Waiting and Longing...
Something i "had" chronically as a child.
Most kids had freckles, gaps between their two front teeth along with chapped lips that peeled at the edges. I was afflicted with waiting and longing...
Orphaned by parents who spent most of their waking hours at their country club playing tennis and golf, I waited and longed for their return. This was a seasonless affliction, it had nothing to do with the color of the grass or whether there was snow on the ground. It consumed them, held them like the Temple of Scientology promising purpose and answers but without divine guidance.
My spirits lifted when the garage door opened, its grinding noise signaled they were home.
This was a painful part of my childhood. It felt like a virus that never left. When would my fever break? There was no divine guidance for me, just the pressure of my unrehearsed haf-torah.
My brothers left for boarding school when I was 12. Much of my early adolescence at home was spent alone with the exception of an occasional weekend and holiday when my brothers returned. I waited and longed for their daily return hoping something wonderful or dreadful would happen to bring them home to me.
I rode the bus to school alone that year and all the years that followed.
Waiting and longing became a part of me, as nothing ever changed.
It was a warm Sunday afternoon when I found my way up to my eldest brother, Jon's room. Sometimes I'd sit in on his bed pretending my brothers were in the next room or downstairs, and it would only be a matter of time before they made their way upstairs. I was hosting a social hour without the people. The people never showed, but something else did...
There was a blue linen book on the bookshelf. It was hardcover, I opened it steadily. A jolt of excitement tickled through me. It was the "Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud. Someone was actually writing about dreams and their meaning? How could that be? I had trespassed into my brother's room, and contemplated the potential wrath of reading something I wasn't suppose to.
Needless to say, I read on, and haven't stopped reading, studying and interpreting human emotion to this day.
During my adolescence, Freud and his theories became the purpose and answers to my loneliness. I read whatever I could get my hands on, and my life began to make sense. I watched Freud devising and revising his epoch-making theories while I was doing the same in my own homegrown way. I not only discovered where I was hurting intrapsychically, but why I was hurting as well. Freud was haunted by the problems he posed for himself, he brooded over his publications, and quarreled with his disciples: these were challenges that I could identify with and ultimately apply to my own life.
As a Psychologist today, I realize that all of my patients, like myself, have endured unalterable experiences.
The panic that sometimes fills the space of "waiting and longing" for connection continues even today for me. My hope is that I can mend my patients' understanding and steady ability to recognize why their pain remains and to figure out how best to manage and effectively cope with it.
What came out of the pain of waiting and longing for me was patience, endless patience. Though I recognize and sometimes feel the pinch of those early years, I am grateful for the ability to wait for what I hope will be.
For those of us who have experienced early childhood pain or trauma, I hope my story helps you.
