The soft glow from my laptop screen brings me back to more than a decade ago when my sister and I used to take turns using our dad’s old computer. I’m a corporate gal now, excelling in Excel and putting excessive words into Word. Making notes on a digital Post-it in the name of reducing waste, however, doesn’t stop it from bringing up core memories when they resurface. Weirdly (or perhaps nostalgically—I can’t tell), the early 2000s Microsoft, 3D Pinball, and Minesweeper, with its yellow smiley face, can’t be coerced into silence in my head like a traumatic ghost haunting a stressful therapy session. They erratically appear and disappear. How inconvenient.
Well, to be fair, is there ever anything convenient about being chased by a bygone? I think about the postponed sleep at night that occurs after a flash of commemoration. Lying awake, bothered, is the only available option—has anyone ever thought of that? Goosebumps arise as I recall past soreness. It haunts me like a revealing flashback in a telenovela—a promise of something deeply unwanted. I question its existence like the traumatic ghost’s in and out of the treatment room, but it still bothers me regardless.
I usually sense the wave of emotion before everything comes crashing down: blushes, not the kind that arises from cute attraction, but rather from the heat, even when the temperature bites; wandering thoughts that push me to my edges; and a heavy feeling in the chest, followed by a single-question questionnaire—‘how dare they do that to a little kid?’. It still confuses me sometimes that after all this time, nothing could prepare me for its surprise visit. If the traumatic ghost has watched but hasn’t learned, so have I.
Do I feel fine now? I feel just fine. Those memories are as real as they can get, but they can’t catch me now. They may be in my tears and blood, flowing like water, but my soul is a socket for alternative medicine practices that have rhythms and rhymes. I don’t blame anyone or anything—not the environment people have no choice over, not the conditions that are far from ideal, and not even the fucked-up parents children are never able to hold accountable. I'm here for the reminder, no matter how unwanted.
But those unwanted things always work out in the end, don't they? I still wake up with fear in the middle of the night when I hear sudden raised voices, but at this point, hasn't the traumatic ghost gotten used to it? The need to tend to my own happiness becomes a natural progression that shapes who I am as an individual, and I don't want to lose myself. It's not egotistical as long as the coping mechanism is harmless, right? (Am I allowed to be one though, if it is?)
As we all grow, I realize that the ghost will multiply while the fear keeps pursuing the sober one in the room. I want to say it's a good lesson learned, but its residuals linger a little too long. Even if unsought, this haunting legacy will serve as a reminder of why the past should stay in the past—all the mishaps and fumbles.
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