Hmm. Comfort. What is comfort?
Connection, care, contact, and concern.
I needed it in people, not objects. Consistency.
Comfort? I had a threadbare stuffed cat I loved and used for a pillow.
It gave me comfort when I was little.
On a day when dad was doing a dump run, he took my stuffed cat and threw it away.
I learned not to care. Or at least not to show it.
A little ball-shaped night light was at the top of my bed.
It gave me comfort, staved off night terrors.
But couldn’t stop repeating stuck feet dreams.
This dream would come again when I went back to sleep,
again, and again, and again.
The light was called “Lightolier.”
Seemed unconsciously god-like in my mind.
I regularly imagined the floor full of writhing snakes.
Turning on Lightolier would make them disappear.
I did check under the bed each time, just to be sure.
Sort of a comfort in this house that was so punishing and demanding.
My climbing tree. It held me. It was consistent.
Trees don’t lie, hurt, gaslight, or blackmail.
It was safe harbor for me.
A resource in my childhood, like a functional parent.
To hold me and help me to hold my own feelings.
I wonder if I gave my feelings to the tree to hold for me.
They were too strong for me to hold, for most of my childhood.
Later, only later, could I hold my own, and after a lot of recovery.
Comfort would be like handing my inner gold,
too powerful for me to hold as a child,
handing my inner gold over to someone to hold for me
until I was strong enough to hold it myself.
Someday I would take it back.
Feel strong enough and safe enough
to reclaim what was rightfully mine from the start.
My envelope of close people were not mentors,
did not honor and respect me,
were willing to take my inner gold
but not willing to give it back.
I have it now. It is mine.
My own comfort and my own soul.
Inside of me.
A gift of recovery!
Lena L
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