“How old is the sadness?” my therapist asked me.
“Young, very young,” I replied. “About three, I think.”
“That makes sense,” my therapist affirmed.
Since that session I’ve had these glimpses of a very small child with dirty blond curly and unruly hair, dressed in a chaotic colorful and dirty outfit. She’s out in a meadow with tall grass. All alone.
There is a pretty brisk wind blowing. It’s not very fast, but it’s just loud enough to drown out the sounds she’s making.
She’s crying. She has been crying for a very long time.
It is a piercing, forlorn, despairing sobbing. Her face is tear streaked. Her cries are haunting and not at all pleasant to the ears.
There’s a hopelessness, a sense of all is lost. She is inconsolable and knows all her tears are futile. But she keeps sobbing anyway.
About this time I hear another voice within me.
“Oh what a crybaby!” this other voice says. It’s a harsh voice loaded with disdain. I don’t know where it comes from. Is it me? Or is it someone else?
I feel this intense urge to go to this child and try to comfort her, but something holds me back, makes it impossible for me to reach her.
Is it the disdain?
It could also be that this crying little girl seems to be in another world, and I can’t just cross over like that.
She continues to cry. Still all alone.
But at least she is seen… and her cries are heard.