Healing

Healing Is A Process

Healing.

Sprayed on the brick wall in brilliant red ink were the words "Fuck you" written across one of the aged bricks.

     My first psychoanalyst told me a while back that whenever I see something depressing I should cover it up with something positive so that I don't have to see it. When I told Phoebe that, she gave me a pack of yellow smiley stickers to keep in my wallet. She gave them to me about a month after I was first admitted to the madhouse. She said she picked the one with smiles because that's how she likes to remember me best, beaming back at her on the rusted carousel horse.

     I reached out and brushed my fingers against the crude words. They quivered at the sudden bite of cold air after being drawn out from my coat pockets. I knew that the script couldn't be simply scrubbed off. It's permanently placed there until years of rain can wear it down. I thought about how someone once stood in the same place I did now and thought that this was how they wanted to contribute to society, by scribbling hate words across a brick in the wall.

     I took out the sheet of stickers from my wallet and pulled one of the yellow faces off. I stuck the face over the letter "U" so that kids who walked by and saw it would not be able to repeat the word. I made it a rule to only censor one letter in bad words. Otherwise it attracts more attention and I'd run out of them faster. I'm now down to only three smileys. I go through about three sheets a month. I know I probably should've stopped a few years ago. But it's honestly become a source of comfort after doing it for so long. It's nice to know that even if I can't stop all the kids from falling off the cliff, I can at least try to save some and soften the blow for others. I've learned that that's all I can do for them. After all, it's impossible to stop growth.

     "Excuse me?"

     I turned my head and saw a little girl that just barely reached my hip in height. She had a head of messy black locks pulled into two lopsided tails that were tied in scarlet ribbons.

     "Can I have a sticker, please?" She pointed towards the sheet of yellow faces in my grasp. I looked around us. We were on a sidewalk across the park where Phoebe and I used to play. There were a few kids rolling in the snow with their parents keeping a watchful eye on them from the benches where they sat. One mother in particular looked straight at me and the girl with a cautious stare.

     I looked back to the child before me and then back to the woman and smiled softly. I turned my attention back to the girl and squatted down to her height. Phoebe once said it was nicer when she could talk to me at eye level, nowadays I just need to dip my head down a bit to get to her height.

     "Is that your mom over there?" I cocked my head in the direction of the woman.

     "Yes."

     "How come you aren't with her? It's dangerous for you to cross a street by yourself, ya know." I paused, "Not to mention talking to a stranger."

She furrowed her eyebrows, "My Mama says she knows you. That's why she let me come over by myself."

I twisted my face in confusion. I looked back to the woman across the street. I hadn't recognized her immediately, but once I really took in her dark hair and cherry lips I couldn't believe I missed her. She looked the same as always but yet so very different.

The girl spoke, drawing my attention back to her, "If you give me a sticker I can take you to her." I thought about the kid chauffeuring me around the park like a tour guide, that amused me. So I peeled one of the remaining smileys off the sheet and handed it to her, "Sounds like a plan."

She took the sticker and stuck it to her jacket over her heart. She then looked up at me and smiled wide, "Come on, she said you and her were good friends."