Saturday night I was helping JR move some stuff around in his room, and I came across his old yearbooks (we went to the same high school and I lost all my yearbooks in a breakup) I looked at the page dedicated to the memory of Roger Ballard (click link and read for necessary background on this story) and tears came to my eyes. And I flipped to the page where our senior pictures would have been side by side. In addition to the familiar sense of loss, I felt angry, betrayed, robbed. Not at Roger, but at my parents. Let me explain.
My picture isn't in that book that year either.
After Roger died, I retreated into myself in many ways. I had three friends that were lifesavers, Josh, Lissy and Liz, but they were all I had. And Josh (someday I will post about him) had to return to Belgium at the end of the summer. He offered to take me with him, and I almost went. I couldn't sleep again. I blew out my knees, badly, and couldn't dance anymore. That silenced a part of me. I was feeling more and more detachted from reality. School became very hard. Not the studying, in fact I rather welcomed the chance to think about something else for a while. But the going every morning, the seeing people and being forced to interact. I just wanted to go home, sit on my bed, look out the window, hug my knees to my chest and rock back and forth. I couldn't be at school with people, with memories of Roger. The heartache of his passing wasn't healing. At home, I was alone with no one to help, no one to push me out of myself, but at home at least no one forced me to act happy. It was the lesser of two evils, I felt. Not long after Christmas and my seventeenth birthday, I knew I couldn't continue this way. I went to my parents and begged for help. I told them I knew I was too sick to know what I needed, but that I needed something, desperately, and I needed it soon. I told them that I reached a point where I was incapable of going to school. My mother said, "Ok, I'll help you." I went back to my room. I thought she was going to check me into a psych hospital or something. Not a welcome prospect, but I was willing to try anything at this point. The next day she came in and told me that she had un-enrolled me from school. That was all. I was floored. I had gone from the highest ranked student at the school to a drop-out in the moment. I didn't know what to say. It wasn't like I had a better plan, and I knew that without some sort of medical or physiological help, I wasn't really capable of going back anyway. But she had simply given up on me. But in that moment I realized that I was in the care of people that, despite a small lingering hope I'd still had, had no intention of ever stepping up and helping me, no matter how much I need them to. I should have known that, they'd always acted that way, but I have never felt more alone than I did in that moment.
A year went by. One completely lost, forgotten year. Really, I have almost no memory of that year. I know I spent most of it on the couch, aimed vaguely in the direction of the TV, so that if anyone cared, they would think I was watching it. I was almost comatose. Horrible insomnia, long empty days. There was really no excuse for my parents lack of action. I lost more weight. I looked, acted and felt like a zombie. I thought nothing. I felt almost nothing. Lissy and Liz let me cry, encouraged me to feel, and I depended on them for my life. They were the only thing that could get me off the couch or out of my room.
My father said my 'bad mood' was affecting the house (i.e. he didn't want anyone to know that I was sick, he felt it would reflect badly on him) so he shuttled me off to my Gramie Dude. For a few weeks we hung out at her house in Texas. Then I got a phone call early in the morning that Liz had died in a car accident. She had been rushing down a mountain road after it rained. When I got the phone call, I remember my mind going blank except for one thought, "I have to go home. I'll go home and Lissy will tell me it's not true." I grabbed my suitcase. I told my grandmother, "I have to go home." I think it was the last thing I said for two days. My dear Gramie rushed me to the airport and put me on a plane home. Lissy met me at the airport. There were tears in her eyes. So she couldn't tell me it wasn't true. There would be no waking up from this. We said nothing the whole way home. Lissy and I spent more time around each other, in silence. It was healing. But everything else seemed to continue the downward spiral. Even my church. A staff member started a rumor that I was on drugs, and I was shunned. I began to feel anger, which isn't really healthy, but at least it was an emotion. I took the GED test so that I could at least reclaim my dream of going to college. My father told me that I had to stop crying and moping around. I told him to shove it up his ass. I moved out that afternoon. I was barely 18.
My dad told me that he would pay my college expenses if I would major in Law, Medicine or Architecture. When I declined and enrolled in a local community college as a Multicultural Studies major, he told the financial aid office that I was his dependant, out of spite, so that I recieved no funding and had to quit.
As I sat in JR's room Saturday night, I felt angry again. The two people on earth who should have encouraged, protected and looked out for me had abandoned and robbed me, through ignorance, spite, arrogance, selfishness and lack of anything resembling concern. They had taken my childhood and my dreams.
I was mad.
I started to cry harder. JR came over and just held me. I sobbed louder. JR picked up a large teddy bear and snuggled it up to my chest. I kept crying. JR picked up a puppy stuffed animal, and began to do a puppet show with it. The puppy kissed my forehead, then romped around my knees, then snuggled into my neck. By this time I was giggling. I told JR,
"You should have picked up that stuffed animal and slapped me across the face with it. Listen to me crying about all this crap. What if I had gotten the life I wanted then? What if I had gone to college? Would I have met you? Would I be sitting in a room with a endlessly sweet man willing to do puppet shows when I cry? I don't believe for a minute that it was God's will that all that junk happened to me. I think it was the consequence of people's actions and bad choices. Free will is a bitch. But God took this mess of a life, like he can take any life, and turned it into something amazing. Why am I going back and whining and getting angry about old stuff? God took that burden off me and I want to go back and cry over it. To hell with that. I'm done."
