Memory may iron out the pain, giving things a uniform blandness, but somewhere within, the capacity to relive exists to bring back the past with a lucidity that can overwhelm and transport you back into itself.
There was a phone call, seven years after the last time I was punched. I am standing at the bottom of the stairs. The walls are green and the paintwork is white, and I have the phone in my hand and am standing next to the small window. It is daylight. The conversation is not going the way he wants it to – he wants something and I say no. I have turned to face down the short hallway and he loses it and threatens me directly. What is happening to me is not a conglomerate memory of the hundreds of abusive phone calls threatening to kick my fucking head in, neither is it a memory of any specific moment. It is a memory of a state of being.
Suddenly I am drowning in a world of prickling grey fear, it is as though I have shingles and every nerve ending is alive and alarmed. It is a flush of adrenaline pumped hyper-awareness. There is a chilling realisation, that I lived my life enveloped in a smog of fear, day in, day out, for years on end. I cannot comprehend how I managed to do that. In the split second before I answer him and he backs down, I realise I am no longer afraid to stand square and to act amidst that fear. When I put down the phone I know, not that he will never hit me again, he might: no, I know something far more important, I know that neither his, nor anyone else’s violence, has the power to rule me.
Salatheel 