I am currently reading a book that came highly recommended through several friends named "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. It is an intriguing memoir of the author's bizzaar and completely facinating childhood. At least, that is what it is so far... I've only made it about half way through.
I won't give anything away, but I will pass on my recommendation to anyone and everyone. This book is fantastic. The author's parents, and most especially her creative, imaginative, alcoholic father, bring to mind the lyric "some of the most intersting people didn't, at 22, know what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds still don't." As interesting as her childhood may have been, there were certaintly elements of the traumatic throughout, though the author doesn't exactly present it that way. Her tone is quite matter of fact, actually. She opens the book at the age of three when she accidentally caught herself on fire while cooking hotdogs for dinner for her family. She spent over 6 weeks in the hospital covered with severe burns. She talks about it being the first time she tasted chewing gum.
It causes me to wonder. I mean, it's really all a matter of perception, isn't it? Did you ever have one of those moments when you are reliving a story to someone and they look at you completely agog- like they can't comprehend how you emotionally survived to tell the tale? Like "I can't even believe that you are telling me like this- aren't you upset by this? I am!" And you just shrug, and think to yourself, well it wasn't THAT big of a deal. I lived it, so obviously I'd know.
This, of course, has happened to me, and one time in particular is sticking out in my memory very vividly. My Christmas break, sophomore year of college, I was sitting around catching up with a group of my old high school friends. We were reliving traumatic high school memories (very emo, you could say) when someone said that they had once contemplated suicide- they had had difficulty coping with the pressure of unobtainable scholastic ecpectations. They asked if anyone else ever had. I shrugged and told them the story of a time in my life, when at 16, I slipped into a severe depression and after a boyfriend dumped me (the last straw) I flipped out while putting away dishes in the dishwasher one afternoon after school, and I held a super dull and completely impractical butter knife up to my wrists. Hands shaking and heart racing, I thought to myself that "this would show them all that I wasn't just this cute little floor mat that they could walk all over- that this would make them feel bad for all they had put me through". Pretty dark stuff, for someone who listened to the Dixie Chicks and took ballet, but it just goes to show... you just never can tell. And everyone, I mean everyone, has a breaking point. Anyway, I didn't cut, not even close (I mean, really, a butter knife? How far would I have gotten?), but the thought crossed my mind, as I had assumed it crossed everyone's mind at one time or another in their lives.
But apparently I was mistaken. Apparently not everyone has felt that desperation. I got over it. I found the completely soul-filling love of Jesus and I have never ever felt that way since then. And now, being so far removed from that point in my life, I can speak of it like it was nothing. Because it really was nothing.
But to others, I think it might be something. To some, maybe those who've never allowed themselves to fully appreciate and experience the trauma that life can often hurl at you (and therefore haven't been able to experience the thrill of "survival"), to those people, I suppose a heartbroken teenager's experience with a butterknife might seem harsh.
To me, it was an awakening. And I suppose a tad on the comically ridiculous side.
Just like, to Jeanette Walls, it was just her childhood, and the first time she tried chewing gum.
Interesting, huh? Okay, one more reference, this time from Harry Potter. I know, I know... how many more HP references can she possibly have up her sleeve? Folks, my mind is a steel trap of all things JK Rowling.
In the final book, Ron Weasley, Harry's BFF, saves Harry's life. And kills one of Voldemort's horcrux and overcomes his greatest fear all in one moment to basically "save the day, perhaps the world"... and Harry congratuates him and compliments him for all that he just accomplished and Ron's response was "That makes me sound a lot cooler then I was." and Harry's response was something like "I've been trying to say that for years."
Things always seem more intersting, impressive, traumatic, heroic, heartbreaking... when it happens to someone else. Don't they?
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