Peace you
Peace you!
Yes that’s what I said.
Peace you!
Hmm. Why?
Well it came to me the other day that perhaps the world could benefit a bit more from use of a different word more often - peace. It seems that other words, one word of profanity in particular, has got our attention. I will not say it. Not because I do not, but because in this post I want the energy to be all about one example of a journey finding personal peace. It is also just one perspective, in hindsight.
Swearing is a no no for many people. For me it seems to be an acquired habit depending on where I lived, who I hung out with etc. I never thought much of it because who am I to say what one person can or can not do. It seems though that the words capture so much. Profanity in the past created shock value, disrupted and unhinged the target. Well chosen words and accompanying tone also have aided comics whose material did not stand on it’s own or authors who needed a new gimmick or musical artists going for notoriety in their song writing. It seems that over the years profanity is now so common that not using it is considered unusual.
Yet when I go back in time I see a different relationship with profanity – and it was not peace. In my youth, we are talking primary school days, I was cautioned to not speak in such a way. It was the early 70’s. So instead of using actual swear words we replaced them with code ones. So things like Teton Dam, Fudge and H – E – double toothpicks. We all still knew exactly what we were doing. Our intention was the same. But there was this unspoken agreement amongst my gang that we never said the real words. The minds of 8-10 year olds.
Also at one point I lived in a place that was quite religious in the community. So not only was swearing literally blasphemous it was never heard. My family not being of this religion excluded themselves from these rules yet never used them in front of me. So I had a few years where I was hidden away from any vulgarity or inappropriate behaviour as described by the community. Being so protected it was rare to hear a profanity. If we did it was likely in a piece of music or something that slipped by the gatekeepers.
Then we moved from our sheltered bubble to a place of opposite. Within days of arriving to our new world I was bombarded with the reality of not just language but also ideas. My naïve 12 year old self suddenly was thrust into a world that spoke what it wanted and matched this in behaviour. Compared to where I had just been for three formative years I was in another version of H – E – double toothpicks, well according to those I left behind.
As time went by I began to accept and be one amongst this world. I soon began to push my own boundaries of what was right and wrong. Easily done. I could say it was the influence of others yet in hindsight could feel it was more an inner rebel within me trying to have a voice. Only this rebel needed to do more than use a profane word in it’s full power. Combine that with puberty, being exiled by the new friends I made after moving and a few other dysfunctional family matters and profanity was the only way to capture how I felt.
There was something about the words. Knowing that before this I was scolded and socially ostracised for using them I embraced their power. Said more in my journals than out loud it was about the energy and what it represented. I was fighting back. This matched my outward rebelliousness as well. I will not explore this in detail but let’s just say I was miss goody two shoes to some and the opposite to other. I had a secret life and hid that from many.
Then one day it came to a head. I got in serious trouble. I remember this time in my life being a defining moment. Being grounded for an entire summer coincided with the dysfunctional family matter coming out in the open – well at least to my immediate family and a few close friends. Up until then we walked around on eggshells while the elephant in the room stood guard preventing any real dialogue. Oh there was conversation that often ended up in yelling or screaming on my part. It also seemed that without any help my voice could not construct a proper sentence to truly express my internal world. Feeling vulnerable, threatened and scared I buried, squashed and smothered any iota of feeling into the depth of my unconscious. Even a temporary stint visiting a psychologist produced no change, just more fear that I could not trust anyone.
I got quite depressed. No one noticed. The only place that had any idea of my state of being were the pages of my journal (now long since cathartically destroyed in one of my insightful moments). It was a scary and precarious time for me as a teenager. I navigated self-healing on my own. My sanctuary was my room, lying on my bed staring out the window at the tree tops just visible from my room. I immersed myself in my study and part time work. I did everything I could on the outside to prove that I was a worthy person, good girl. I had to make up for the past.
When I look back now at this formative time in my life, the shaping of my identity and discovery of the first layer of my true self, I realise it was crafted by the pain and discomfort. I survived it all somehow. I could feel a sense of aliveness coming through me over time. What allowed me to slowly emerge into myself more were the little opportunities to choose my own way. Something as simple as listening to music I liked, earning money on my own and buying things I wanted that my family would not, getting to know people through common interests, exploring creative passions like photography, finding my talents and getting the opportunity to express myself with these, achieving goals that I set, making choices about where I wanted to go in life.
By the time I was in my last two years of school I began to come into my own. I worried less and less about the popular crowd or whether it was worth it to placate them for the sake of inclusion. I found comfort and connection in a group of likeminded souls who also were similarly happy not playing the game. We formed a good bond both in our social and school activities. The only way to describe it is that we were individuals first and a group second as opposed to the other way around. In looking back it feels like a script to any typical coming of age teenage movie. We triumphed in the end being able to be who we were, at least in that stage of life, each achieving success as measured by others in that world. Funny how these many years later I can look back and see how I thought I had all the answers at 18. Don’t we all.
More so what I noticed about this reflection is that by going through H – E – double toothpicks I found peace. That is the best word to describe the place I arrived at. Home internally within myself I could express me. Yes, it might have been behind the lens of a camera or editing the pages of a yearbook but I got to be me. I was aligned with my external and internal self at a key stage in life.
It is with both pain and fondness that I go back and reflect on those years now. I can flick through old photos, yearbooks and even some of the books I read. In me I see myself from afar as a different person. I was an explorer and journeyer in the first stage of life. A child becoming a woman. Someone who listened to others more becoming an authority of her own life. The learnings along the way were exactly that - learnings. I do not regret nor begrudge anyone for their role in shaping me through those times. We each were going through our own discovery.
Despite living now across the globe, one person from that time still knows me and we stay in touch. We must be soul sisters at some level. We each have gone in our own different direction. Yet I will always feel like she has my back and vice a versa. The rest of the faces from that time are both fond and challenging memories. Each telling me a part of the story.
When you ask someone whether they enjoyed their school years most will say no. It is an awkward time for many. I am the same. I could not wait to move on, chart my own course and be free. Little did I know that the real growth would come next (a sharing for later). For now I see the end of school as a peak of the first ascent on an undulating journey called life. To follow are many more peaks and valleys. The only difference is that the peaks got higher and the valleys were not as low.
So we return to the subject of this post – peace. And now I say from the depths of my heart with only love and thankfulness - Peace you. Peace all of you. Peace.