Every time I open my eyes, water slightly blurring my vision from the morning face wash, I see the same sad pools of brown trapped in a black ring. I am not sad, but everything that has touched me in life has brought me sadness; but regardless of my circumstances I choose to be happy. When I hit a stone, loose in the ground, and stumble, I do not dwell there wondering why; I pick myself up and keep walking, humming all the way. The physical and mental abuse of my father, the self hatred that built up inside me from years of ridicule from my peers, the silent obedience of my mother, the constant loss of romantic love from men that claim to love me; all of it has shaped me, but it is not who I am. Who I am is most clearly defined by my reactions to circumstances that I cannot control.
When I was very young I learned to respect my elders not through a shared, mutual respect, but through fear and abuse. At the time, my parents knew only physical discipline and though it only lasted until I was ten, it would continue to affect me throughout my life. When my brother, a year and nine months younger than I, would talk incessantly, enraging my father, I would sit silently. It seemed to me that nothing I had to say was important since every time I wanted to speak, the words “shut up” would come shooting out of daddy’s mouth like a sharp arrow. I lived in my mind, and thus was able to be controlled by the arrows; physical strikes were no longer needed. The anger built up inside of me, but I was too afraid to do anything about it. I wallowed in it.
Regardless of my parents’ mind control, it was preferable to the social society I found in school. I was either ignored or hated and, even those whom I would call friends, would always leave or gossip about me with their “real” friends. I hated it. I hated my life at the age of five. I was a recluse with only one or two friends through grade school; kids who lived in my apartment building, not the kids at school. I was in two fights before I entered fifth grade, both of which ended in my nails in the other girls’ arm and conferences with our parents. I got in so much trouble for it I would never stand up for myself again. Only my teachers seemed to care about me: my Kindergarten teacher’s smile when I would make a necklace with a shoelace and wooden jewels, my third grade teacher’s praise for reading aloud in class. These were the only things I valued. These were the only people that didn’t yell at me or make fun of me. The depression went on for twelve years.
I was, like my mother, silent and obedient on the outside and tormented on the inside. For years when I would try to tell my dad how I felt about anything, he summed it up to my being immature or, worse yet, my being a girl. I learned to keep my feelings to myself and write it out in the darkest, most sinister poetry, which I only shared with my middle-school best friend, Denise. People said the angst we wrote about was a phase; Denise grew out of it and became a “normal” person. I did not. Years later, I opened up to my mother who, with tears in her eyes, told me about her own depression and her more than regular thoughts of suicide. It was nice to know that these thoughts existed in the world outside of myself, but at the same time, it broke my heart. I stopped talking to my parents and instead found comfort in the arms of seemingly accepting men.
My first real boyfriend was 22; I was fourteen. He was the youth group worship leader of my church and I thought we would get married, live in a house with a white picket fence and live happily ever after. He was patient and understood me and listened when I talked, he was every thing my father was not and I loved him for it. Needless to say, it didn’t work out for obvious reasons. I dated a slew of demented, juvenile, tweaked-out, stoners after that and was less than satisfied with my life, but at the age of fourteen I knew more about unconventional sex than my mom did at 35. I got engaged when I was seventeen to my best friend Robert; both of us were virgins. When we finally decided to make love, it was just that. It all went downhill from there.
After becoming lost in a sea of male attention, the kissing, the touching, the sex, only now do I recognize it as my drug. Sure there was booze and pot, but only sex was a vice; I could do without the drinking and smoking. Sex came to have no meaning for me; it was merely an escape from the depression I would feel for the next two years. I held onto it like it was a life raft, the only thing to keep me from drowning. But like a drug habit, I had to end it or it would kill me, rotting me from the inside out. I had my relapses and my moments of doubt, but I got out from under the barbaric hold of my loving drug. Being considered a freak for being celibate means little to a girl who’s been considered nothing but from day one.
The light at the end of a dark and dreary tunnel was music. It has been the only constant in my life that has brought me happiness. Whether by becoming lost in the suicidal noose of lyrics or dancing to joyous melodies, going to my dad’s rock shows or singing in the privacy of my bedroom, music has been my godsend. For years I saw myself on Broadway or fronting a rock band, but it was just a dream. In the beginning my music was only for me, I was too shy to sing in front of people, but now that I am learning to be more extroverted, I want to share it. Not for fame or fortune, but for the hope that if one day a girl, like me, hears the songs I sing and the words I speak, she will know she is not alone.
Though the road may seem bleak at times and all my good intentions may seem to bring nothing but pain, I will not be brought down to dwell in misery. I have come to realize that life is much too short to live in sadness and self-pity; it is, in fact, beautiful if you know where to look. So when I stumble on those raised stones in my life, I will get up, dust myself off and learn to be more mindful of where I am walking. If I do this then familiar territory to those obstacles and traps will become easier to see down the road so I do not have to keep falling. Maybe one day I’ll learn to fly.
