I Understand ....

I understand now.

At the beginning, there was within my body not one mind, not one soul, but two.

Fraternal Siamese twins, joined at the heart, and although one was male, the other female, they functioned as one so well that no one perhaps suspected the existence of this duality.

Then, there came the discovery of the body’s sex, that I was male in form, and a conflict began to arise between the two souls, and the boy-soul pushed at the girl-soul, like many a small boy who decides that his one-time playmate now has cooties.

But the girl pushed back, and as she was in fact the stronger of the two, she took charge of the body, and so it was that when a man thought to be a wizard of sorts asked for her heart’s desire, she was the one who spoke, and she asked for a chance at light and life.

Sadly, the wizard was like Saruman, and had long before fallen into darkness, and saw this conflict within my body as a weakness he could exploit.

Say what you will about the girl-soul, she was brave, and decided to take all the degradations the wizard performed on the body on herself, protecting the boy-soul as best she could from the horror and shame.

Once my term of imprisonment was over, the girl-soul fled inside, taking with her the memory of what happened, and a wall was created to keep the boy-soul from discovering the truth, or so it was hoped.

Sadly, the wall was not a perfect protection, and the boy-soul felt loss and grief without knowing what he had lost, or what he was grieving for, and nightmares found their way over the wall to torment his sleep for years to come.

And whispers of the girl-soul also made their way over the wall, but instead of comforting, they only frightened the boy-soul even more than the nightmares did.

Then the boy found the wall, and made the first crude attempts to make an opening in it, only to be overwhelmed by the pain, grief, shame, and sorrow from the other side. And so great was the pain he felt, he missed the cries of the girl among the screams, and closed the hole in the wall leaving her inside, like Pandora closing the lid on Hope.

But the absence of his twin gnawed at his being, and he finally started hearing some of the whispers from the girl-soul, and began a dance that brought him briefly closer, then farther away, and then closer again, as he seemed balanced between need and fear.

Then finally, when it had seemed like he had lost all the things he could lose, he made the decision, tore a hole in the wall, and let the girl-soul out, and after a short period where they were at balance-point, he withdrew to allow her the opportunity she had been denied all those years ago.

But this has not been without cost, as in freeing the girl-soul, he had to free the memories of the wizard-monster, and face for the first time what had happened to them both as children.

But now, they were no longer fighting, and together they are facing the demons hidden in those memories, and bit by bit brining more and more of the totality into the light.

The girl-soul has stepped out into the world, and found support and acceptance beyond her wildest dreams, and with the boy-soul within to cheer her on, she is going to make a good life for herself.

One day at a time.