Tree Vines and Tires

Decades have passed, but the years have not marred the memory.

A tall tree stood at the foot of a hill in the backyard of the home of a little boy. That boy, eleven years old, and his twin brother and their friends had gathered up a pile of old tires from his father's truck and laid them out under the canopy of that tree. A few thick vines hung down and swung freely. The boys used those vines to launch their little bodies into the obstacle course of tires, always trying their damnedest to reach the farthest one. That was the prize. I never won it. I was the smallest and the weakest. I worked for it, but I only ever made it two or three tires in. Still, those summers got embedded into our little minds, never to be forgotten.

I see that boy running in the woods. Jumping over fallen branches. Dodging vines and thistles. Splashing into creeks. Riding bikes with his brother's friends and being everything he wanted to be.

Except.

I also see him going home. Alone in his bedroom after everyone else had gone to bed. Laying his head on the pillow after a whole evening of begging a god that would not answer. Fix my brokenness. Remove this guilt and this shame. Take away the loneliness and the fear that follows me everywhere. That was his prayer. The only sound that came back was the whimpering that leaked out of him when he realized nothing was going to change.

When those prayers stayed unanswered, I see that same boy try to change himself instead. He walked the halls of school under the weight of constantly rearranging who he was to match what everyone said was normal. Conscious of his voice. Conscious of his walk. Always making sure it was right. Always making sure it didn't draw attention. He worked every day to turn what felt natural into something that felt wrong. Something that felt expected. Something that felt accepted. There were fights. Mocking. Jeering. He didn't make many friends because he started pulling away from everyone, so no one could see. No one could know what was behind the mask. That truly was his greatest fear.

The emptiness grew into something worse. A slow cancer of trying to die a little every day for other people's comfort. And it didn't ease when the boy grew into a man. It got heavier. The same jeering kids were grown now, and they still expected the same normalcy, the same adherence to some shape of a person he was supposed to be.

When that man, still carrying the little boy inside him, finally decided life wasn't worth living if he had to keep hiding, he came to a crossroads. Disappear the way they wanted, or walk away from the life he had built and live a new life.

And the people he thought loved him said, We preferred you when you were disappearing.

That man stood there with decades of nights behind him. Decades of crying for change, begging to be normal, while everyone around him rated his suffering as less important than their own comfort. Those decades stood mocking him, the same way those kids had in the school halls. But the pain that cut deepest came from the ones whose love should never have been conditional. Love withheld because acceptance would not be given.

He made a decision to live anyway. No matter what anyone said.

Much to the dismay of some, he walked away from a life he could no longer live. And he came to understand that the only acceptance that mattered was from his children and his soulmate.

So to my children, Elijah and Kaylee. Thank you for accepting me and loving me even when I wasn't completely sure who I was. I love you for that. You have carried me through more than you know. You are the reason I can run and jump into those tires again. You are the reason I can swing from those vines again without fear, without regret. And though the pain still rises in me from time to time, I can face it now with a resolve I wish I'd had as a kid. I hope I've put some of that same resolve in you, so when you face your own fears you won't carry the weight of other people's judgment the way I did for so many years.