well I woke up to the sound of silence and cries were cutting like knives in a fist fight, and I found you with a bottle of wine, your head in the curtains and heart like the Fourth of July… you swore and said, “we are not, we are not shining stars” this I know, I never said we are… though I’ve never been through hell like that I’ve closed enough windows to know you can never look back… if you’re lost and alone, or you’re sinking like a stone, carry on… may your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground, carry on…
Over a month ago I watched a documentary on HBO Max called “Katrina Babies”. I had written this post and published it and then quickly took it down because it didn’t feel right to me. So months later, here I am fixing it. Round 2, let’s go!
Quick side note, 1 paragraph in, I am someone who is completely captivated with all things Katrina. I have watched every single documentary. I own a LOT of books on it. Some just contain photographs. Some are autobiographies. Some are books all about the science of how and why it happened. Doesn’t matter what the book contains, I have it, I’ve read it and I am deep in it. I was in New Orleans pre-Katrina and for some reason I have this very weird connection (obsession?) to it. I can’t explain it, but I am always drawn to things about it.
Anyway, Katrina Babies was an eye opening documentary. Then again, every documentary on anything Katrina related is painfully eye opening. As someone living in New York, I couldn’t be farther from it. New York City is full of culture but it’s different. Different in a way that I can’t really explain at this time. And I’m not even going to try to gentrify it in this post. It’s different in a way that I will never know, and that’s okay. Period.
Katrina Babies was directed by a man named Edward Buckles Jr. who was 13 when Katrina hit the city of New Orleans. Read about him and his documentary here: https://time.com/6207875/katrina-babies-edward-buckles-jr-interview/ It’s worth the read. And the documentary is worth the watch. Because children are the future and no one ever asks how things affect them. The shit we don’t ask them when they’re young often materializes into behaviors that we don’t understand, or want to understand as they grow up. It’s easier to blame the environment, their friends, their parents, their teachers, etc. Meanwhile, if we looked at the science, we would see that when something traumatic happened in their formative years, chances are they’re dealing with, or not dealing with, all of that unresolved trauma well into their adulthood.
I’m not writing this post to take away from the documentary. I’m not writing this to take focus off of that and put the focus on me. But there are really important things that need to be talked about and the documentary is a jumping off point for a lot of those things. Conversations about trauma and coping with it are vast. And we might be finally getting to a point where talking about it is more common than not talking about it.
Having this outlet has helped me tremendously, but I want to avoid talking about the sad girl shit all the time. There’s clearly something that’s trying to work it’s way out but I can’t put my finger on what the fuck it actually is. And I imagine that a lot of other people feel that way. The way you are is a culmination of your life experiences up to now. And every day there is more stuff that comes into your life that changes you. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. Every single experience, big or small, is adding to who you’ll be. I always joke that I can’t pick my clothes out the night before because I don’t know which me will wake up in the morning. It’s a joke, but there’s a lot of truth to it. Because my life experiences have turned me into these weird versions of myself and it feels like everyday I’m navigating into brand new territory that’s also strangely familiar.
My life has not been a bad life. It hasn’t been easy and I feel like I’ve done a lot of it on my own. I have never met anyone like me and so it’s difficult for me to figure out what I’m actually dealing with. And so this new area of my life that I’m exploring has been really difficult for me. It’s like I’m late to the game of processing all the shit that I’ve pushed down for so long and it’s just overflowing out of me. And I don’t want it to affect the people that I love, and I’m terrified that it will. But the truth is that many of us are dealing with too much right now, and it’s just the way that we deal with it that’s different.
No matter which way you slice it, trauma is trauma. And it’s not up to you to decide how someone else deals with theirs. It’s not up to us to write someone else’s problems off just because they seem easier to deal with than your problems. We are all wired differently, so we are all going to deal with it differently. There is this quote from Morticia Addams (KWEEN) that says: “Normal is an illusion… what is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly…” Let that marinate. I have been both the spider and the fly, and when you put it into that perspective, it kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?
