As far as embarrassing stories go, there is one my
mother loves to tell about me, one we’ve heard so many times I’ve lost count.
When I was about three years old, I apparently had
this habit of walking around – I used to randomly visit the neighbours, and
sometimes the people we knew who lived in the next road.
One evening, it was way after sunset, and my family
couldn’t find me. My brother and sisters had checked all of my usual haunts
(yes, I had these at three) and at all of the neighbouring homes, and still no one
could find me. It was raining that evening, and when my mom checked, my
raincoat was gone too.
After a while, I came waltzing in the door, and my mom started scolding. Even after explaining that I was at the new neighbour’s
house (one they did not check), I got the spanking of my life and was told I
could go to bed without supper.
My family was sitting in the living room watching TV
and after a few minutes, I walked in with a plate of food I’d dished myself
(from the pot on the stove – my mom had made my favourite that evening), and
when they looked again, my brother burst out laughing because I’d fallen fast
asleep on the coffee table, my empty plate next to me.
As embarrassing as it sometimes is for me to hear
(particularly in front of strangers) I love this story because it shows two
aspects of the personality I now have as an adult.
Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that I’m
a doer – I get shit done, and many times on my own, and from this memory I can
see that I exhibited signs of self-sufficiency and independence from a very
early age.
The second aspect I only realised today, and once I
did, certain things in my life made sense – more specifically, my reactions to
certain things. There were three instances in my life where I felt like I couldn’t
handle the situation, like I wanted to crawl under the blanket and stay there
indefinitely, and today I could put into words the thing that linked those
three instances – lack of emotional security.
I’ve come to realise a few things:
Firstly, there are certain people in your life who have
a direct effect on your emotional security; Secondly, when that emotional
security becomes unstable or is ripped away, it feels worse than any physical
injury (to me, at least);
And thirdly, sometimes the people you love the most
make you feel very insecure.
Today I owned up to a truth I was avoiding for a
long time – I need emotional security, and I need it from those that I love and
who claim to love me. And for the first time, I can say this to myself and
realise that it is not a weakness. It is me embracing who I am.
My three year old self fell peacefully asleep because she knew,
on a subconscious level, even after a scolding and a spanking that she was in a
secure environment.
I need a hug, or a kiss, or an “I miss you” text, or
a “How did you wake up this morning” phone call. I need physical gestures of
concern and love, because that is how I know that I am important to people, and
that in turn gives me emotional security.
And now that I have acknowledged this need within
myself, the next step is to be able to share this revelation with the people on
whom my emotional security currently depends…and to brace myself for the
possibility that they may no longer want to be the source of that security for
me.
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