Sorrow is another phenomenon that I am sure has walked all our paths before despite the fact that some of us are more acquainted with him than others. Some may say that I am partial to such phenomena. The like that are willing to sell themselves to so many of us. The harlots of the emotional world or so to say and I am justified in being partial to them.
The fact that they are more familiar to all of us means that they automatically provide an avenue for us to connect. If something funny happens as you are walking down a street and you immediately laugh in synchrony with a stranger you have already formed a connection with that stranger. However, if it is the same scenario and only one of you finds it funny then one will immediately deem the other weird and that fleeting connection is lost.
This is the same case as to all emotions that are so widespread none of us could ever escape them. They connect us sometimes they even bind us. They determine the boundaries to which we live our lives. I am not here to talk about happiness. You might now know that this is a topic that I am not too familiar with. However, sorrow has certainly knocked on my door enough times for me to take notice, and many of these times it was in the form of a man.
Uniquely, I want to tell you stories. Various cut outs from my life that best explain this phenomenon known as sorrow; at least to me this is what I regard as sorrow and of the man who was so eager to act as the enforcer of this phenomenon in my life.
When I was seven years old I was naïve and happy. The bliss that ignorance provided was underappreciated and underrated. For me the world was a play ground and what mattered was whether or not I could play and if I could play for how long. School was a punishment to eradicate our powerful life force but we were able to circumvent this by playing in school and thus we were untouchable.
How I miss the days when my life was defined within such minimal boundaries. On a Sunday morning which I did not even bother to remember the date I went out to play, for that is what I was meant to do, that was all that matters. I was out of the house by 10:00 a.m. and in my joy I lost track of time and I was back home by 6:00 p.m. This was unacceptable to the man.
I did not know this and as I entered home, at least I considered this a home back then; I had a bounce in my step as the day was successful. The next moment could be considered as the moment I grew up. The moment I met sorrow, my life would never be the same again. This moment reorganized and restructured the way I would look at life in the future.
There he stood. Sorrow’s enforcer, prior to this I would not have guessed that sorrow would manifest itself in this manner. The man smacked me across my face and my joy was too frightened to remain with me. She fled, and she was very fast in leaving me one could have wondered if she was even there. From this moment henceforth she would always approach me with extreme caution. As if she expected to be chased away by the gruesome sight of sorrow and what a gruesome sight he is. Oh how I miss her.
The smack was not the end of it; the man proceeded to whip me with his belt so many times I lost count. I cried on that day; I had never understood what it meant to cry but that day I knew all too well. I can remember each tear as clear as if it happened a few moments ago. As each flowed slowly down my plump red cheeks which were in this state due to the constant slapping. O how I can remember each tear rolling down each tear weighed down and pregnant with all my misconceptions but they quickly made an exit to allow me to adjust to the new state of things.
It marked as the genesis of a new chapter in my life, the darker ones. I will admit that sorrow had visited me prior to this “fateful” day, but not as seriously, not with so much ill intent it overflowed from his black heart, and the man was ever present and ever willing to do sorrow’s bidding. That day served as my official initiation into the “true” world.
From that day sorrow never left me. Sometimes he looked aside and I thought I was free to do as I pleased only for him to return his gaze on me. He became the burden I had to bare as I lived, his man always there salivating for an opportunity to enforce his will. I was only seven, I was only seven and no matter how many times I utter this statement I find it difficult to believe. Was I only seven? Was or rather is it really fair?
The man continued to abuse me repeatedly as I grew up. I can remember when he took a plastic hangar and he repeatedly hit me until it broke, all because I attained a grade of an A minus and I came third in class. I cried, and that is most of what I remember, the crying. He beat me multiple times. For playing, for talking to girls, for coming home late, for talking, for not talking but the moments that never leave me are the moments when I cried.
I wanted to be strong but I was not. Without either of us knowing here I was all grown up. I could now look straight into the eyes of this man and he soon knew that he could beat me no longer but this was only a minor bump in the quest of sorrow. It soon turned into emotional abuse. The man now shadowed me everywhere I went calling me all sorts of names in front of all sorts of people. I looked into the eyes of the people, I always looked into their eyes, in some I saw disgust, in some I saw pity, however, whenever I looked into the eyes of people the only things I saw were things I could not bear to associate myself with, pity and disgust.
I was trapped, trapped in a dark place. Why was it that this man defined me? Why was it that sorrow never left me? I was too naïve to answer these questions. To some I may still be too naïve to answer them now. All I can do is cry and I hate myself for that. Why am I continuously driven to tears? These tears, they are now a never ending stream. They move slowly, very slowly and they sting me. Each tear stings me as it crawls slowly. They unite and they draw portraits on my face. Portraits of the past, sad portraits, portraits that I have to wear on my face, portraits that I have been forced to flaunt for everyone to see, portraits on my face.
My eyes have grown weary. They have been drained by all the tears. They themselves cry to me asking why. Why do I force them to endure this torment? I do not know, all I know is that when they wail to me I rub them. I rub them till they are sore but they refuse to run dry. They are always full of tears and I am always ready to cry and in the end here I am stuck with a hideous face, a hideous portrait to present to the world.
I now knew it was of the utmost importance that I grew strong, lest I loose myself to despair, but how could I? How could I grow strong when this man is always here? How will I loosen the grip that that vile pig sorrow has on my life? I do not know. I am battling for survival. I am cursed, cursed for what seems to be an eternity to bear with the assaults of this man. The man who has served as the manifestation of sorrow in my life, the man I have been forced to call father.