The Depths

My earliest memory was watching my parents get married on the beach that harboured our doorstep.

My mother was dressed in a vintage lace white dress she found at the local thrift store on our town’s main street, which she dressed up with a thin white shawl. She beamed when she found it, and I smiled for her.

Surrounded by the white candles placed in the sand around us, my mother beamed as she looked at my father, and I smiled for her.

In between their vows, the only sound that encompassed this small ceremony consisting of my younger sibling, my mother and father, the pastor and myself, was the endless ocean beside us painted ink black and dark blue from the moon’s hues.

My parents chose the ocean as their venue, as it was the first place they met.

They were infatuated with the water and its meaning in their relationship, which they passed along to my siblings and I when they chose to make our first home as a family, one that was situated on the water where they said their vows.

If I wanted to, I could throw a stone from my front step, and have it land in the water. That was how close the water was to my home.

I spent the early years of my childhood soaking my toes in the water, playing with the coarse sand, and laughing under the sun with my siblings until its warmth was no longer seen or felt… Only to count how many hours were left until I could return back.

The water was my sanctuary, and carefully held all of my most cherished memories.

My parent’s wedding. The first time my mother beamed. The first moment I smiled for her.

I would swim until the water’s coolness touched my neck and my toes were barely able to touch the rough bottom, before retreating back to the shore. I would get a sense of its depths, and return back to the safety of the shore instantly.

I was infatuated with how deep the water could be. I would test the limits, time and time again, before scaring myself too much and returning back to the shore.

The last thing I wanted to become, as a child, was swallowed by the sea.

Until the first slam of the door and the harrowing secrets began to pile up behind the four walls of my house, and the water’s depths reached my front door… Swallowing my family and I whole.

The ocean remained as a symbol of those memories that my family and I grasped so tightly to. They were a coping mechanism, a sense of false hope, that our lives would return to the moment my mother beamed.

False hope is a peculiar thing; it keeps us suspended in a perpetual state of uncertainty. It's in this state where we dwell, caught between the reality of our lives, yearning to flee the harshness of that reality, reminiscing about the moments of peace, and gazing ahead with the belief that peace may once more grace our front door like it did before.

But the word false, is there for a reason.

My life never returned to that moment when my mother beamed when she first saw her vintage lace white dress.

In the midst of the chaos that lingered in my house I no longer knew as a home, my family scattered out to sea. My father walked away from being a father, my mother lost the notion of what being a mother is, and my siblings and I were left in a perpetual state of uncertainty; clinging to false hope.

The distance between the different houses we were forced to call home, and the ocean, grew, yet the depths were still present within the four walls.

Over the years, my connection to the ocean deepened. It became a source of solace, a place where I could confront the echoes of my past and find a sense of peace. I was allured to the ocean’s unyielding power. It mirrored the profound challenges I faced daily, and in its depths, I found a reflection of my own inner turmoil.

The addiction. The neglect. The grief. The absence of love. The mother I was forced to be, to children that called me their sister.

It all stems from the moment my mother beamed, and I smiled for her.

The beginning of the end.

With every metaphorical wave that swallowed me, I turned to writing as a coping mechanism to make sense of the turbulence I couldn’t quite make sense of.

What I wrote on paper, was there on paper. I would read it and comprehend it.

What I experienced daily, was mingled with confusion. I would experience it and be left feeling lost.

As my trauma evolved, so did my writing. It was no longer a coping mechanism, but rather, a lifeline I cling so desperately to for understanding. It allowed me to reclaim my voice, to transform my trauma into a source of strength, and to compartmentalize the experiences that rooted deep into who I stand before you today.

Within my writing, my connection to the ocean deepened. The profound link to my journey of healing and self-discovery is rooted in the moment the ocean fostered my earliest happiest memory, and the ones I kept hidden behind four walls for so long.

As an author, my deepest aspiration is to offer you a beacon of understanding and solace through the storms of childhood trauma and grief. Bringing light to the experiences that silenced you. Fostering a deep connection with your trauma and your inner child, which at one point in time, felt isolated and alone.

In my writing, I weave narratives from my own personal experiences that mirror the honest pain and the resilience born from childhood trauma and grief. It is my hope that my words serve as a mirror, reflecting the unique struggles that so many have faced in their own lives.

In recognizing these shared experiences, I aim to dismantle the covering up of traumatic experiences that leave many of us feeling stuck in the depths of our healing, and replace it with a sense of belonging and understanding.

With every word you read, know that my purpose is this: To write about the unspoken, no matter how dark, nor deep, the depths are.

All my love, always,

Julia Reesor