An Echo in Time

by Boo Walker

Through her therapist, she’s learned that she fibs to avoid conflict, an aftereffect of being raised by an abusive mother.

Charli is no stranger to being a lot of things, including a bad girlfriend, but she hates to be a disappointment. It’s why she bails when everything is still golden.

She loathes her childish behavior, but it’s coming up from her core. There’s something about her turning into an asshole that makes life hurt less.

Funny—or maybe not so funny—Charli and her mother had that in common, an ability to behave and be their best for a while.

Of course she needs a guru. She needs a guru and a better therapist, and probably a prescription of some sort. But the idea of it feels a lot like trying to shovel a sidewalk while it’s still dumping snow.

Family members can feel and even suffer from trauma that existed in a previous branch of their family tree—even if they are unaware of the details. Apparently it’s more than genetics that provides a conduit for such pain to pass through. Believers claim that there is a morphic field, or energy cloud, as Viv had called it, in which family members, both alive and dead, reside. A traumatic experience can create an imbalance in the field, causing a collective suffering. The idea of the therapy is to rebalance the dynamic, which relieves the traumatic burden.

It was as if she’d listened to her mother berate her so much that she became the problem her mother always saw.

“What kind of green lights?” Charli latches on to the hope she’s feeling. “Green lights in everything: business, life. Love. I have friends who are getting married and having these big splashy weddings and talking about babies. And other friends who are becoming leaders in their field. I’m floating on top of the water like a dead fish.”

“Carl Jung writes, ‘It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which passes on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to . . . complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.’”

Understanding where you come from is an important part of growing up. Even if you’re not proud of who or what you find.”

Some people have a darkness in them. Is it always passed down? What if she was doomed from the day she took her first breath?

Her grandfather generations back had once walked these streets, and now she was here, and she was going to figure out what made him tick. And what he’d passed on that was so painful that she’d feel the aftershock more than a century later.

“I can only imagine the places you’ve gone in your imagination. I suspect that much reading teaches you a lot about the world.”

“I mentioned my mother to you. I had a tough childhood, and books became my escape. I taught myself to read and burned through young adult books when I was five or six. I love stories, love curling up somewhere and disappearing into another world.”

She shakes her head at him. Apologies are not easy. “I’m kind of complicated, if you haven’t figured that out.” “It’s my favorite part about you. How about a chardonnay?” He allows a cute grin. “You Americans love chardonnay, right?”

“All the time. I just had a novelist visit the other day. I think his name was Boo, if I’m not mistaken.” “Boo who?” “I can’t quite recall at the moment.”

The reality of what she’s saying tugs her down. “I’m not sure I’m much better. But I want to be. I want to wake up and be excited about the day. I want to stop hearing my mother’s voice. I want to have some level of confidence. Would it be so bad if I liked myself?”

“The only thing I’ve ever done right is raise a dog with the love that I never knew. That’s it. I’ve hurt almost everyone I know. I’ve failed at everything I’ve tried.

Her mother’s volatility often eclipses the memories she should hold on to, but it’s just a veil—a veil that Charli can remove. A veil she must remove.

Therapists have told her this, but it never seemed to matter till now. Charli’s twenty-nine years old, but there’s a younger girl inside her that still feels lost and alone and abandoned. She’s been letting that little girl lead the way. She’s been letting that little girl keep her from living and loving the way she is capable.

I believe with all of me that trauma travels through the generations in a multitude of ways.