I thought she boarded that plane of her own free will.
I never believed my mother’s story about sleepwalking until it happened to me. I was thirteen and I could no longer deny it. My body wouldn’t let me. I awoke from my sleep and discovered myself standing at the kitchen counter. I was pouring a can soda into a glass. Then, suddenly, a wave of nausea hit me hard. The sweet sugary scent of the soda had turned into the foul odor of rotting flesh. I ran out of the kitchen and into our family den. I had to catch my breath. I sat on an old Scandinavian sectional my parents bought long before I was born. My heavy breathing actually had a soothing effect. It was real. I was real, but I was scared of what I didn’t know. I sat there in the middle of the night just breathing and wondering why and how this could have happened. What was it that sent me to the kitchen? Why was I pouring a soda? And why did it make me feel so sick?
It’s taken me a long time to reach this conclusion. But it’s very basic and simple. As humans, as an evolved biological species, it is in our very nature to communicate. We are hard wired for transmitting and receiving messages at the cellular level. These messages are as simple as the involuntary instructions for the expansion and contraction of our lungs and the beating of our hearts. But they can also be very complex. When these simple messages are shared, when we know that there are other’s like us, when we gain the awareness that collectively we’re part of a larger organism, a family, a neighborhood, company, nation or society, we see other messages. We see the questions that are asked over and over again. Why do we fight? Why do we love? Why are we here?
I’ve now accepted that the reason I felt so sick that night was due to the trauma of acceptance.