After the Waves: 18
An important number for many. Another anniversary to commemorate for me.
Every December, as the middle of the month approaches, it’s nearly impossible for me to not think about each day as it ticks away. What was I doing on this day or that day all those year ago leading up to the events of the 26th. It’s something I do for other memorable things, too.
I have a habit (possibly an annoying one, but no one has ever called me out on it) of saying things like: “Can you believe that twelve years ago today, we were at that mountain house and the bear came out of the woods and sat down on the picnic table,” or “Did you know that four years ago today was the last time we would all be in the same place at the same time, but we didn’t know it at the time.” Now that I am typing this, I am guessing that yes, it’s probably annoying.
But it’s just the way I remember and commemorate things, and maybe it’s also the way I process and manage the passage of time. I do it for good things and I do it for bad things.
Today, December 26, marks the 18th Anniversary of our experience in Thailand and I’ve been doing my countdown in my head all week. Where we were, and what we were doing, leading up to the morning of the 26th. The odd part about this ritual is that for me, it’s not really the 26th that I focus on, but the evening of the 25th. Because Thailand is twelve hours ahead of the East Coast of the U.S., what happened to us on the morning of the 26th in Phuket, real time at home in the U.S. was about 10 pm on Christmas evening.
So, every year that’s what I am thinking about on Christmas: The countdown to 10 pm when the line was being drawn at 10 am in Phuket between “before” and “after” and what we were doing for each hour and each day after the waves struck.
This year, and maybe because Ush and I have begun talking about going back in 2024 (which inevitably has started another countdown), I’ve been thinking about the number 18. In numerology, 18 is considered a powerful number and represents abundance and new beginning. In the Jewish religion, it represents “chai” or “life” and in the Chinese culture, 18 is considered an auspicious number.
But where I keep landing is how the number 18 in many countries, including my own, is the age in years when a child is considered to have reached adulthood. No longer a child, but now an adult seemingly crowned with new opportunities, responsibilities, and ramifications. And that got me thinking about the idea of whether or not our experience, or any other kind of trauma for that matter, can mature over the years to reach its own sort of adulthood and become something other than what it was when it was born.
As I think back, eighteen was an important year. I began college, I moved out of my childhood home, I experienced my first real love and my first real heartbreak, and it marked the beginning of an independence that I still take lessons from today.
But what does maturity mean for trauma? What are its milestones of adulthood the way a teen turned adult reaches more obvious ones like being able to vote and gaining legal control of oneself?
The effects of my young trauma are easy to recall and I’m thankful that eighteen years have softened their edges. Both physical and mental, their strength and power over me at the time drove just about everything I did and every way I felt. The good news is that I can look back now and be thankful. Not necessarily happy it happened, but thankful for the paths its presence introduced into my life. I do sometimes wonder what life would be like today if it hadn’t happened. Where would I be; what would I be doing?
Today, as my young trauma turns eighteen and reaches adulthood, it has officially been with me for an exact full third* of my life. That fact to me is hard to believe, and yet again, I’ve defaulted to processing it as a package of years. Or maybe it’s not just a package but also a gift, a fitting concept for the season in a way I haven’t realized until just this moment.
So now, as I finish my commemoration of this year’s anniversary, and think about the revised perspective of how my young trauma has evolved and grown up over these eighteen years, the question I ask is if it has indeed reached maturity, and has it matured enough to go back and revisit its birth?
* As I was re-reading and editing this post, and the part about the full third, I am realizing that there is some strange numerical synchronicity happening today. I was 36 when we were on that trip (2x18) and today I am 54 (3x18). That must mean something, but I will have to delve into it another time.
© 2022 Kim Selby, All rights reserved.
All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.
Photo credit: Ahmed Gomaa, Pixabay