Among strangers

The picture above is of me. I am sitting on the lap of my mother. The other woman I only know as Jane X and that is all I know of her. This is the last picture I have of my mother and I cannot even see her face. I do not know where my parents are, or even if they are still alive. I barely remember this day except for fragments and flashes of images I do not know if real or imagined. My mother placing me on the floor, my fathers worried face as he picked me up, pain, an ambulance ride and this moment, getting plugged into a machine and told to close my eyes. When I opened them, they were gone. All of them.

I was under two in this image, that was 20 years ago and I have been on the move for the last 15 of them. Alone. But, it is time, I am no longer going to run, I am no longer going to hide. The moment to reveal myself and show what can be done has arrived.

I would like to show you what I look like now but after spending 5 years in a lab being prodded and pulled with CCTV cameras following my every move, I have become a little camera shy. Not that it would help you anyway, who you will see in the image will tell nothing of me the person. You will look at it and see someone you could pass in the street and offer a friendly smile before walking on your way, a person who might serve you at the supermarket or, see carrying a backpack filled with university books. You could see someone ordinary, someone like you. You'd likely be mistaken.

The chances of you being like me are slim to none although, I am ordinary. The new ordinary.

My father kept a diary of life that I have access to still and among his last entries was a story of me. He called me gifted, an amazing learner and someone who may come to change the world. Skewed views of a father who saw his daughter through emotional eyes tainted by pride and naivety. He wasn't wrong though, he just didn't fully realize what he was looking at.

We live in a world of nature and nurture and nature has pushed us into a point where it is nurture that has the largest effects on who we are, how we behave and what we do in our little worlds. It is nurture that brings people together to create communities, cultures, societies, industries and governments that drive agendas and change the world, change nature which in turn changes us. It is a cycle, we are changed, we change and then we are changed again.

I am changed, evolved, new. This is not hubris, this is scientific fact. I destroyed the tapes that prove it, I kept the picture above as a memory of what once was, and what I have lost to be at this point. Loss is a much greater motivator than gain, loss digs deep into the soul even when the loss is irrelevant. Losing parents, losing childhood, having them taken, that creates a different kind of loss. A loss of innocence, one devoid of the nurture of a loving parent, the sweet memories of fresh grass and sunshine replaced by steel, concrete and medical equipment.

The world that you have likely known, the experiences that have tormented you and the baggage carried up until this day is very little in comparison to some, to me. But, it is not useful to dwell on where we have come from unless it provides us a motive to move forward with intention. Too many spend their lives tethered to a past life they think is still their own. Move forward, it is the only way to go.

There is no such thing as living in the past, it is another illusion sold through poorly spoken words. There is no past as it was destroyed the moment after it was created and other than the next moment arriving, there is no relevant future either. But enough philosophizing on trivialities, you are likely wondering who I am, what I can do and, where this story leads.

The best answers I can give you now is: Ava, I am not completely sure and, the next moment will lead on to the next. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]