Sunday, March 14, 2010

Me in a Nut Shell Part 1

So here I start to write about the past that I have such a hard time talking about. There are things in my past that feeling like a dream and in a way are stored in my memory as one. This is meant to help me open up, share those dreams.
At the start of my parents separation, my mother, brother and I were picked up by some friend's of my mothers and we were going to stay there for a few days til things calmed down with her and my father. This night seemed like most CA nights, stars and the moon hidden behind all the lights of the city, the warmth that you grow to love every night, and the sounds of all the people surrounding you going about their lives without noticing others. We pulled up to the apartment complex and pulled all our stuff up the first door of the second floor apartment. As we walked into the already open door, I noticed some older boys outside, having fun jumping off the railing of the second floor and landing on the ground, I wanted to sit and watch but was hurried in by my mother. As we entered through the door of the living room, it contained a house full of adults and a bunch of playing children in a bedroom. Immediately my brother and I were sent to the room to go and play with the other children and told to stay there until supper was finished.
However, I had other things on my mind, the older boys outside and why they were jumping off of the railing! So, being the curious little child I was, I decided that I would go outside and find out more. I snuck out past a room filled with grownups and out into the night time air, one of the three boys were fixing to jump and I sat on the top step and watched them.
As one of them came back up the stairs he stopped and asked "would you like to try and jump."
I replied, "No, I don't want to."
Their joined response was, "No means yes and yes means no,"
I was put up on the railing and pushed off. I don't remember feeling any pain at first, come to think of it I don’t remember the fall or even hitting the ground. I felt as though I couldn’t walk and so I crawled over to the steps and I felt something warm and wet running down my face this sent me into shock. I touched my hand to my face to see what it was, as I pulled back my hand and saw blood, my immediate response was to start screaming for my mother. Within a few seconds she was there and yelling for someone to call 911. She asked if I was in pain and to my surprise I was not, I was just scared.



During the divorce between my mother and father, my little brother and I were caught in the middle, of a nasty fight. One afternoon, Anthony and I were going to see my father at the ‘meeting place’ as we were told. As we entered the waiting room of this office, we become bombard by a uncomfortable atmosphere of people who want to be there as much as we did. The walls of the room are ocean blue, with Little Mermaid characters, used toys being played with by children, next to these children are their parents seated in uncomfortable, black, plastic chairs, thinking of all the other places that they would rather be.
As we were seated to wait for my father, my mother sat there, talked and played with us, about 10-15 minutes later my father walked through the door with the usual box of gifts such as; Beauty and the Beast video, Barbies, and Turtles. These gifts are the types of things that my father brought to us all the time, and in that moment of joy for seeing my father, I was suddenly hit by a wave of sadness that I couldn't explain to my father about. We were taken to the visiting room, a room that looked like something out of a police interrogation room, blane walls with cartoon characters, a large mirror on one wall, a couch, and more piles of used toys, this room was a something that I couldn't stand to be in. I sat in that room that we were taken to and played with the toys that my father brought all the while I was hoping that things would be great again in our lives.
The time came that we needed to leave and my father walked with us out the building and down the street. We came to the street corner and parted ways with him. I remember holding the newest barbie, my brother holding his turtle, and saying our goodbyes, as he turned and walked the other way and we waited for the light to turn for us to cross the street I took my mother's hand and asked her, "Was daddy trying to buy our love so we would go and live with him?" I am not sure now how I came to that or why I asked when even at that time I knew the answer. She looked down at me and answered, "Yea, I guess that you could look at it that way." So that was the end of that conversation.
Even at the age of 5, I watched the way that people acted and talked, in some way maybe that is what gave me the insight to realize the types of people that were in my life. This life's lesson is something that has brought me to become the person that I am today.

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