I don't really know why I feel compelled to write about this, but I do.
To paint a picture of myself at fifteen: I had waist length brown hair. I was skinny, too skinny really. I danced, ballet mostly, which creates a lot of very lean muscle, plus I forgot to eat more often than not. I slept very little, but the upside was that will all that time I wasn't sleeping I figured I might as well study, so I led the school. I was out of sync with my body, with life. I lived in a house with a parnoid delusional mother who wasn't capable of helping herself. Any ounce of support my father might have been able to offer (assuming he wanted to, which is a very optimistic assumption) was used by my mother. I was in massive denial about being raped by a family friend. I couldn't even tell them. I knew how it would be. The unspoken yet very clear message from my parents was, "You have to be 'ok'. If you aren't ok, fake it. We have nothing, no support, no hope, to offer. We can't even handle acknowledging your pain, because that would mean acknowledging that we aren't ok. And that is unthinkable.'
That being the backdrop of my life, I was very good at pretending to be ok. I ate, drank and breathed deceit, smiling sunnily. No one knew that I couldn't turn the lights out at night. No one knew that three AM was the worst hour of every day, that it found me awake and scared everynight. I didn't even begin to know how to ask for help. Once I performed 'Memory' from the musical Cats, about an old cat alone on the streets. I looked up at the end and kids were on the verge of tears, and everyone told me I had such 'range' to show such emotion with dance, but they didn't know that that wasn't acting, pain, loss and loneliness were easy stories for me to tell. I would tell them with my body if I couldn't with words.
In school that year, I had a lot of class with, or right next to, Roger Ballard. The boy who didn't know he was my lifeline. He thought he was my friend, my walk to class buddy. Maybe he did know, but he respected my evasiveness. He was the most peace-filled, happy-go-lucky soul that ever walked this earth. He was happy, and I was not. I watched him, studied him, trying to learn the most complicated lesson of all, happiness. I think by the end of the year he must have seen through me a bit, because he wrote some things in my yearbook that suggested he knew what I needed to hear. Life is short, I'm proud of you, your courage and uniqueness, cut yourself some slack, but always follow your dreams, those things I most needed to hear. He did me a world of good. I got my first tardy to class, first one ever in the history of my attending school, because Roger didn't believe in walking to quickly and I was savoring every moment with him. When I told Roger about it, he laughed, and said, "Good for you." Of course I was in love with him.
That next summer, I was now sixteen, and begining to have real moments of happiness. I was now dancing with the highest level of dancers at my dance school. I actually slept for hours at a time. I was off to an all day party at the beach, a reunion of some friends from summer camp. I'm riding there with my friend Caleb, who I went to camp and school with. He broke the news. Casually, because he didn't know Roger and I were friends. Roger and his father were returning from a camping trip in Colorado when a semi truck plowed into them head on. They both died on impact. I sat in the car, silent. Comforted only by the fact that I must be dead too, because I couldn't feel anything. Physically or emotionally. I don't know how I got through that day. It didn't occur to me to call someone to come and get me, so I sat amoung friends, silent and motionless. I don't know what they thought.
I didn't just lose a friend that day. I lost hope. I didn't find it again for many years. And now that I have happiness and peace oozing from my very pores, I think about Roger, and that I think he would be proud of me.
To paint a picture of myself at fifteen: I had waist length brown hair. I was skinny, too skinny really. I danced, ballet mostly, which creates a lot of very lean muscle, plus I forgot to eat more often than not. I slept very little, but the upside was that will all that time I wasn't sleeping I figured I might as well study, so I led the school. I was out of sync with my body, with life. I lived in a house with a parnoid delusional mother who wasn't capable of helping herself. Any ounce of support my father might have been able to offer (assuming he wanted to, which is a very optimistic assumption) was used by my mother. I was in massive denial about being raped by a family friend. I couldn't even tell them. I knew how it would be. The unspoken yet very clear message from my parents was, "You have to be 'ok'. If you aren't ok, fake it. We have nothing, no support, no hope, to offer. We can't even handle acknowledging your pain, because that would mean acknowledging that we aren't ok. And that is unthinkable.'
That being the backdrop of my life, I was very good at pretending to be ok. I ate, drank and breathed deceit, smiling sunnily. No one knew that I couldn't turn the lights out at night. No one knew that three AM was the worst hour of every day, that it found me awake and scared everynight. I didn't even begin to know how to ask for help. Once I performed 'Memory' from the musical Cats, about an old cat alone on the streets. I looked up at the end and kids were on the verge of tears, and everyone told me I had such 'range' to show such emotion with dance, but they didn't know that that wasn't acting, pain, loss and loneliness were easy stories for me to tell. I would tell them with my body if I couldn't with words.
In school that year, I had a lot of class with, or right next to, Roger Ballard. The boy who didn't know he was my lifeline. He thought he was my friend, my walk to class buddy. Maybe he did know, but he respected my evasiveness. He was the most peace-filled, happy-go-lucky soul that ever walked this earth. He was happy, and I was not. I watched him, studied him, trying to learn the most complicated lesson of all, happiness. I think by the end of the year he must have seen through me a bit, because he wrote some things in my yearbook that suggested he knew what I needed to hear. Life is short, I'm proud of you, your courage and uniqueness, cut yourself some slack, but always follow your dreams, those things I most needed to hear. He did me a world of good. I got my first tardy to class, first one ever in the history of my attending school, because Roger didn't believe in walking to quickly and I was savoring every moment with him. When I told Roger about it, he laughed, and said, "Good for you." Of course I was in love with him.
That next summer, I was now sixteen, and begining to have real moments of happiness. I was now dancing with the highest level of dancers at my dance school. I actually slept for hours at a time. I was off to an all day party at the beach, a reunion of some friends from summer camp. I'm riding there with my friend Caleb, who I went to camp and school with. He broke the news. Casually, because he didn't know Roger and I were friends. Roger and his father were returning from a camping trip in Colorado when a semi truck plowed into them head on. They both died on impact. I sat in the car, silent. Comforted only by the fact that I must be dead too, because I couldn't feel anything. Physically or emotionally. I don't know how I got through that day. It didn't occur to me to call someone to come and get me, so I sat amoung friends, silent and motionless. I don't know what they thought.
I didn't just lose a friend that day. I lost hope. I didn't find it again for many years. And now that I have happiness and peace oozing from my very pores, I think about Roger, and that I think he would be proud of me.
2 Comments:
Wow. I hope someone who thinks they're alone reads this, and takes some comfort, because it's so easy to feel that you're alone when you're miserable, and so important to be brave enough to share it.
Matthew, I'm so horribly sorry for your loss. If you want to talk about Jared, I'm here to listen.
Zoe and Robert, thank you.
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