That memory from three years old

That day when I walked into a crystal shop called “stone philosophy”… I was drawn to a green amazonite crystal ball. I brought it to the store owner, the lady said: “it’s weird that as you are holding the stone, it seems like you don’t want to be connected with it, something made you afraid of connecting that part of you with it. Think of a number.” “Three” I said. “There’s something happened to you when you were three years old. Do you remember?” “I don’t” I said….

But what really happened when I was three years old?

……

I was doing “jumping-box” with a group of neighbor kids I took as friends. I was having a lot of fun, playing and jumping around the neighborhood with kids about my age. Suddenly an older sister-like girl, that I looked upon, talked with me in a sharp scolding tone: “Why are you carrying a milk feeding bottle.” I was caught in stupor, feeling speechless and surprised… what’s wrong with me carry a milk bottle? I carried it with me all the time wherever I go… It’s a big glass bottle my mom filled it full with diluted powered milk whenever it’s emptied. But now as someone who I admired and looked upon suddenly questioning me about the very existence of it, I didn’t know how to respond… “How old are you” ,The elder sister-like girl questioned me again. “Three” I answered with a soft voice, still feeling quite uneasy, since all the kids’ attentions were drawn upon the milk bottle that I was holding against my chest. “Look at Lulu, he’s three years too, but he doesn’t carry any milk bottle any more.” She pointed at another kid next to me, that kid nodded. My face was burning, I felt everyone’s eyes were staring at me in a questioning way… I felt very uneasy…embarrassed, even belittled or humiliated... even though I don’t quite understand the reasons behind, why I have to be the one being picked upon, or why I was carrying the bottle, or what is wrong with me carrying it, or why I cannot carry it no more… I just felt that I was castrated, ostracized out of the group… I quickly ran back home.

I told my Mom that I no longer want to carry the milk bottle no more. Mom was in the mid of folding the laundry on the bed, with a gentle and soft tone, she asked: “what’s wrong with carrying the milk bottle”… I couldn’t answer it… just the same way I couldn’t defend myself in front of the scolding tone from the elder sister girl, or confronting all the staring questioning eyes of all the other neighbor kids……

The other day, I suddenly remembered the question from the Crystal shop lady again, “What really happened to me at three years old?” I asked my mom, she said: “Well… that year when you were at the family reunion gathering on the Spring Festival day, you were having a lot of fun playing at grandma’s house… your father suddenly said it’s time to leave, but you were having too much fun playing, you didn’t want to go. So Dad pulled out leather belt, started whipping you… you were very scared and started crying…”

Did it really happened? I asked myself, I don’t really remember… or maybe I do… the fear and scare of seeing Dad pulling out belt and about to whip me… Not too often, but often enough for me to understand that needs of showing absolute respect and obedience to Dad’s order, the order of our house. But most often such military-fashion physical discipline only being conducted inside our house, I guess that was the only time happened to be in another place, rather than within our place.

Even until today I still have dreams that my Dad beating me up again with the same belt… Well… I did try to hide that wide brown leather belt once... That day, when my parents were knocking on the door, instead of opening the door right away, my first response was to hide the belt… So I spent quite few minutes searching for a spot to hide the belt, before I finally opened the door. And when the door was finally opened… Dad was very very mad, but he couldn’t find the belt, so he found a much slimmer leather belt to whip me with it.... Was that my fear of him hitting me, or that my nature in responding to people’s order in a habitual delayed manner, or that my apprehension of my slowness in responding actions had given me a sense of worry and fear of being punished due to it, because while I was waiting for my physical self to put it together into action to respond to the urgent order of opening the door, it would be already too late, and a physical punishment would be already unavoidable…. the time is wasting and Dad was waiting even more impatiently outside, therefore, I felt the desperate urge and despair that I have to hide the belt in the end, so that somehow miraculously I could avoid being punished? since I was already too late in answering the door??… That day’s whipping was very very harsh and painful, even though the belt was much slimmer.

So I still have dreams that Dad needs to whip me once a while, or that I felt the yearning or urges that I need to be whipped once a while… In those dreams, it felt more like a routine that the whipping has to be done, and that’s how my life supposed to be… It creates a momentum to help me move onward with my life.

Yet, my heaviest memory of childhood, was not that from three years old, but more of the mental and emotional pains of being hazed or bullied, in school, in school’s dormitory by classmates, or in swimming classes, by my swimming team teammates or the coach herself... Or the unwarranted emotional abuses in languages from my aunts (my mother side of family)…… Years after years, ever since three years old, all the way till college years…… Everybody was there, at least it felt like the whole world around me was just standing there and watching: my classmates, friends, teachers, coaches, the head of the school, even my own family members… were all there watching, silently; seemed like everybody knew exactly what’s been happening, but the schools’ authority did not stand up for me; the whole big family had witnessed what’s happening within the family, yet no one dared to speak up for me either… I wonder whether that scene when my 3-years-old self got caught being whipped in front of that whole family was the trigger point to open up all the negative energies being charged within that house, or within the whole society, and all the evils and demons within each’s twisted and contorted consciousness, were being encouraged to vent upon my young tender non-judgmental yet deeply wounded heart. But what’s even worse than the combination of all the wounds, cut and knives they had repetitively stabbed into my heart was the whole family and whole society’s deadly silence…

As I grow older, I am slowly learning to forgive each of them… The scars are still there, but I felt more like a third person observing from outside of the picture frame, patiently listening and observing it, and sending compassion and love, to the unmendable sorrowful image, and to everyone that were suffering within the same image. Each one of us in that memory frame, each one of their hearts might have been wounded in some way, I might not understand them back then, I might never be able to understand them, but I shall still able to send them my unconditional love and compassion.. just the same way I sent love to the little me back then… I felt like I and all my loving guides and angels have left fragments of loving reminders back then in different spots here and there.. I should have been able to feel it back then, but I was too much entrenched within my own sufferings, to fully comprehend it, and feeling it impartially… But now as I grow older, all the sorrows and pains from the past made me love the present me even more dearly, and appreciate each tender moment and feelings from people and animals around me even more.

We are all coming into this moment of life with past wounds and scars, but that doesn’t stop us from loving others, and most importantly, loving the self and cherish this moment of life even more.