It was a spectacular summer morning in Calgary — the kind of day that helps you forget about how long and cold the winters can be.
I was 6 years old.
On this particular day I was excited to be at a summer camp with dozens of other kids that was being held in a local park.
This happened to be the last day of camp and everyone had been anticipating the water balloon fight that would mark the end of the week’s activities.
I was vibrating with excitement as the day passed and we inched closer to the big water fight.
After the last snack break of the day, the counsellors called all the kids in to gather around in a big circle, just as they had for each activity.
This time, there were a few large rubber bins in the middle of the circle — and they were completely full of balloons that had been filled with water.
The frenzy of excitement erupted as all the kids went wild, excited about what was about to happen.
Marcy, the head counsellor bellowed for all to hear ..
“Ok everyone, here’s how the game is going to work. We’re going to put these bins of water balloons at each end of the field.
The Blue team is going to start at the far end of the field, and the Red team is going to start right here.”
At the beginning of the camp, they had divided all the kids into two teams so that they could easily break all the kids into two teams.
I was a proud Blue squadron member, so before the counsellors could finish the instructions, several of my team members and I started running towards our end of the field.
“Hold it, hold it! STOP! Get back here!” Marcy was yelling even louder than she normally did.
It had already been a long week for the counsellors, and they were just looking forward to the camp coming to an end.
We all stopped in our tracks, turned around and made our way back to the group.
“No one’s playing anything until everyone listens to the rules, got it?”
Marcy was glaring at our little group that had tried to get a jump on the military strategy.
We all nodded enthusiastically.
She carried on with the rest of the rules.
“OK! There’s a big twist in this game you guys. If you find a RED balloon, you’re allowed to use that balloon on a camp counsellor!
Now it has to be RED, otherwise you’re only allowed to go after the other team. Everyone got it!?”
We all started screaming and jumping up and down — I mean, how could it get any better to be able to hit a counsellor with a water balloon?
“OK, I’m going to countdown from 10. As soon as I start counting, the Blue team can run to their base and start loading up with water balloons.
Everyone ready?”
She already knew the answer.
Her countdown started, and my team immediately start running towards the bin of water balloons waiting at the other end of the field.
Over the next few minutes, the park became a blur of random coloured balloons flying through the air.
Balloons popped everywhere with people getting soaked and shrieking in delight.
Of course, everyone was desperate to try and find a red balloon since that was the golden ticket to go after a camp counsellor.
There were only a handful of them in the bins, since of course the counsellors weren’t too keen on getting soaked.
As kids scooped balloons out of the huge bin, every now and then an excited scream would tell you when a red balloon was discovered.
I had managed to take about 8 balloons and was successful in landing most of them on various kids in the park, most of them the slow ones of the herd that made easier targets.
I had avoided all but two attacks, and I was having the time of my life.
The balloons were disappearing out of the bin like crazy.
I knew I would only have one more reload opportunity before the game was over.
I ran back to the bin and grabbed as many balloons as I could, which to my small 6 year old hands meant two balloons.
I looked into the bin and pulled a banana yellow balloon — and as I did that, I revealed the last red balloon in the tub!
I quickly but carefully scooped it up to make sure I didn’t pop it by accident.
The camp counsellors were very wary of kids with red balloons as you’d expect, so I decided that I’d try to sneak up on the counsellors so they couldn’t see me coming.
The park area we were playing in was surrounded along the outside boundary by huge trees and bushes.
I snuck out and around the back side of the trees, and made my way down the field under cover, towards where the counsellors were supervising the game.
I snuck every so carefully around the edge of the trees and immediately saw my target …
… Marcy was standing with her whistle around her neck, her clipboard under arm.
As quietly as I could, I charged up behind her and got as close I could before I raised my red balloon to drench Marcy.
Just as I released the balloon, Marcy sensed I was there and spun around just at the right moment to catch the balloon squarely in her face!
I started jumping up and down, thrilled with my sneak attack.
But in that moment, I noticed that everyone else was standing around, and no one was throwing balloons.
Kids were wandering around, cleaning up the debris from broken balloons on the grass.
And the look on Marcy’s face told me that something was wrong.
She stormed over to me, stopping and bending over to put her face right into mine.
“You little MORON! I already said the game’s over, are you stupid or are you deaf?”
I froze and couldn’t move.
I suddenly felt the heat of humiliation smash against me.
I stood motionless in horror while dozens of kids and all of the counsellors watched Marcy destroy that little boy.
I could feel everyone staring at me, wishing I could die.
Satisfied with having shown me what a stupid child I was, Marcy picked up the clipboard she had dropped and marched over to the rest of the counsellors.
I remained frozen in my tracks, unable to move my feet from where they were planted.
The yellow balloon I had held in my other hand had already been dropped and slowly leaked out into the grass behind me.
All I wanted to do was shrink down into the ground and become invisible.
A voice screamed in my head, “YOU LOSER, YOU’RE SO STUPID! What did you DO?”
I felt like I was the dumbest kid in the park, since I was the only one that couldn’t follow instructions and didn’t know what was going on.
The dumbest kid in the entire world.
When this kind of a soul shattering event happens to a little child, it can become the basis of a lifelong narrative that gets played so many times …
… it feels like it is a part of you.
It feels like who you are.
Not just something that happened to you.
This horrific experience became the gateway through which a false narrative took hold of me and gripped on tightly through so much of my life.
I was ashamed to be myself, and that was the moment I first met my Dark Passenger.
—
We all have a Dark Passenger — that part of us that represents all of the things that we are embarrassed about, terrified to reveal, and ashamed to acknowledge.
We push it down, exile it, and try to pretend that it doesn’t exist — but it does.
Until we do the work to reveal and acknowledge it, we stumble through life, wondering why certain things trigger us and self-sabotage follows us around.