I have caught myself, so many times, quickly judging people for stupid shit. Honestly, like who the fuck am I to judge? There are a lot of reasons why people do the shit they do. And I can guarantee that even the stupidest shit can be linked back to some sort of trauma. I’m saying the word trauma a lot, but that’s a blanket term. Because it doesn’t have to be something you would deem as “traumatic” but these experiences do weird shit to you. I remember I was in 8th or 9th grade and there was this girl in my Social Studies class who always had an attitude. And one day a group of us were talking before the teacher started the class and she says to me “oh my God, do you have an off switch?!” First of all, was it necessary to embarrass me in front of my peers? No, but mission accomplished. This is something very, very stupid, but it altered my brain chemistry. To this day, a million years later, if I’m talking with a group of people, I catch myself because I remember what she said, and wonder if I’m talking too much, and I shut down. Pauline, if you somehow see this, NO, I don’t have an off switch and fuck you.
Anyway, this example was one ridiculous thing, but can you imagine the impact of someone saying this to you, but they were someone you actually loved and admired? Can you imagine trying to speak your truth and someone shutting you down and calling you names? Can you imagine feeling a certain way and trying to tell someone and them telling you that your feelings don’t matter? Or that your life doesn’t even come close to the life they had? I’m not saying we should all be therapists and handle everyone’s feelings with kid gloves, but maybe we could stand to be a little kinder? Could we maybe try to see that when people act a certain way that maybe there’s a reason for it? And that maybe you won’t hear that reason right away because people are apprehensive about giving a reason until they feel comfortable? I don’t know, it really fucks me up how quickly people will laugh at your problems when you’re not fucking laughing. How people will outright embarrass you because what you’re talking about makes them uncomfortable so they deflect. Hurt people hurt people. People who have done the work on themselves don’t just treat people like shit.
Again, I’m not saying everyone has to be a sobbing mess about stupid shit that happens in this life, but a lot of the shit you encounter isn’t about you. And once you start approaching life like that, you can’t un-approach it. There’s a reason for everything.
Circling back to Katrina Babies, these children were displaced from their homes. Whether it was a family decision to leave and take them away from everything they knew, or they stayed and had to be removed from their homes that flooded with boats or helicopters, no adults in their lives ever asked what the aftermath of that did to them. They dealt with shit so far beyond what their brains were equipped to deal with at the time. Most of them were speaking about it for the first time in this documentary when they were being interviewed as adults. And their grown ups had no idea that their kids were suffering internally. Because they were kids, and kids are resilient. Yes, they are, but it’s not up to you to put that on them. It’s not up to any of us to decide what the rest of their lives will be like. Trauma like that has to come out eventually, and sometimes the outcome isn’t good. People don’t always end up on their feet when they fall and there has to be a better way to resolve situations like that.
We have to start paying attention. And it’s not sugar coating anything. Please don’t tell me you were beaten as a child and look how great you turned out. Don’t do that. It’s okay if you’re not fine. You don’t have to be a sad sack like me about your trauma, but you also don’t have to be a dick. There’s a sweet spot between sad sack and dick and if we can find it, that will be what fixes the world we live in. I’m currently working on being more kind and understanding. And I have really shitty moments because unlearning behavior is a process, but I’m trying really hard to make sure that I can be a safe place for people who don’t have one. I’m trying to take the shit that I’ve been through, stupid as some of it might be, and turn it into something useful. And I hope that you read this and want to do the same. It’s not going to happen overnight, but all of these little changes will eventually turn into something bigger than all of us.
I’m not sure if anything in this post made sense, and I promise that I wasn’t using this documentary to get views here. Watching it opened my eyes a little wider and I wanted to share. I hope that something in this post resonated with you, and if not, thanks for reading anyway.
’cause we are, we are shining stars, we are invincible, we are who we are… on our darkest day, when we’re miles away, so we’ll come we will find our way home… if you’re lost and alone, or you’re sinking like a stone, carry on… may your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground, carry on…
Song name: CARRY ON/ Artist: FUN./ Year: 2012
TALKING ON EGGSHELLS 