Traversing the Thorny Paths of Repressed Memory with the Help of Moon Energy — and Emerging Enlightened
We are all little moons
Rise with me moon-feelings, as I drift into a cannabis-induced sleep.
I find the memories that wouldn’t budge take only a gentle nudge from a calmed brain. Then they bubble up, a babbling brook of mystery, resolving, reminding me, I am me.
In 2021, I realized I am on the spectrum of bisexuality, whatever that means exactly. It’s a perplexing realization since I’m happily married to a man. It’s not perplexing that I think I’m bisexual, but what about “coming out” when you’ve never been with someone of the same sex and don’t intend to be? Do you announce on all the social media platforms, “Hey! Hey you! I’m bicurious!” And, the kids will say, yeah, so? Are you sure you aren’t pansexual? And, the adults will say, why bother when you’re married? But, this is a part of me.
Now, I remember.
Drift, drift, drift into moon memories
On my bed on Avondale Drive, I invite
girl friends, at four, five years old — maybe younger
to wrestle, only “wrestling” is code.
I want to feel our bodies rub together.
I rub my crotch on couch corners, tv edges
the top of my backyard swing set.
My sexuality bloomed bright, a full moon
of desire, beauty, sentience,
the primal urge for connection.
Delving into the depths of memoir-writing, I visit the places I didn’t think I could go. I am a brave warrior traversing cobwebbed paths. I have the tools and wherewithal wander through snake pits and thorny paths. I know I am capable, courageous, brave.
I grew up mostly in 1980s Oklahoma. Although my parents are open-minded, many in my community were not. When I was a kid, LGBTQ were called “gays” or “faggots” and I didn’t want to be called another name. I was already the “poor kid”, child of a disabled person, child of divorce, and painfully shy.
In order to avoid any more degrading labels, I repressed those sexual instincts and attractions. I spent many hours behind locked doors letting my imagination take me to orgasmic heights, but I shut off the curiosity I had for sexual attraction to girls.
I was keen on boys, too.
I coaxed my next-door neighbor at around four years old to drop his pants in the far reaches of his backyard. I knew it felt good to masturbate, and I knew how to do this. My parents had taken a very educational approach to explain sex with picture books when I was three or four years old. We were the same age.
Here, try this stick. Put it in your hole.
I eyed the foreign part hanging between his legs.
Why didn’t I have one? And, why did it make the
neighbor boy superior? It doesn’t work like that
he explained to me. I shook my head in confusion.
Trust me, just try the stick —
Our parents caught the sight of us,
two tiny kids at the edge of the backyard,
pants dropped, and chastised us. Don’t
don’t do that again.
Oh, how I wanted to explore the connection
of flesh, skin-to-skin comfort and joy
the sustenance of liking and being liked
bodies beautiful, innocent and moon-like.
For years, I held shame marrow-deep. I decided I was a child child-molester because around the same age — five perhaps — I invented a game to play on the DL with my peers at Middle Earth preschool. I called it “House Check.” That bubbled up as I allowed my mind and body to remember.
The body remembers.
I think of my crystal collection, beautiful in their imperfections. I remember skinny-dipping under the light of the full moon on my 43rd birthday, knowing we are made of moonlight, starlight, of good. We are inherently love and light when we arrive to this earth-space. What happens after that, surely is a combination of nature and nurture. Sometimes, fear and hate overtake and we see the “evils” of earth.
I feared I was evil.
Only evil children would feel interested in sex or know that sex equals death or that disturbed adults did terrible things to innocent children.
I was a child with fear in her bones.
I was a child with fear in her bones until 2020 when I was 41 years old, and after years of avoiding this long-held belief, I let my bones crackle, snap, and pop.
Facing the truth isn’t always easy.
At 41, I cried and cried and cried. Days in bed crying. I did what I could until I couldn’t anymore. I quit laughing. I started Cloroxing my legs and fearing myself. I believed I had nothing of value to gift my children. I believed I was a blemish better wiped out. I believed if I disappeared, things would be better for the ones I loved.
Late one night, I confessed my crimes to David:
At a hotel in Texas, I wiped my body after a shower
There was a brown streak on the towel
Was it me or a dirty towel?
I know I can’t get AIDS that way, but what if I did?
He teased that I needed to go back to basic health class.
Will I kill my coworkers because my damn tampon
fell out while I wore the holey waders in the round pond?
It got caught in my pants leg and I snuck-washed them
over the weekend. They’re communal and I feel like a dirty
horrible person.
He didn’t understand.
As a child, I feared AIDS and my dad’s death. AIDS because it was the 1980s and everyone was afraid. Sex = Death was an actual slogan of public health awareness.
I feared for dad’s life because he used a wheelchair and didn’t own a gun and how, how, would he protect us against anyone?
In my little twin bed on Avondale,
leaves rustled against the window.
I tried to sleep, but counted sheep
counted numbers, recited Our Father
so much that it later became an
intrusive prayer — an OCD symptom
I played thunderstorms, trainsounds,
An American Story soundtrack.
When all else failed, I’d find dad,
who’d gift me visions of beaches or meadows
but I’d still be frozen in night terror —
I had these intrusive night dreams for decades. I didn’t understand as a child I’m a highly sensitive empathic person with multiple mental health disorders. In another time and place, I’d be in a cave or forest, a local seer.
I see that now.
Dreamer, seer, psychic time traveler, unafraid.
Love conquers all — cliche? Yes, and true
to the marrow of my marrow. Once I found
self-love, I no longer felt the oppressive, stifling,
terrifying, freezing feelings of fear and hate.
Once the tears were unstoppable, David held me close and coaxed me to resign from work, which had become detrimental to my health. I emailed my notice. My mom tended me. My husband cared for me. My dad and step-mom supported me over the phone. My former coworkers and friends held me up with their own light and love.
Discovering my mental health disorders and finding medication helped, too, of course. And, years of counseling, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, prepared me for this breaking through.
You see, we are all little moons, walking around, in this dream. We are born as love and we are gifted the chance to find our way back home to the love light that shines so bright when we are born. When they say “life is but a dream,” they are right. And, we are one and the same. All is one. Human mirrors reflecting human mirrors reflecting human mirrors. I hold elements of you and you hold elements of me.
Terrifying, right? Because murder, mayhem, molestation.
We don’t want to be one and the same.
We want control. Does the moon choose on whose light it shines?
No.
Give up the illusion of control.
Allow the moonlight of divine consciousness
to illuminate your courage, your heart, you.
How beautiful the world would be if we all had
the support and tools to tap into our inner moons
and the courage to let them shine for all the world to see.
I let the memories bubble and pop. I let them boil to the surface. I let them simmer. I add the spices of my words and insights to the concoction and hope to create a memoir and words worth reading — ones that resonate with you.
Words that remind me, I am not evil. I am full of love and light, like the earth-moon we are privileged to co-habit with in time and space.
I acknowledge and cherish these memories of young me
exploring her sexuality with natural curiosity
craving the divine union that comes from
connected bodies connecting.
Thank you, Danielle Loewen, for AoE’s 2021 October Writing Prompt. It was exactly the gentle nudge I needed to write this essay.
Want more creative content? Use my affiliate link to become a Medium member today and get unlimited access to all my work and the work of other fantastic writers!
