Apart To A Part Of-My Journey Out Of Isolation

I spent many a year of my earlier life easily shattered, a big sheet of crackle-glass waiting for the hammers to come flying.  It did not occur to me to duck, dodge, or otherwise perform evasive maneuvers; it did not occur to me to not be made of such fragility, either.  No, my time was mostly wasted in the pursuit of wall-building and shrinking into the corners of the world.  I wore my cloak of shyness with heavy shoulders, burdened, silent, trapped by insecurities that wound like greenbriars up my throat, into my mouth, and around my tongue.  To avoid ridicule as much as I could, I plastered a scared smile on and shook a fistful of crazy at the world and its inhabitants, and hoped to skate through life unnoticed.  But deep in my true heart, I wanted nothing more than to be noticed, recognized for what I could do.  I wanted so badly to shine, to be seen.  My inner conflicts all revolved around this split in my personality.  So I wrote.  I wrote prolifically, tried many different styles and forms.  And I let the harshness of the world get to me, and I let rough times defeat me, and I cringed when they looped together and tripped me up.  I went into tailspins of sorrow and self-loathing, slapped myself silly to get out of it.  And I wrote.  And I thought.  And I fought myself into bloody wars over it.  I never did ascertain the reasons for this targetism behavior.  I left important pieces of me on countless floors, broken bits of Tanya heart scattered to the winds.  I would wistfully gaze at groups of people at concerts, in parks, at street fairs, at malls-wishing I could be as free to laugh so loudly, to chatter on endlessly to different kinds of people, to sit with total strangers and strike up a conversation.  It was an uncomfortable, sad, and lonely state of being, disconnected from, apart from humanity, apart from my own nature.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what triggered an abrupt, utter change in me, but I can tell you exactly when it happened.  Joe and I were attending a concert, and we met some very kind, very gentle young folks, early college years I would say.  We were resting between bands under a small clump of trees, out of the blistering August sun, talking and sharing the usual summer concert goodies, a ritual many of you know or know of, I’m sure.  Just as the party favor was passed to my husband, I spotted a squat, ugly, toad of a man in a uniform striding purposefully up behind Joe, with a nasty glint in his eyes and a smirk on his broad, burnt face.  I nudged Joe with my foot and caught his eye, and nodded.  Joe got it, and immediately did the sensible thing and knocked the ember off, and swallowed down the remnants in one gulp.  The expression on the toad-man’s face turned to a glower of pure hatred.  He had wanted so badly to catch Joe in the act of inhaling, but he was thwarted.  He snatched Joe by the arm and dragged him up, and growled, “You just had to swallow it, didn’t you, asshole?” 
I rose up from the ground in a graceful move I had not been capable of executing for at least a couple of decades.  Rent-a-cop supreme primo turned his hate-filled glare to the band of kids we were with and snarled, “Were you taking part in this shit, too?” 
I saw a look in the eyes of these wonderful, innocent young people, and saw the goodness in them and the evil in the uniformed rat, and I felt the strangest sensation course into me, an utter calmness, a fearlessness, a voice of my very own.

Something akin to magma rising up the gullet of a volcano spilled up into my mouth from some dormant core inside, and then erupted upon toad man. I stood taller than my actual size (which towered over the troll) and pointed my finger at his chest, and said very plainly, “You will leave these kids alone.  They didn’t do anything wrong.  It was me and my husband, and they had nothing to do with what we did.”
His eyes hit mine, and he looked away quickly.  This thing had no power over me.  At that moment, I knew the truth.  No one had any power over me but me.  I could control my reaction, and I didn’t have to fear the results.  I would accept the consequences of my actions from that point on, and I knew it.  I watched this pitiful, unloved, reduced to being a pot Nazi cop at concerts creature as he pulled Joe towards the security trailer.  I set my jaw, bid farewell to our friends, and stalked off behind toad cop.  I felt no tears, no fears, not one bit of guilt or shame.  None of that nonsense even came into my mind.  I paid no attention to the procedure (writing a citation, some stern words, the taking of Joe’s ticket), but got into a discussion with an older woman over the implied acceptance of marijuana at concerts.  She didn’t agree, but I made my point and she quieted down.  I even launched into a soap box oration of the very nature of concerts and gatherings and the history of humankind and rituals and the importance of sharing.  There were many other people awaiting their pot citations in the trailer.  They cheered and agreed loudly with me.  The security force stopped lecturing, and glared helplessly at me, for I had not been caught doing anything wrong.  One female officer smiled at me, though.  Joe was told he would have to turn in his ticket and leave the venue, but I could stay.  I look incredulously at them and said, “do you honestly expect me to stay here without my husband?” and handed them my ticket.  The woman cop took me and Joe outside, led us to the gate and told us to walk around the tour buses to get to the parking lot, tilting her head to a row of particular buses.  We went over there, and it happened to be a hidden way to get next to the temporary barricade that many a person was traveling through.  I told Joe, “let’s go over and mingle in the crowd.”
We did, and just walked right back into the venue.  We hadn’t missed much of the show, and Flogging Molly was about to come onstage.  It was my very first time seeing them.  We ended up surrounded by happy, bouncing, moshing fans, and had the best time.  It was the most memorable concert of my adult life.

