There is a bug in the hot tub.
I am watching it as it is churned round and around by the bubbles.
Every now and then it disappears from my sight, as it is pulled under by the current. I hold my breath, praying it won’t surface too close to me.
I could scoop it out with my hand, it would only take a second, but I refuse to as I’m trying to relax.
But I cannot take my eyes from it. Just in case. The tension in my shoulders and jaw remain.
This week I have been haunted. A past I thought I had long since dealt with.
I am meant to be on holiday, Relaxing, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I was scrolling through social media at the weekend when I saw a post shared by my friend.
In it was a face from my past. One I have tried hard to forget about.
A past that was, I hope, a once-in-a-lifetime experience I would never want to repeat.
Seeing that face I am instantly transported to that 15-year-old girl.
She is scared, she is ashamed and she feels guilty.
She never asked for it to happen. But she could have done more to try to stop it.
She just wanted to be believed.
I keep holding my breath until my chest begins to hurt. The oxygen restricted like it was then by the weight of an arm across my throat.
And like that bug. I could remove it from my feed, but I keep going back. To see that face that has haunted me for so long.
I know I should block it and move on. But like a scab when its picked, I keep going back to make it bleed, to hurt one me one more time.
We all have things from our past that we wish we could scoop out like that bug in the water, To make it disappear so as not to bother us anymore. But some things are just not that easy.
So I tried to reframe it.
I tried to think of that night as a lesson. Rather than letting it destroy me I tried to learn from it. To never be that girl again. To call out when something isnt right. To scream so loud that it might stop it from ever happening again. And I thought that I had moved on. But the visceral pain I am experiencing today as I know I am triggered makes me realise there are some things that don’t want to stay buried, no matter how hard you try.