Something Beautiful

LOVE’S DEFICIT The little girl lay face down on the grass. Screaming in torment, she kicked her legs and beat her fists on the ground; it was the only way she knew how to deal with the frustration she was feeling. The neighbourhood bullies had once again achieved what they set out to do. Laughing, they turned and walked away. Nobody came to soothe the pain. Nobody helped her to her feet. Nobody saw her aching heart. She was just a little girl throwing another tantrum. She’d grow out of it. She did grow out of the face down on the ground, floor kicking, fist beating tantrums. But the frustration and the pain of rejection remained. A shy, rather serious child, she would learn gradually to hide these things from view deep inside her heart. She never misbehaved in class. She did well academically, and she was well-mannered and respectful. But her teacher, Miss Williams, had taken a dislike to her because she was such a serious, melancholic little thing. She came from a good, decent family, the teacher thought; there was no reason for this child to be unhappy. One day Miss Williams called her name. “Stand up. Come to the front of the class.” She called a boy forward, a sad, shy boy, quiet and withdrawn, certainly not a troublemaker of any sort. “One day the two of you can get married,” the woman began, “and everyone can wear black and cry at your wedding...” Her laugh was filled with derision. She was relishing every word, impressed with her own wit and imagination. The class was silent. Every eye was on the children at the front. Every ear was hearing what was being said. Tears pricked the little girl’s eyes, welling up, spilling out in great, wrenching sobs. “There!” snapped the teacher, triumphantly. “That’s what I’m talking about! The two of you can get married and live miserably ever after!” She grinned. What entertainment she had given the class this morning! The lunch bell rang. The children forgot the drama in favour of food and play. All except the two stars of the show. As they filed out of the classroom, the boy announced to the little girl, with as much contempt as he could muster, “I’d never marry YOU, anyway, EVER!” She had friends, but she spent a lot of time alone, feeling unloved and sorry for herself. She would sometimes retreat to the back yard to sit with her dog, a loyal and patient cocker spaniel named Pluto. “You’re the only one that loves me, Pluto,” she would sob, burying her face in his soft, warm fur. She would tell him all about how she was feeling, about everything that was on her heart. She really felt that he understood. One day Pluto was gone. Her mother told her he had been given to some people on a farm who had lost their own dog. She felt like she had lost her best friend. She had a mother and a father who cared for her, but she always felt that, somehow, they had been lumbered with her and merely loved her because they had to. As though they didn’t really want to love her but it was their duty. She just didn’t believe that she was lovable. But she didn’t know how to share her inner thoughts and feelings and fears and pains. Nobody knew the deep need in her because she didn’t understand it herself. Children, lacking life’s experience, just accept that the way things are is the only way, until someone tells them differently. She would often retreat to read, to write poetry that nobody ever read, to play the piano or listen to music. But while these things helped, they could never fill the void that was in her young heart. The teenage years were all about being accepted by her peers. Everything hung on wearing the “right” clothes and hanging out in the “right” places with the “right” people. There was a quiet desperation about being accepted, being liked, avoiding the pain of rejection. So much so that she often acted against her own better judgment, fitting in with new friends at the cost of rejecting lifelong ones. Her values were changing as she sold out to buy into something that looked like happiness. At times she didn’t like what she was becoming, but her desperation for love and acceptance kept her from seeing, or wanting to see, that the road she was on actually led downhill, away from the very things she was seeking. Addictions crept in. Alcohol, cannabis and nicotine became her friends as she sought to cope with life and to escape the pain of one broken relationship after another. Always there was the deep, burning desire to love and to be loved. Her parents gave the best they could to all their children. They were never to blame for her downward spiral. The choices she made, she made herself. Inside were a deep ache and a longing that nobody could fill. Into her twenties, there were too many men, too many broken relationships, too many “happily ever afters” gone wrong. Too many alcoholic and drug-fuelled hazes to escape the pain. She entertained thoughts of suicide. She moved away from her home to another city. But her problems were still there, because they didn’t depend on circumstances. They were in her heart. She teetered between guilty self-loathing and victimisation. She hated who she was, but it was easier to excuse herself from any responsibility if she was the victim. So she usually chose to see herself as that, the victim of bad luck and circumstances and the actions of others. All the while she managed to keep her heart pretty well hidden. Nobody could see the pain, the self-loathing, the craving to love and be loved and the deep desire to be free of it all. Or so she thought…