It’s Been So Long Since I’ve Seen You!
When I finally left for rehab, leaving Gregg at my apartment in charge of Kitty, I was still plastered.
I also had to face some truths about myself that I’d ignored for many, many years. My number one ignored truth: the world is not responsible for my problems. I was responsible for my problems. And I had absolutely no idea how to fix that.
I’d blamed the world for all my problems since childhood.
I was sure that the entire world needed to change or I could never be happy. The world sucked. So what could I do? How could I live in a world I detested?
While pondering that question in rehab, I had another easily analyzed dream.
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I am 24 years old, standing alone in a huge, empty room, probably a school cafeteria. Everything is white, sterile.
There is nothing until … I notice someone walking toward me – a little girl, maybe 13 years old. She has reddish blond hair, recently permed and too curly, lips protruding slightly over garish braces. She stares at the floor as she walks; her shyness is palpable.
When she reaches me, she stops and looks up, unsmiling, saying nothing.
I don’t recognize her for a moment. Then, suddenly, I am overwhelmed with a tidal wave of recognition.
“Kirsten!” I say, smiling brightly and opening my arms wide. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!”
She is scared, confused, but she steps forward. Young Kirsten walks into my open arms and I hug her tightly, embracing her for the first time in my entire life.
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I woke up without sitting up; my eyes flew open. I knew where I was – in a cold hospital bed at Gateway Rehabilitation Center. I knew why I was there.
And for the first time in many years, I knew who I was.
That dream was my first step in making peace with the child I’d discarded so many years ago. I’d loathed that girl. She was duped and bullied and hurt for decades, so I’d ditched her. I’d become someone else entirely – someone tough, someone who did wild, dangerous things in the name of freedom.
But at 24, I rediscovered my inner child. I didn’t need to change the world. I only needed to find myself, to start believing in that younger me, comforting her. Accepting and loving that scared little soul was the key to my adult happiness.
Finding her was a small step on a very, very long road.