The Steps That Tell our Stories
“The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, to attract & please others.” -bell hooks
This is an excerpt from The Healing Journal, where I share my most intimate pieces with our paid subscribers.
They started with their own footsteps. Late in the evening, my daughters giggled as they made fun of how each of us walked throughout the house. I was struck by how loud the things that usually go unnoticed were to them. I marveled at how they could tell each of us apart just by what they heard, listening not for our voices but for our bodies. Isn’t that what the wise ones tell us: " Watch what people do, not what they say?”
According to them, the youngest one moved fast and hurried, running across the stairs light as a feather. She was always looking for the next thing to do and never wanted to miss out on anything. The older one, in contrast, was slower and more calculated, stepping very intentionally. She never moved too quickly and always needed to be sure of her step. Her perfectionism oozed out of her gait, and she never wanted to make a mistake.
They said their father’s steps were always the loudest—boom, boom—confident and assured. He was never afraid of making noise, never afraid at all. Sometimes, we were. I wondered if that was the point.
And then they talked about my footsteps.
Mine were always slow, almost too worried about the noise that could reverberate throughout the house. “Mommy’s steps never hold a rhythm,” they said. I laughed with them at the time, cackling at this new revelation my intelligent lovelies had brought forth. But now, as I sit back and reflect, I realize how accurate their observations were. I never was steady. Always second-guessing myself, so I could never stay on a beat because I was always doubting if it was the right one.
Our footsteps, it seems, really can be a reflection of who we are as people.
There has always been a need to remove “I” in my story—a constant worry about how “I” take up space. So to make things simple, I just wouldn’t. I tried my best, just like my footsteps, to stay hidden. There was never any certainty in my steps. Instead, there was always fear of how I would be perceived. It began early on with fear of my mother, and then fear of the school kids. As the bullying worsened, what started as external quickly became internal. I didn’t experience or have a problem. I was the problem.
There was, I discovered, a reason to be afraid. I could not change myself, and therefore, could not be loved.
And so my footsteps took on a cautious, untrusting pattern that exists to this day. I never let my guard down. I move slowly, taking everything in, just trying to stay invisible. I spend my time reading others' thoughts, praying that I have assembled just enough armor to ensure they can’t read mine. If I’m lucky, I don’t have to enter the spaces of others. I can retreat and stay within mine.
This worked for a while until my home became another battleground.
Any lightness—any momentary feeling of carefree—was taken as I tried to anticipate and prevent the anger that lived in my home. That anger personified lied beside me, snoring soundly, always lurking just beneath the surface. Of course, the anger wasn’t always present, but the fear of it was. When it showed itself, it was raw, cold and unfeeling. Slowly and surely, it removed my warmth and a comforting numbness inhabited my body.
Once again, I believed I alone was the reason for it all. Yet this time, there was no worry, grief, or anger. This time, I felt nothing.