Born with Demons

The tears come when I least expect them but it's not like it was before. The world is no longer gray or black. Indeed, it's the opposite. The trees are greener than I have ever seen them, the sky is as blue as I ever imagined it could be and the lone kingfisher sitting on the powerlines is so symbolic of the magic that surrounds me that it engulfs me in its warm glow. I can feel the heartbeats of the leaves when I touch them, I can smell the aroma of the air that I breathe.

I write and rewrite and leave my words in my head because I can't even begin to describe my emotions and on paper or the screen words spill out in a manner that is neither eloquent or sensible. I know what I want but I don't know how to do it. I know there is so much life has to offer, and I have to offer it but I don't know what it is that I need to do. I am frustrated by my search for my own purpose and inspired at the same time.

Two children sit on the neighbour's roof, a young Asian girl of about 11 years in age, and her younger brother who would not be more than 4 or 5. She hugs and reassures him and I wonder what they are hiding from. I want to help them but it may be that they are playing games of adventure, and I am oversensitive because my own memories of climbing out onto the roof or hiding in the tree accross the road are those of escaping my parents violent arguments with each other, or my own arguments with my mother.

In one of our many discussions that we have had before, my sister tells us that the 'root cause' of her depression was moving and culture shock. She was never sad or suicidal until she moved country - her psychologist told her so. I wonder what of my own, what is the 'root cause' that makes an innocent 6-year old inhale aerosols to end her life, or contemplate hanging herself on the swingset her father has recently erected in the back yard.

I've long since learned to accept that for me, there is no 'root cause', only excuses and I am the way I am, with these demons I was born. I've long since given up blaming my family or my situations because I have tried time and time again to change things, to make them better and the cycle repeats itself unannounced and often without reasons.

"From a young age you learned that life was not about wealth or reputation. Whether or not you had a role model, or you learned this from situations around you, it is a gift that you have carried with yourself from early childhood and it is an important gift that you remember you have always had." The tarot reader tells me.

He wears thick glasses, his dreadlocks are pulled back in a loose bun around which his long gray stray hairs fall. Sometimes, he grabs his long gray beard, his eyes looking concerned behind his thick glasses. I want to take some hope from what he is telling me. The cards are telling me that I have a special personality and if I don't work with people, my gifts will be wasted.

I've known this for some time, I can say at least two years when I decided that I no longer wanted to work with computers and the web. Yet this is all I've known for the last 7 years, I am so good at it that I get more job offers that I can consider a day, it's hard to leave it behind, and indeed embrace the unknown. I know in my heart that I do want to work with people, that I want to make a difference by just being me but I don't know where to start or how to do it. I don't know what to do.

Or I thought I didn't, until now. As the girl took her brother's hand and led him back into the house through the open window, I realised that I had always known.

I have to help the little girl, the one who sits at the bottom of the stairs, her vision blinded by her own tears. She dries her tears and asks her dog -- the only one who understand her -- if it's going to be okay.

"It's going to be okay, isn't it?"

Of course he never replied, but I always felt that he wanted to tell me something.

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