After Thoughts: Prologue

Welcome to Michaela Mae's Audiobook Experience for The Barn off of Colfax Lane: an unfiltered memoir about sexual assault and the mixed feelings that come with it. 

In this book Michaela tells her story of the childhood sexual abuse she experienced when she was 12-years-old while taking horse back riding lessons from a horse trainer in Oregon.

BOOK SUMMARY:

I was 12 years old the first time my horse trainer grabbed my left boob and asked me if I had ever had sex. I'm not sure what caught me off guard the most: his question or the fact a 79-year-old man had his hand firmly cusped around my boob while asking me, a 12-year-old, if I had ever had sex. I've blocked out a lot of that season from my mind, but that first day sticks out clearer than the rest. Is it because of the shock? Is it because I hadn't fully remembered my pro-dissociation skills yet?

I have no f*cking clue, but I do remember the green-striped tank top and the dark navy blue jeans I had on that day. I remember watching his lips ooze as the words, "Have you ever had sex?" spilled out of them. I remember the blank stare in his eyes, the black specks of chew stuck in his teeth, and the way his cheeks met his chin like a pillow shoved under fitted sheets.

My eyes left my left boob, flung around the barn, and up to his face. The light coming in from the barn door behind him lit his back, but darkened his face so his face looked as dark as the blank stare in his eyes. My brain raced for answers that made sense. Hell, it searched for a question that made sense too. "No, of course not. Wait, why is this happening? How do I answer? Do I answer? Am I dreaming?" I couldn't speak, so I looked up at him blankly then he turned and walked away.

LINKS + CONTACT:

Get on the Waitlist for my next book: https://thewesternhippie.myflodesk.com/mc5b9wv2ps

Grab a hard copy of The Barn Off of Colfax Lane here: https://amzn.to/3PvBiKN

For inquiries or to connect with Michaela directly, email michaela@michaelamae.com

© 2024 MP Media. All rights reserved.

Narrated by Author Michaela Mae.

Keywords: survivor memoir, childhood sexual abuse memoir, childhood sexual abuse, trauma memoir, healing memoir, horse trainer abuse, equestrian community, read by the author, audiobook, Oregon, Michaela Mae

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Prologue and afterthoughts. What's really interesting to me about the prologue is out of all the things that changed in the book, the prologue is what stayed the same. And the memory of how the prologue came to be, I believe is a memory that's gonna stick out in my mind for the rest of my life. I have what I call getting itchy, and it's not a physical itchy where my skin itches, it's an emotional itchy where all these emotion emotions are just in my body and are demanding to get out. And the first time I remember feeling that itchy feeling was right after the the events in this book that I will share with you happened. Right after that, I was in seventh grade and our teacher was teaching us poetry. And the first time I got because I didn't even know what it was, you know, I was 13, I obviously had a big thing happen and a very traumatic thing happen. And I was just gunky and this itchy feeling all the time. And when my teacher was having us write poetry, and I will share the poem with you probably in the next book, that was the first time I got relief from this itchiness. And I had that same feeling with this prologue. I believe it was April of 2021, maybe 2022. And I was sitting on the couch, I was home alone, and I went to go watch. I was kind of, you know, the feeling when you know you have the house to yourself, and you're like, I am having a me night. I'm gonna make some popcorn, I'm gonna put on a movie. Maybe for me, it was probably a bowl of ice cream, and I'm just gonna chill. And I'm sitting on the couch and I'm chilling, and I I couldn't sit still. That itchy feel, that emotional itchy feeling came back, and I just knew I had to start the book, and that was the night that I wrote the prologue. And out of all the things that have changed in the book, this prologue has actually remained the same, other than obviously me correcting a few grammar things, but the prologue and the density and the the heart of the prologue, if you will, is the same. Even though all these other things in the book changed, like that stayed the same. And I believe that's why this prologue has such a special place in my heart, is just because it was so like just raw and true, and it just spilled out of me. And the re the rest of the book did too, but it it took some drafts and it took a lot of emotional work on the back end for me to get the book to where it is, but that prologue it just came through, and I really do I can be really hard on myself, and I genuinely just love that prologue, and I loved the journey and this the discovery that I I had to take in my life to get to where I could realize the things that I did in the prologue, that I I didn't have to be overly successful to write a book, I didn't have to look a certain way to write a book. The only thing I really needed to do to write the book was I needed to open my laptop, I needed to open a Word document, and I needed to start typing. Like that was a really big revelation for me because I had all these rules, I had all these contingencies of who I needed to be, what I needed to look like in order to become an author, in order to be successful. And that day was just me saying eff it, like it is time to write this book, and I have to write this book. And so that's why I think this prologue does hold such a special place in my heart, is besides the realness and the rawness that I do feel when I read that, it's also it was the first domino that allowed me to write the rest of this book. It was, you know, the time when I was said, like, no, now is the time. And I'd been thinking about this book, and as I said in the prologue, I had started it many other times and not finished it, and really had to go on this journey to become the person who could write the book. And I had become that person, you know, probably within the year to where I could start writing the book, and I just kept putting it off and putting it off, and that night it was as if whatever, you know, forces that be, the force, uh God, you know, whatever you want to call that amuse. I I don't even know was like no now. Like you have to start this now. And so this is really the beginning the beginning to the beginning of the rest of the book. So let's continue.