Grainy

Grainy
Catherine Berra

Moving back is never easy. Coming back into a fold is daunting and feels somewhat like taking steps backward, like an old 8mm movie rewound, watching the not-so-brilliant colors of the 60s recede.

I’ve been away in another city for over 20 years; I’ve missed births, events, divorces, medical issues. No deaths here though. We’re all still alive in the dysfunctional makeup of a family that has never seemed quite cohesive. While I was gone, my parents, after 50 years of marriage, called it quits. The reasons were interesting, my mother, the one who deals with things by not dealing with them, had had enough. She put her foot down, ended it once and for all. This has placed on the four siblings’ mid-life tables the fascinating result of a relationship that created four keenly different humans, and also the determined resolution in my mind that I would not go near marriage unless it fully enhanced my life. I recall my childhood with fondness, playing in the woods and riding bikes for hours to places unknown. Kids can’t do that nowadays. Yet these memories and reflections come back grainy, filtered, hushed; as if they were dreams diminished by time. The painful moments have faded to a sepia-tinted blur. Oh how we yearn for things to be exactly how our minds imagine.

Moving back has not been easy. I cannot sugar coat the images or the reality of how things meander, like water that finds its way to damage no matter how much we struggle to block it from permeating certain places.

Perhaps we tend toward the preference of these grainy images and memories if only to soften the hurt, the pain, the promises broken, the cruel words and disappointments. Even as grown-ups, we yearn for the innocence that was such a short-lived facet of the childhood tucked securely in our hearts. With a lot of help from amazing humans I’ve reconciled what was and continue to focus on what is, right now. But I’ll still keep those images on my heart and hold the hand of my little girl self and let her know everything is going to be fine. I’ll take her with me forever, providing the shelter from harm that she did not experience. She’s my responsibility now and I’m holding her hand tightly as I continue forward, looking back at her every so often to grant her the reassurance that this current path is truly blessed.