossibility.  To be whole one would need to be complete, lacking in nothing.  Anna lacks much and it took her many years to find out just what it was that was missing.

When she was a young child she had urges to just not even be alive.  What would provoke such a sense of unrest in a child?  How could she even comprehend that there was an option of not even existing.  Shrugging these thoughts off, she realizes that was just who she was.  What would this young child be destined to be?

Anna had seen it all at such a young age; death, abuse in all of its ugly forms, addictions, the spiritual warfare that you weren’t allowed to talk about, love, heart break, fear, abandonment, and the list goes on.

Sure, she’s not the only one to have suffered in her life time.  She simply muses that the position she holds in life now is a complete miracle.  She’s found something to fill that void.  Every now and then a series of events will come along and threaten that security. 

When the security appears to be threatened it takes her back to who she was.  While that security can never really be shaken in and of its self, it really takes Anna some time to regroup and refocus.  She becomes a little shaken up.  Why do we do that to ourselves?  We resort to these comfortable habits of self destruction. 

Today is different though, she is choosing to remember that strength and dignity are her clothing and it makes her smile at the future.

One day her story will be completely revealed.  The beauty of it will be the Scarlet Thread that has been woven into her tapestry.  She is excited for the day to stand back and view this work of art and to see all the different strands of life in many arrays of colors that circumstances will have played to complete this beautiful picture of her life.

That will be the day she will be whole again.

Anna was loaded on a plane alone.  She sat in the plane, on the runway for over an hour due to a scratch on the engine, whatever that means, before it took off.  All she knew was she was alone.  The only person to see her off was one that didn’t hold any affection for her whatsoever. 

She sat next to a pregnant woman who was generous enough to share the window seat from time to time.  Aside from asking the stewardess for a beverage, she rode in silence across the US to a man she was conditioned to fear.    She had no idea what her life would become like once she stepped off that plane.  All she knew was it was supposed to be temporary.  The time line was two weeks tops.

The man that greeted her had aged many years in the four years since she saw him last.  This was her father.  She got off the plane and immediately asked if they could go smoke a cigarette.  Though she was only 13, she had been smoking for three years already.  This bold act was to set the stage and to hold onto some sort of control she never had. 

Collecting her luggage they proceeded to leave the airport.  This is precisely what she remembered about this state.  It was rainy, cloudy, and just the most unhappy of places to be.  Her father was genuinely pleased to have her there.  She was indifferent.  She had no expectations.  He certainly didn’t seem the monster her mother painted him to be

After visiting a few choice relatives, her father took her to his one bedroom apartment in the city.  She called her mother, who was unable to send her off that morning, to let her know she had arrived safely.  Her mother could not get off the phone quick enough.  Anna considered this odd but so were a lot of things in her life.

A couple days later she called her mother, homesick.  Her mom then dropped the bomb she didn’t see coming.  “I think it is best for you if you didn’t come back home.”

“What?  What do you mean?” Anna asked completely confused.

“I want you to stay there with your father.  He’ll keep you, won’t he?  Anna, you can come home if you want to, but if you mouth off even one time, I’ll have no choice but to send you to Center for Youth.”

“You don’t want me…”

Anna has almost a memory that frighten and puzzle others.  That said, the rest of this conversation is missing from her memory.

From a very young age Anna knew she was different.  Not many children her age were aware of their existence.  You simply were alive and life revolved around you.  This wasn’t so for Anna.  She was already aware of her very breath of life.  She considered what it would be like to simply not be. At this point, there was not provocation to bring her to such levels.  There was just an emptiness that consumed her. 

She would get these waves of dread that would wash over her, nauseating her.  It would come out of nowhere, without a trigger, at least not one that she could pin point now in retrospect.  Those waves of overwhelming feelings have haunted her whole life.  These days, one would call it anxiety, restlessness… but at five years old? 

As she continued to grow, the feelings started to wan some.  It made no sense.  The more order in her life, the worse the feelings were.  Her life began falling apart as she watched her once very composed family crumble.  You know the kind, her father the ordained minister and her mother the beautiful composer who guess sang on Robert Tilton and Jimmy Swaggert services.  Somehow all of that had been replaced with addictions to Methamphetamine or “crank”. 

She watched her mother and father snort everything up their noses.  Meanwhile, hosting party after party where strange people came in and thought nothing of shooting heroin in front of the hostesses’ daughter.  Anna looked on with curiosity as this one man named Kip chased veins in his arms, pass out on the couch and grind his teeth heavily as he was in his stupor.

Anna was not aware of the right or wrong here.  She only knew the love she had for her parents.  She only knew that by going with the flow and keeping the secret of the drug use those feelings of dread seemed to stay at bay.

It was only as she got older that the feelings came back with a vengeance.