And I meant it. So what my life isn't what I thought it would be? It's wonderful, and I wouldn't be anywhere else for anything. All the dreams I never had, came true.
My picture isn't in that book that year either.
After Roger died, I retreated into myself in many ways. I had three friends that were lifesavers, Josh, Lissy and Liz, but they were all I had. And Josh (someday I will post about him) had to return to Belgium at the end of the summer. He offered to take me with him, and I almost went. I couldn't sleep again. I blew out my knees, badly, and couldn't dance anymore. That silenced a part of me. I was feeling more and more detachted from reality. School became very hard. Not the studying, in fact I rather welcomed the chance to think about something else for a while. But the going every morning, the seeing people and being forced to interact. I just wanted to go home, sit on my bed, look out the window, hug my knees to my chest and rock back and forth. I couldn't be at school with people, with memories of Roger. The heartache of his passing wasn't healing. At home, I was alone with no one to help, no one to push me out of myself, but at home at least no one forced me to act happy. It was the lesser of two evils, I felt. Not long after Christmas and my seventeenth birthday, I knew I couldn't continue this way. I went to my parents and begged for help. I told them I knew I was too sick to know what I needed, but that I needed something, desperately, and I needed it soon. I told them that I reached a point where I was incapable of going to school. My mother said, "Ok, I'll help you." I went back to my room. I thought she was going to check me into a psych hospital or something. Not a welcome prospect, but I was willing to try anything at this point. The next day she came in and told me that she had un-enrolled me from school. That was all. I was floored. I had gone from the highest ranked student at the school to a drop-out in the moment. I didn't know what to say. It wasn't like I had a better plan, and I knew that without some sort of medical or physiological help, I wasn't really capable of going back anyway. But she had simply given up on me. But in that moment I realized that I was in the care of people that, despite a small lingering hope I'd still had, had no intention of ever stepping up and helping me, no matter how much I need them to. I should have known that, they'd always acted that way, but I have never felt more alone than I did in that moment.
A year went by. One completely lost, forgotten year. Really, I have almost no memory of that year. I know I spent most of it on the couch, aimed vaguely in the direction of the TV, so that if anyone cared, they would think I was watching it. I was almost comatose. Horrible insomnia, long empty days. There was really no excuse for my parents lack of action. I lost more weight. I looked, acted and felt like a zombie. I thought nothing. I felt almost nothing. Lissy and Liz let me cry, encouraged me to feel, and I depended on them for my life. They were the only thing that could get me off the couch or out of my room.
My father said my 'bad mood' was affecting the house (i.e. he didn't want anyone to know that I was sick, he felt it would reflect badly on him) so he shuttled me off to my Gramie Dude. For a few weeks we hung out at her house in Texas. Then I got a phone call early in the morning that Liz had died in a car accident. She had been rushing down a mountain road after it rained. When I got the phone call, I remember my mind going blank except for one thought, "I have to go home. I'll go home and Lissy will tell me it's not true." I grabbed my suitcase. I told my grandmother, "I have to go home." I think it was the last thing I said for two days. My dear Gramie rushed me to the airport and put me on a plane home. Lissy met me at the airport. There were tears in her eyes. So she couldn't tell me it wasn't true. There would be no waking up from this. We said nothing the whole way home. Lissy and I spent more time around each other, in silence. It was healing. But everything else seemed to continue the downward spiral. Even my church. A staff member started a rumor that I was on drugs, and I was shunned. I began to feel anger, which isn't really healthy, but at least it was an emotion. I took the GED test so that I could at least reclaim my dream of going to college. My father told me that I had to stop crying and moping around. I told him to shove it up his ass. I moved out that afternoon. I was barely 18.
My dad told me that he would pay my college expenses if I would major in Law, Medicine or Architecture. When I declined and enrolled in a local community college as a Multicultural Studies major, he told the financial aid office that I was his dependant, out of spite, so that I recieved no funding and had to quit.
As I sat in JR's room Saturday night, I felt angry again. The two people on earth who should have encouraged, protected and looked out for me had abandoned and robbed me, through ignorance, spite, arrogance, selfishness and lack of anything resembling concern. They had taken my childhood and my dreams.
I was mad.
I started to cry harder. JR came over and just held me. I sobbed louder. JR picked up a large teddy bear and snuggled it up to my chest. I kept crying. JR picked up a puppy stuffed animal, and began to do a puppet show with it. The puppy kissed my forehead, then romped around my knees, then snuggled into my neck. By this time I was giggling. I told JR,
"You should have picked up that stuffed animal and slapped me across the face with it. Listen to me crying about all this crap. What if I had gotten the life I wanted then? What if I had gone to college? Would I have met you? Would I be sitting in a room with a endlessly sweet man willing to do puppet shows when I cry? I don't believe for a minute that it was God's will that all that junk happened to me. I think it was the consequence of people's actions and bad choices. Free will is a bitch. But God took this mess of a life, like he can take any life, and turned it into something amazing. Why am I going back and whining and getting angry about old stuff? God took that burden off me and I want to go back and cry over it. To hell with that. I'm done."
And I meant it. So what my life isn't what I thought it would be? It's wonderful, and I wouldn't be anywhere else for anything. All the dreams I never had, came true.
1 Comments:
That's such a challenging and encouraging story, seriously :)
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