That moment, that one, nearly insignificant moment in time, changed my whole outlook on people, society, my own self.  The world no longer looked or felt so harsh, so intimidating.  I stopped waiting for hammers, learned how to snag them out of mid-air, and drop them harmlessly to the ground.  The splintered fragments of me started to come home, to mend, to become whole.  I was not made of glass after all.  I found my voice at last, and it was full of song and story and courage and joy.  In the months after the concert, I started walking in the daylight instead of after midnight, and did not mind being seen.  I talked to people, said hi to strangers, and found a genuine smile to wear.  One day in that following March, I decided to go to a local bar known for its excellent Friday fish and partake with other patrons, all by myself.  I even had me a beer with my fish.  Time passed, and that summer’s concert was a relaxing, anxiety-free affair. We even ran into those same kids, and they remembered us, and hugged us and thanked me for standing up for them.  We laughed about it and enjoyed the whole show.  The next year, in April, I saw a sign about a big cleanup in Ambridge.  I went to it, and met the Committee to Clean And Beautify Ambridge, and I joined.  I became a part of something, something big and important.  I had Holly join the junior Tamburitzans and became a part of that group of dedicated, proud parents.  I have been around thousands of people in unfamiliar places and have not been scared.  I became a part of a planning group to create Ambridge’s first go at a community garden, and I get to watch a dream of mine become reality, I hope.  I’ve painted trash barrels and a bus stop bench and put my name on them for all to see.  I’m not afraid of the attention, as long as I’ve earned the right to be noticed.  It feels nice. Because I decided to be a part of something, I’ve met the most wonderful, uplifting, inspiring people.  I’m surrounded by positivity and encouragement, drive and creativity, and happiness-such happiness!  I cannot help but to be filled with it when I’m with these people.  They are balanced, well-adjusted, confident folk, and so am I.  And I still write.  I write and share it now, because I’ve earned the right to be noticed for it, and I like the way it feels to give this part of me, whole parts, and still remain whole myself.

I still carry a reserved part of me, yes I do.  I still don’t really relish getting on the phone with people I don’t know, or meeting someone of importance for the first time. But it’s no longer an overwhelming world to me.  I can go outside my comfort zone sometimes if that’s what it takes to get stuff done.  If I don’t feel right about something, I even say so now without fear.  I don’t back myself into corners anymore, either.  I can stand my ground, state my opinion, and offer up suggestions.  I can share ideas with others, strike up a conversation with anyone willing to connect.  And I will never know why this all happened, and it doesn’t matter, because I am just grateful for this new me.  I like being whole, and I love having my own voice.  I wear the calm flowing through me now, and I have come to learn to handle my internal raging, too, giving it up to the right people at the right time, where it can do no damage.  I know when it’s ok to pull back and stop being a part of everything, too, so I can recharge and refresh and uncoil my wrappings, and be a part of only myself for a bit.  Watching me come together over the last several years has been a touching experience.  I very much like being a part of instead of apart from.  I like being in touch with me, with you, with everyone and everything. 

So I will smile, because I’ve heard when you do that, the world smiles with you, and I rather like the thought of a world full of smiles.
Love and Light on your journeys, too, my friends-
Tanya