Advice for Reading Hard Things

When Reconstructing Gets Exhausting

A few nights ago, I had a dream that I was standing on top of Kramer Roof. Back on the dance floor with the big windows overlooking the intersection on Main Street. Only the roof itself was already gone, already caved in the way it had in July of 2017. The floor was powdered with dust, with a big hole gaping in it.

The hole bore all the way down to the first floor, revealing layers and layers of decay.

Maybe I have a future in the Southern Gothic genre or maybe this dream’s symbolism is just a little too obvious. Regardless, it got me thinking. How is everyone else in the world handling reading the content coming out of the Epstein Files? Somewhere, there is someone who is absolutely shattered, realizing that this case circles way closer to them than they thought it would.

When I first heard that charges had been filed against T., I assumed that he was innocent. Like any good, indoctrinated girl. That was Fall of 2019.

By Fall of 2020, it was all I could do to keep the pieces together. The problem was that I was having dreams. I had been having dreams about JPAC since 2017 – dreams that T. had confessed his secret to success to me, that T. had retired and left the school in my hands. The dreams were vivid but usually positive.

T. talked about his own dreams almost every day, in our Morning Meeting. He was a prophet, so he said that was how God talked to him. Dreams revealed important truths about our lives and sometimes the school’s whole schedule would be changed because T. had a dream that told him it should. I was having dreams, so maybe I was a prophet, too! The idea of having that kind of power thrilled me.

But now, my dreams about JPAC were starting to blur together with dreams about earlier traumas, things I had never dreamed about before. Everything seemed to be collapsing together, just the way the building had.

I still believed that dreams could tell me important things about myself. The problem was that I didn’t think I liked this truth at all. At some point, something had gone wrong and something needed to heal.

The top floor of the Kramer Roof building was left exposed after the roof collapsed in July 2017.

I am used to collapsing and reconstructing. I have left behind my sweet homeschooler identity. My rough and dirty cowgirl persona. My penchant for a Little House on the Prairie lifestyle. Admitting that the past four years of my life is a lie… That I never saw angels, I was never part of an elite group, I barely know how to do math, that I didn’t get the artistic training I wanted so badly…. The only thought in my head is: “Do I really have to do this again?”

I am tired of becoming someone new.

For folks reading that are struggling to reorient in this cultural and political moment: it gets better. You don’t get to become a butterfly just once in your life. Life, as I have come to know it, is a series of rebirths. I take pieces of each reiteration of myself and find that just like a quilt made of scraps I have become something more beautiful, more durable than before.

While you’re doing the hard work of rebirthing yourself, here are some tips to make your transition a little bit gentler:

1. Take breaks – delete your social media if you have to. Make a rule that you will only consume content that may be upsetting if you are ready and your nervous system is settled.

2. Indulge in sensory comforts – a favorite candle, hard candy, a weighted blanket, whatever sensation is soothing to you.

3. Don’t do it alone – if you want to read something that might be upsetting to you, share this information with a friend, read it together.

4. Talk. As I allude above, half the battle is finding someone who will stand by your side. Find someone who can openly allow you to express your feelings, whatever they may be.

I wish someone would have been able to give me a list six years ago.

With love,

Victoria.