There it was again, that feeling of having been skipped out on by someone I trust. Trusted, past tense. When had this begun, this sense of having a rug pulled out from under my feet? I drifted backwards in the pool of memories and landed in my one-and-a-half-year-old self, watching her as she made assumptions based on her limited experiences up to then, heard her thinking, felt her feeling angry. So angry. And ashamed, because she was angry with her mother, and that was a betrayal of her mother, wasn't it? So betrayal worked both ways in her. She was the betrayed, and the betrayer. I pop out of that memory fast, then shudder.

I can feel a misty fog descending my mountain of a brain. I feel myself start to shut down, go catatonic. I sense that someone is calling me to them, but am lost in the fog of fear. I can't move, my whole being is away. Somewhere else. Gone. I'm left in this shell which has no brain, has no heart, has no meaning. Do I go up? or down? Do I stay put? Is it safe here? or there? Can I even lift a foot to step?

I can feel myself hyperventilating and feel powerless to stop it. Then a rough hand grabs me and I'm tumbling. I hit and bounce. Hit and bounce. Head over heels. Back flips. Dives. Something tries to get my attention. What IS that? "Spread your wings." What? "Spread your wings." What wings? "Spread your wings."

So. I spread them, and I'm flying instead of tumbling. Or maybe soaring is more like what I'm doing with them. Soaring on a thermal spreadeagle. I feel like a parachute, open and catching air as I descend to a narrow valley. When I land, I keep my feet.