TheBanyanTree: Automatic Writing

[Dave]

"It's part of you". That's what she will say. "It's part of your past but not who you are now. 
You've made great progress and you need to keep focused on staying healthy". See, I don't need 
to call my therapist. It would be silly since I already know what she will say.

I have to often remind myself that I am a grown up now and not a teenager, or a little boy in a 
weird creepy dysfunctional home. I felt like one though, today. Bonnie took Zoe and me on a 
three mile hike through the cemetery and up to the mausoleum. I felt like I was thirteen years 
old again. My friends and I would walk in the cold like that. At places like that. A cemetery 
or a trail through the woods. Smoking cigarettes and weed. Walking in the cool of winter was 
fun when I was thirteen years old and high.

I had a paper route that I would do high. Maybe that is where my affinity for the morning "wake 
and bake" comes from. Hood up on my coat and my bag of papers strapped to my side. The crisp 
winter air nipping at my nostrils.

Sometimes walls need to be erected. I'm good at that; walling off parts of my past. Suicide 
attempt. Drug abuse. Parents. It's all there but out of sight for now. Safety first, then I can 
pick at the scabs.

Dave Seaman