By Virginia Wilcsek
The Time Traveling
Warrior
Reclaiming Our Shadow
with Compassion
I remember coming home from school, my father asking, “How
was your day?” A simple question, meant to be harmless. I was
seven, eager to share my morning—the accidental detour my
eldest brother took on the way to school, his brief confusion
before dropping me off. Innocent in my telling, just relaying
what happened.
Then, the shift. Tension thickened. My father stood up. Yelling.
Rage. My brother rushed to me, desperate. “Tell him I took you
straight to school. Tell him nothing happened to you.”
Tears streaked his face, fear tightening his voice. I felt the
urgency, the weight, the need to make it right—but my throat
locked, my words stumbled, and silence swallowed me whole.
Then, the violence.
I closed my eyes.
I opened them.
My husband stands before me, asking, “How was your day?”
The same question, decades apart.
And suddenly, I am back there again—the guilt, the belief that I
caused the suffering of my siblings, that my words, my
existence, triggered their punishment. So, I learned: don’t
speak, don’t share, don’t need. Silence became survival. My
voice, my emotions, my desires—buried, erased, swallowed
whole. If I expressed them, something bad would happen.
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