Carrie did.
She was like a ship filled with stolen treasure, except this treasure had never been gold, it had always been black. As her name implies, she carried these dark truths across the seas, she carried them home.
Home was the pit of her stomach, but even swallowed these secrets didn't go away, they stayed, sat there or rose as a lump in her throat. Some days she was unable to speak or had to call sick into work: she had a migraine, a virus, a fever, there was no way she'd be in this week. She told white lies because she could never bring herself to express or digest these truths.
Carrie had tried not to hide, but with secrets buried inside it was a life half-lived. And it hurt to contain herself for unspoken truths erode like acid. An acid that turned to rain or fire, but each time she tried to confide her clumsy attempts were swept aside or she was treated like a fragile vessel. A ship painted black with tattered sails; a patched-up wreck considered unseaworthy.
She refused to play the victim here. She was strong for hadn't she carried these truths deep inside and not let on. Shouldered this burden alone so others wouldn't feel they were to blame and hid the shame she felt. It was nobody's fault. Things happen which change you and make you lose a part of you that can never again be found.
At first, Carrie had searched for the part she'd lost on a warm, spring day, but it had been taken away and that was that. It made her who she was and yet when she felt compelled to explain, the light always disappeared out of the chosen one's eyes and was replaced by fear or pity. In those instants Carrie knew she was on her own in this big city.
Exiled from leading a whole life because half of her was alive and half was as good as dead. Half of her was desperate to set sail on China seas, but the controlling half kept her anchored. She appeared safely moored, but inside was all at sea.
Would she ever break free from her blackened half? Escape the past she had carefully hid?
In telling it, could it affect somebody else's future? Would she lose more people she'd mistakenly chosen to open up to and had wanted to trust?
In choosing not to tell, was she hurting not only herself, but others? Shutting them out and keeping her distance. Using her body to say stay away from me. I'll let you know the white half, but not the half stained black.
Carrie knew just how to live to protect herself. She was fully aware of her own limits. But people, without knowing her reasons why, tried to step over these lines too quickly. Assumed what they knew was all of her and missed the distress signals. Failed to give her adequate time to prepare myself, to decide if she could cope or if this was what she wanted. From those kind of people she drifted away, or pushed them if she had to.
On the rare times she'd let someone into the darker side it was worse. Almost the exact opposite. And she would wish she hadn't told them. Her shell hadn't been smashed, she wasn't looking for their sympathy or, after so many years, their protection, but someone who she could trust and would know her completely.
Nobody came; instead her pains had made her vessel a bit more weathered and battered. She concluded that to be truly at peace she had to sail these black seas on her own.
