There are views, and then there are views....

Well, I can't dispute the fact that most of the things I've done basically have no proof in them whatsoever.

The only real way someone can believe that I was in the Navy is because I fell into a picture of mine from boot camp. I don't have any of the others where I made E-4, E-5, or E-6.. I don't have the nostalgia pictures that I took while in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Tokyo. I don't have my Pearl Harbor regalia. Hell, I don't even know where my sea bags and old uniforms went to!

I don't have any of my old uniforms or pictures when I travelled around Europe playing soccer. I don't have the train ticket stubs. I don't have the airline tickets. I don't even have some of the shirts and posters that I gathered while playing for the six weeks I was over there.

All I have are memories, and even those are apparently suspect.

How can you refute the testimony of one person's word against another? It's a he-said-she-said argument that's going to get you absolutely nowhere. I'd love to argue about it, but the fact will still remain that I have NO proof. Until such time as they're able to make a machine that can see and project your memories, I'm stuck.

Leave aside the fact that the person who is denying my memories is the same person who abused me for 15+ years, and denies this as well. This same person is someone with whom I'm still quite uncomfortable being around for any long length of time. This same person still shows the preferences and attitudes that I've grown used to seeing, and don't really pay attention to anymore.

However, for those who haven't lived or dealt with it, they have no reason to believe any of it, now would they?

Why should they believe that some upstanding christian woman would come home from work and beat the living tar out of her oldest son if the laundry wasn't completely finished? Who would believe that the lead nurse at a community's recovery room would slap her son across the head with the seat of a piano bench, and then tell the doctor stitching him up that he hurt himself playing football in the street? Who would guess that this caring woman for every other person on the face of the planet had such a violent temper and hard fist?

I can't say. I carry the scars. I carry the wounds. I carry the hurt, but again I have no proof.

Maybe someday I'll be justified, but for now all I have are the memories.

Oh, and the scars.