Marina Joyce Music

Feelings. Yuck, amirite? I am absolutely a feeler. The good, the bad, the big the small – I feel every bit of it. I was thinking back to one of the first memories I have of being picked on as a kid. If I close my eyes, I can feel how that bus ride felt, I can smell the dirty floor and see the kids that were all looking at me. I remember feeling little me crumble in the back of that bus, especially knowing I would have to get on that bus day after day with all those kids. I was 7 and just got over croup. I was sitting on the back bench of the bus and when my brother announced that I had croup. No one knew what that meant. He told them “she has a disease”. Instantly, everyone moved away from me fast. They looked at me disgusted and scared. I remember that I froze. I didn’t move a muscle, just sat there, all alone in the back half of the bus while kids whispered and said “ew, stay away from her”. I got off the bus and walked home and I remember that I cried to my mom about it. I don’t really know what happened on the home front after that, but what I do remember; the next day and days going forward, nobody ever mentioned it or talked about it. 

So why do I remember it? 

This was my first social trauma. This was the first time I met her. That little voice in the back of my head that popped up to try and save me. That fight or flight reflex that cooed in my ear. I remember her telling me “you’re gross and no one wants to be around you”. Hello rejection. Hello abandonment. Hello fear of being alone. Before this bus ride, little me had not a care in the world. I just showed up day after day being myself and loving every minute of it. Then this happened, for whatever reason. And I quickly decided within myself that I needed to be careful, that I needed to be safe. That I was not enough just as I am to have friends or people close, that they didn’t want to be around me. That no one would ever play with me at recess or sit with me on the bus ever again. This was the most untrue thing ever!! Looking back now, no one changed how they treated me. And as a mom, I can only assume that those kids went home and told their parents that they rode a bus with a croup infested diseased kid, and their parents probably told them what that actually  meant. No one treated me differently, but that little garbagey voice in the back of my head stayed anyway. 

Coping mechanisms are so interesting. Like if we’re falling, our brains way of protecting us is to put our hands out and save us from the ultimate face plant. But, it doesn’t always work. And our brain doesn’t always get it right does it?! I think the good intention is there. We obviously don’t mean harm on ourselves, but sometimes, we just can’t help it. That little voice thought it was doing me a service by protecting my future decisions and impulses. And I didn’t question it once! In fact, as I got older, I gave that sneaky voice more space and she got louder and frankly, more opinionated. Trauma is such an amazingly irritating entity. It’s so sneaky and yet so bold as it slides in like a leech and sucks all our strength and confidence and even good intentions right out of us. And then, like a choir of complete bullshit, all those little voices start singing at us so eloquently that we believe them. Their song is so so sweet, how can we tune them out?

The older I get, the more in touch with myself I get. I have done a lot of work on figuring out who I really am, want to be and can become. The forever DIY work in progress! My partner always tells me “you have big feelings, and that’s ok”. For years, I looked for who or what I could blame when I didn’t feel good enough or felt like too much in any situation, when really, I just needed to look at myself. I am far from perfect at it, but I am getting really good at co existing with her. You know, that little voice in the back of my head trying to sway my decisions. I still let her get the best of me and drag me down. But then while I’m down there, sitting in my shit, as I like to say, I remember how much that sucks and what a waste of my time and energy it is to not just be me. My friends and my family love me for who I am. The me that takes up space and has big feelings and everything! The me that doesn’t always have my hands out in time before I face plant, but who will get up after I fall, shake it off and carry on.

Little me had to get back on the bus the next day. I tap into her once in a while to borrow some strength and courage. Because we had it all back then! No fear, no shame – we were just being! I want to live there as much as possible! Dare to suck at something. What’s the worst that could happen?

MJ