Friends have told me on a number of occasions that the blog posts they have most appreciated are the ones where I am the most honest about my personal experiences and feelings. So here goes one of those. It will be a miracle if I get up the courage to publish it. Much of this you may have heard before in some form, but today I go a bit deeper. And although my current housing situation has stabilized, the topic is still applicable in other ways.
I know that my mother did her best to welcome me, given the 1950's hospital setting and my probably having been taken away seconds after birth to be cleaned up, checked over, and dressed up. Mom wasn't a demonstrative woman. She was also tiny, and had just given birth to a three-week-late, 9 pounds 1 oz baby, so her joy or satisfaction must have been muted by activity, exhaustion and fluorescent lights. But at least I have a vague memory of some slight bonding. What I have a clearer sensing memory of, however, is that first moment meeting my father. He told me once that he had gone out drinking while he waited to hear the news that I was born. (This was way before the days of fathers helping out in the delivery room, but I know for a fact that he would not have done that in any event.) While I am sure he jollied up my mom and the nurses and said all the right things, I am also sure that, when I was placed in his arms, I looked into eyes that simply could not see me. With the exception of a few occasions when his own ego was boosted by his attention to me, and up to his death three years ago (when I "inherited" $725), I have no memory of any genuine, two-way interaction with him, or, frankly, between him and anyone else. The problem, of course, is that until I was about 60, I did not understand that my efforts to engage him were futile. I literally spent much of this lifetime searching for some way to break through the surface and find the human being within, only I don't believe there was one. I was not successful, in any event.
The problem with such a start is that hour one ends up defining one's whole lifetime. You are removed from your mother's loving arms, cleaned up, made perfect, and then handed over for inspection. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that I hadn't passed inspection. So year after year, I replayed the tape. Maybe if I'm a good girl, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I do well in school, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I develop an unusual talent, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I am perfect, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I take an interest in his family genealogy, or help the family out during crises, or help him organize his living space, or drive him to his mother's home town. Maybe if I create beautiful art and give it to him. Maybe if I am in crisis, or if I lose my temper, or if he can see that he has hurt me, Daddy will see me. No. Maybe if, a year before his death, I just give up and stop contacting him, Daddy will remember me and call me. No.
This First Hour pattern morphed into a bigger search for where I would be loved and appreciated simply for who I am, and it took on rather mythical proportions. I'm sure some similar eldest daughters play out the search in dating and marriage; for me, it was in having a talent/passion that was impossible to pursue, and the subsequent search for somewhere, anywhere, to feel at home with work or people or landscape. Earlier than most people, I reached a point where I couldn't bear "the job search", the cleaning myself up and presenting myself as beautifully as possible in the hopes of being selected, being "loved", only, more often than not, finding out I was too qualified or not qualified enough. Not right. In recent years, that First Hour has manifested itself in not being able to do a conventional housing search. It's the same issue. Deep in my soul, it hurts too much to have to prove my worth, or to be turned down or asked to leave. It hurts too much not simply to "earn" a viable living space by virtue of being the essentially good human being that I am. (I think our whole economy has more in common with a man like my father than most of us realize. Overall, it only cares what its needs are and how we, as workers, will fill that need. It really doesn't want to look at us, it wants to look at the bottom line. There is something so soulless and painful about the whole thing. The fact that so many people have been functional in it is a miracle.)
It always feels satisfying to trace a lifelong problem back to its source, but how can I reframe that First Hour moving forward? I cannot change my dad's first encounter with me, but moving back maybe a half hour to the very first moment is striking. Some very competent doctors and nurses helped Mom through a hard labor and got me out of the womb safely (thank you, to whoever you were!) My mom must have held me briefly, and warmly, at least for a minute or two, and then a caring nurse took me (was I screaming?!) to wash me off and dress me up. She (most nurses were women in those days) undoubtedly had a lovely, encouraging voice, and told me I was beautiful and how proud my parents were. That's what I would do if I were ever to hold a newborn baby. It was in the context of such warm greetings that my dad's blankness so wounded me. But I need to start focusing on the murmured voices of the women, telling me I was welcome in this world. I need to start focusing on the first moments of that First Hour. It's not too late to change the pattern.
