94 Narrative: “An Inanimate Object”
Kara Sprabary
Instructor Laura Casey
ENG 1013.70
12 September 2021
An Inanimate Object
The year of 2020 was a rolling snowball of one traumatic event on top of another. I moved to public school, and then my life was thrown into chaos as the Coronavirus took over. Later that year, my grandfather was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, and my family members became his caretakers. He then succumbed to the disease during my first week of sophomore year. By the end of the year, I was left with too much trauma to bear, but I pushed it away because there was nothing else I knew to do.
One Wednesday night in February of 2021, I sat silent in a group discussion at church. My best friends and my leader were there. However, there were also twenty other girls whose names I can hardly remember. The topics in focus were trauma, anxiety, and depression. I felt too burdened to speak; there was no way I was sharing what I had gone through with people I scarcely knew. Besides, everyone was sharing small inconveniences in their lives. I decided zoning out and nodding along was better than comparing what I considered trauma to their experiences.
But when Miranda, my leader, asked the group, “How can you process these feelings and trauma you have?” I was released from my stupor. It was an excellent question; one I had never really considered. My strategy was to forget the entire year of 2020, though I was never successful.
“It’s always good to tell someone what you’re going through.” prompted a girl whose name I didn’t know.
Nope, not going to happen, I thought.
“What if you create affirmations for yourself?” my friend Mady suggested.
Doesn’t even apply to me. I had already lost hope that there was going to be a solution for myself.
Everyone began to chat amongst themselves, an unofficial announcement that the question was sufficiently answered. Then the other leader, Kendall, said, “Something that has always helped me is writing what I feel down.” Even though only half the room was paying her any attention, I made a mental note to remember the idea for later. We then transitioned on from depressing trauma talk to discussing a random girl’s issue with a random boy.
At home that night, I closed my bedroom door and sat on my bed. I grabbed a notebook nearly full of Latin derivatives from the disorganized pile of miscellaneous items that lay beside me. I opened up to a blank page and stared. I contemplated if this idea was foolish. “What’s the harm?” I reasoned with myself, and I proceeded onward. I described how my new year started with a new school, listing every anxiety and insecurity I had felt. My pen trembled slightly as I relived my past worries.
Once I finished dumping every moment and emotion I could recall from the beginning of 2020, I reread the words carefully. I could clearly see every bad experience written down, but I focused my mind on the little patches of good I could remember also. I left behind the negative thoughts