The little girl who was nowhere

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was neither here nor there. Simply put, she was nowhere.

Every morning she would get up, wash her face, dress herself and go to the Luna Park. Every day she would buy a ticket, go in, stand quietly in a corner and watch the children who were playing, fighting, running, laughing and sometimes, crying.

In time she learnt to be happy with the happiness of others and very slowly she began to live through others. Sometimes, she would get so intensely into the fantasy that she would disappear from her reality and would get so mixed up that she thought she was living. That's why other people became so important to her and that's why she would do everything she could so that everyone else was ok: it had to be that everyone around her was ok.

Of course she wanted to get up and play on the rides. But how to do this? Something invisible would stop our little girl, something so strong that she begun to believe that it was supernatural and so she acquiesced to her fate.

In the beginning of course she did the right thing; what she had to do: She pushed herself unbearably - and she could pull this off, it is true, for long periods of time. Then she would go off into her corner and gather strength and hope, try again, but she would be able to pull it off less and less.

Her mother didn't realize any of all this because if you looked logically and impartially at the whole issue, her daughter should be feeling just fine. What was she missing after all? She had everything. After much thought and endless sleepless nights she came to the conclusion that perhaps she herself was at fault for not pushing her enough and every time she remembered she pushed her as much as she could and in every way.

Some people tried to help. It didn't matter how, it only mattered that from a place of clear human intention they pushed her a little bit, for her own good, so that she would wake up, until they grew bored. Some shook her up, always for her own good, until they grew tired. Some thought her a snob, because she didn't play with them. Someone went so far as to suggest that the only solution for her was to begin psychotherapy. What can I say? Her behavior was somewhat strange, but - anatomy of the soul - and let's throw out whatever doesn't agree with the book of "Dr. Know-It-All" - brutal methods always in combination with the right medication?

Until one day the little girl who was nowhere, met another little girl, small, with an impossibly thin body, with a strong presence and energy and strength and intuition and feeling, with a positive aura and positive thoughts and - orange nails. Orange nails!!! "Original!" thought our little girl whose aesthetic sense ranged from classical to a little conservative.

The girl who loved so much the color orange said various positive things to her but the little girl didn't believe them very much. "Since I don't exist, how does she know who and how I am?" The truth of course is that it all sounded very pleasing to her.

One day she gathered all her strength and told her a forgotten story, which was on her mind quite a bit actually, but "never cry over spilt milk" as her grandmother used to say. Just like that, there came into her mind some things, childish stories, something from school, from primary school, aeons earlier.

She was impressed with the interest with which the girl listened to the forgotten unimportant story, with her questions and with her own answers and the way in which it seemed that the story was still mixed up with today.

And now it's true, she found herself way back, aeons before now, but she was here now also. Mixed up things. Luckily the other girl knew what she was doing and so she let herself go.

"What do you want to do now?" Asked the other little girl.

"No-one has ever asked me and now I don't know."

"Close your eyes, breathe slowly and deeply and with tenderness and love towards yourself ask yourself that question."

"To leave."

"Let's go then!"

I don't know about you, but I never ever believed that, if you don't wipe them, your tears could run down till they reached your chest without evaporating first. Maybe when they finally find a crack in time...

"Go wherever you would like to be. Do whatever makes you happy, move, run, fly... You are free. Isn't that better?"

"Hmm. I, I think so yes, I don't know."

She felt her imagination from paralyzed becoming strong.

Instead of her trying tooth and nail to get into the reality of others, someone finally came into hers. So simply; so amazingly simply. In this reality though, something totally new happened: the little girl who was nowhere, began to be visible and to exist!

"But what is all of that stuff you are carrying on you?"

"Oh this stuff? It's nothing; I carry it so that all the other children can play uninterrupted and so that I can watch them. It doesn't tire me so much, I am used to it. It doesn't bother me at all and if the other children say "thank you" sometimes it is my happiness for me to carry it."

"You can let go of that stuff if you would like to now, you can, this is YOUR mind, YOUR thoughts, YOUR imagination. Simply let it go..."

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. There was a lot she wanted to say. She listened to the girl warming her hands by rubbing them together and she felt them softly and sensitively touching her throat. Perhaps in the end she was able to say "thanks" because she heard her say:

"Well done, you did it!"

When Xenia told me to open my eyes the orange room was full of light. I didn't say anything about energy or catalyst, I simply said, "thank you - we did it together" and I agreed to next Thursday at eleven am.

I felt different, strange, unknown. When I closed the door behind me I knew I had made the first step.

Myrto Afroditi, April 2007