The bubble

At the end of my street is Hoffman-Boston Elementary School. Thirty two years ago I attended both nursery school and then Kindergarten from 1975 through 1980. I've been doing a lot of internal examination and exploration of myself over these past few years, and have just recently come to recognize the core thing I struggle with was with me from nursery school, if not earlier. How fortunate is it that I find myself living one block from this beginning? Is this the gift of my second marriage, to have led me to this neighborhood, to leave me here, by myself, to do this hard work? It was K who found this house, almost by accident, and it required my first marriage to dissolve so that I would need to move here. When the way forward is not clear, go back to the beginning. Go back as far as you can and sit there, look around, remember what it was like to be very young and to be in your own world.

I remember being two or three years old, attending Hoffman-Boston - going there for the mornings, and at some point transitioning to staying for both the morning and afternoon sessions. I remember being a quiet kid, keeping to myself. There were several "stations" in our classroom where a kid could learn to do things - like tying a shoe, or buttoning things, or zipping things up, or polishing silver (and what was that all about?). But the station I spent most of my time was the clay table - where there was grey clay you could play with. And I would spend all my time there.

I recall going to recess, and I had this game I would play. I had a belt that had a magnetic clasp, where if you twisted it a certain way, as if you were opening the clasp, it would make a clicking noise. So my game was that I was a secret agent or a spy of some sort, and I was on a mission. But if I were to get into trouble, I would make this clicking noise on my belt, which would be the signal for my friends to come running and rescue me. I had it in my mind that my friends all knew about this, and were in on the game, and I could see them over there, climbing on the jungle gym. So I clicked my belt. But of course, they were too far off to hear it, and I hadn't really told them about the game or the clicking belt. But in my world, I had, and they were part of the game. And of course they never came running to rescue me.

During snack time we would all to to the refrigerator and get milk to go with our snack. But I never liked chocolate milk, and for some reason that was all the classroom ever seemed to have, so I would have to run over to the main office refrigerator to get my plain milk, and run back to class. Now, the building our classroom was in must have been the original schoolhouse for the area - it's a small three or four room building. Over time the new school was built in a U shape around the old schoolhouse, but the two buildings were never connected, so to get to the main office you had to go outside, and into the other building. One day the class was going outside to have snack time. Everyone went out and down the hill to sit in a picnic. But I had to run to the office first to get my milk. Not wanting to be late and miss anything, I ran down the sidewalk connecting the two buildings. But I tripped on something, and fell, sliding on my hands and knees and getting pretty badly torn up.

From this early age I was creating my own world, all inside my head. I think I did this because the real world really didn't make sense to me, and no one seemed to be explaining it to me. In _my_ world, however, everything made sense. I was a part of a rich, vibrant reality. As I grew older, this reality stayed with me and served me well. When I was old enough to ride a bike, I would ride down to the park and spend hours playing in the stream or exploring in the woods, all by myself. I was never lonely, because in my reality I was never alone - I was always part of a larger universe.

I have a vivid memory of third grade - I was in math class, and was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt. And in my world, I was a lumberjack, and were it not for this class I had to take I would be doing my lumberjack duties down at the saw mill. I remember talking under my breath to the lumberjack dispatcher about how, as soon as I got out of class, I would come back to the saw mill and get back to work. I knew this was not real, but at the same time it was quite vivid and real.

This world I created for myself suited me quite well - it made sense and was a safe, fun place for me to be. And, as a child, my world paralleled quite nicely with the "real" child's world, so there really wasn't any real problem. However, as I grew older, I never left that world. The real child's world gradually became an adults world. But here I am, existing inside my child's world still. What this means to me is that in order to really "be" in the adult world, I must translate what I'm seeing and experiencing outside of this "bubble" I'm in, and recreate it inside of my world, because, you see, I'm the only real person inside of my world. This has been my place of existence, and for me to really be a part of the adult world, I find that I must take what I'm seeing outside the bubble, and recreate it inside the bubble, and then interact with this fiction I've created. Can you imagine how much work that is? Have you ever played the Telephone game, where a message is passed from one person to another and another and so on, and you realize that over time the message has become corrupted? What if you only interacted with the world through a game of telephone, where each interaction outside of the bubble passed through this prism - you'd be reacting to something that resembles reality, but isn't really.

From time to time I've been able to step outside off the bubble - to truly exist in the world. But I've never been able to stay there - I've always had to return to the bubble to survive. But now I can no longer stay in this place. I must come out and live in the world. If I am to have any chance at emotional survival, I must be born. And yet I fear leaving this world, this rich place where I feel most creative. I really feel the uniqueness of looking at the world through this prism, of seeings a little differently, from a different angle. I would like to bring that out of the bubble.

I've come back to the beginning. My house is a physical representation of the bubble - a rich, vibrant place where I am most often alone. And yet, I cannot stay here - I must move on. I have been brought back to the beginning, literally parked right outside of where it began, like a construction office trailer outside of a new building. A necessary to do work, but never meant to last.

I can see the bubble now. I can even feel the bubble. I can feel it clinging to me, this too large adult sitting in a child's world. I can feel the clingy fabric of that world press against me as I try to stand and stretch - I'm just too big for this world anymore.

When you're with me, and I don't really seem there - it's probably because I'm not. I'm in my world, and to be with you I have to make this real time translation between "out there" and "in here" - it's a lot of work! Anyone who has learned a new language might recall trying to carry a conversation on in that new language, only, you're not speaking Spanish in your head, you're speaking English. And you have to take those Spanish words, change them to English to understand what's been said, and then take your English words, translate them to Spanish and pass them back. That's an involved process!

I can feel the bubble. I can reach out and touch it, see the edges, feel what it's like to step outside, and feel what it's like to be inside and overwhelmed with translating. Sometimes I'm here with you, sometimes I'm just not able to be there. But I can see and feel that boundary now. And that's a new thing.