Vonnegut began Slaughterhouse 5: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."
It was required reading in Junior Year of High School. I compared Billy to Huck Finn at that time. Apparently, successfully, as my essay received an A.
Now I think of this as during this past year, I too have come unstuck in time. Or, as Whitman said, "I contain multitudes." Mostly multitudes of anxiety, coming unstuck.
As I walk down the street, there is Sharon, age 5, playing in kindergarten. Not at all anxious, unless I was anxious to be away from my mother, the hovering, smothering Jewish mother who was a sticky popsickle all over me--oh, how I miss that sticky popsickle, who is now a popsickle covered rhinencepholon. There is Sharon, age 6, first day of first grade, anxious, because she doesn't understand how to cover textbooks with the required paper bags and scissors, all inept and clumsy, not knowing the curse of the L handed struck, then, and at the beginning of every school year, until probably high school, when we were still required to cover books, but just not during the school day. There is Sharon, anxious with second grade assignments, like listing names that start with the last letter of the prior name. Or Sharon, joyously anxious, still in 2cd grade, desk covered with gold stars as she sweeps the classroom, first to answer correct the addition or subtraction questions. Sharon is always anxious in school, probably until junior high, when the sheer repetition of experience caused realization that teachers always come on strong the first week, then stand back after that and focus on relationships.
And when I can see Sharon, I am not remembering photos, as we were not a photo taking family. I see young Sharon crying and tantruming, not able to express her needs or if she could, not having them met anyway and resorting to tears.
It wasn't a very happy childhood.
And then the reading, the constant reading. The HAPPY HOLLISTERS. HARRIET THE SPY. THE SATURDAYS. KATEY JOHN. MISS PLUM. All of the children enjoying freedoms from their parents that I couldn't imagine, enjoying alliances with their siblings that I would never have. None of them ever worried about money, which was a miasma in my house. None of them ever worried, "Can a Jew do that? Was this a Jewish thing to enjoy," as I did. None of them ever worried about missing and falling hopelessly behind because they had to take off two days for Rosh Hashanah and one for Yom Kippur, in a school system which soldered on. None of them ever wished that they could hunt for Easter eggs, or learn how to dye them. None ever wished for an Easter basket brimming with chocolate bunnies and jelly beans--really--what is so goyische about that? Chocolates and hard-boiled eggs? What about a decorated tree for winter holidays? Not one decorated with Christian symbols, but one strung with cranberries and popcorn. Peppermint canes. What did all that have to do with Christ's alleged birth. These weren't so much Christian celebrations but pagan. And what do the Druids ever do to me? I could read books with Jewish children: These were never mentioned. No Jew in these books ever wished for such. HILLEL'S HAPPY HOLIDAYS occurred in a suburb where no child threw pennies at Hillel's feet and jeered, "Pick up the pennies Jew." How was I supposed to respond? Hillel might have gone to Joseph, his older brother. Or Leah, his older sister. But I never thought of asking Glenn. Or telling my parents. Even then, I thought, they can't cope. They were still mentally in Brooklyn, doubtless believing that sooner or later, the Q train---or, as they referred to it to the end of their days, "The Brighton Beach Local" would soon open a station adjacent to Somer Drive. They never outwardly adjusted to Somerville. And even if they had, it would just serve to confirm their bias, "Proste Goyim." "Even the nice ones are always looking for the horns." "Never trust them."
Just as they were still living in Brooklyn, I guess, I'm still going back and forth, unstuck.
And yes, this comes under the heading of, "another thing never to talk about to the therapist." Because they have no poetic souls, they were just wonder about "dissociative disorders." Or trauma. Well, doh, of course there is trauma. It is April 1, 2021. My business has tanked. I have been in Zoom hell for a year. My employer has absconded with the notion that they are responsible for training and providing equipment and materials, let alone tech support. My mother is a popsickle headed zombie. My income is plummeting. I will be living in genteel poverty, unable to find a job, as any employer will be able to figure out I will not be turning 29 again.
And all this anxiety just begets memories of other anxieties, reminiscences of events not under my control. It is not me. Therapy will be of little avail. Anomie is not a DSM diagnosis.