That Girl

Last year, a friend asked me this question:  “Where did that strong and not afraid to speak her mind, fun loving girl that I once considered one of my best friends go?”

I have been stewing on this question ever since.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think about it every minute of every day, but when things happen in my life, when I see my old friend, when I reminisce… I think about that girl.  I think about what my friend asked me, and how that question hangs thick like humidity in my life.

This question cuts me very deep, hurting all the way down.  The truth is, I don’t like to think about that question, because it forces me to look into a mirror where a reflection reminds me of the girl that isn’t there anymore.  She’s gone.  Life has changed and she is quite possibly gone forever.  The hard part for me is that I’m not sure she was ever there.  The reflection, yes, but the deep down, to the bone soul may not have ever been present until the reflection changed.

When I was younger, I had to fight a lot.  In this post, About Hate, I talked a little bit about the hate that I had in my heart throughout that time.  Throughout most times.  I fought an internal battle, I was struggling to survive a spiritual battle, and I was fighting externally with my siblings, other children, teachers, and my parents.  I fought a long and hard life.  Mostly, it was words and lack of words.  From the time I had sisters, we fought about one thing or another.  In school, there was always something to argue, bicker, or whine about.  As a teenager, I fought people who made fun of my siblings, friends and others.  I fought with my parents about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.  I fought with my aunts, when they corrected me for talking smack to my mom.  I fought with my dad about his strict rules.  I fought with my friends over boys.  I fought with boys because they weren’t acting the way I wanted them to.  After I graduated, I didn’t have to fight so much with people, but I fought more to live the life I wanted.  I worked hard and I partied harder.  And when I got to drinking, I was either really happy, or really mad.  Oh how I’m shaking my head now, at that life I lived and all the fighting I did.  It’s probably why I’m so tired now.

But my friend was right, I was the girl who spoke her mind.  I said what I thought when I thought it, and I didn’t care what other people thought.  I didn’t care if I hurt someone’s feelings or pissed them off and they wanted to fight.  Because I was ready to fight.  I had no filter, and no tact, and no fear.  I was a fun loving person.  I was down for just about any kind of fun at any moment, for any reason.  I never made plans and I never had to.  Wherever I went, there was always some kind of fun to be had.  My friend and I would drive around the country on “scouting” missions, where we would pick addresses from the phone book (there was no Google back then), and drive around until we found the address.  Sometimes, we would drive to lakes and parks and just sit and talk and swing.  Sometimes, we took our parties on the road.  Several of us piling into one vehicle or another, full cooler of alcohol, and of course, a sober driver.  We would sing to the radio at levels that should have shattered our eardrums, and we would laugh when we made up our own words.  No need for a restroom, we just pulled over on a dark gravel road and took our relief.  Sometimes, this would be a quick stop, and sometimes, one of us would “fall” down into the ditch, and need help getting back into the vehicle.  Back in the day, we could ride around in the back of pickup trucks without fear of lawsuit or death, and we would crank up the radio and jam ourselves down the main drag in town, proclaiming our youth to anyone in sight.  Fun was meeting up and watching a movie, going for a drive, playing cards, or just hanging out with each other.  Sometimes we didn’t leave the house.  Just sat in the basement and dreamed our dreams and talked about all the things we had done together.  She says I was strong.  I didn’t have the choice.  I was strong.  I was strong because I had no older sister to tell me what to do and how life worked.  I was strong because I wanted things my way, and I was willing to fight to make that happen.  I was strong because I survived sexual abuse and exploitation, alcoholism, and domestic abuse.  I was strong because I went through some very difficult stuff, and yet, I managed to laugh and have fun every day.  I was strong because I didn’t let other people make decisions for me.  I was strong because I took crap from no one.  I was strong because I knew what I wanted from men and life, and I wasn’t willing to settle.  And in the instance I was starting to slip and settle, I had two best friends who scooped me up and reminded me of who I was and what I was not going to put up with.

Maybe that’s what’s different now.  I don’t have those two friends in my life every single day.  We all have jobs, we have responsibilities.  Some of us are married.  Some of us are extremely committed to community service and work hard to make a difference in our world.  Maybe those two friends made me strong.  Maybe they made me fun.  Maybe they gave me the courage to take crap from no one.  Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with me at all.  

I think about that girl.  I think about all that she endured and all that she struggled through.  I think about her family, how strong they were to absorb all that she slung when lashing out.  I think about her friends, how amazingly generous they were to her.  I think about how dramatic her life was.  I think about the lovers, the passion, the purpose, the drive she had.  I think about the mistakes she made.  I think about the lessons she learned.  She was there.  In real life.  She existed.

At some point, she disappeared.  She slipped so far away, I’m not sure she will ever come back. She doesn’t laugh, she doesn’t fight, she doesn’t fly freely up and down the road with a song on the radio and in her heart.  She doesn’t make any decisions, and she doesn’t have any choices. She doesn’t have a voice.  She is muted and deeply hidden, where no sounds resonate to the top.  She may exist, but she is so far gone, it’s not likely she will return any time.

In a closet on Marcy Street in Norfolk, Virginia, she raged her last time.  Screaming and crying because of the way her life was going, terrified and frozen, she sat on the floor and poured out all her anger and fear.  And I believe she never came out of that closet.

Oh, I came out of that closet, but she didn’t.  I started going to therapy, and when the therapist told me that my behavior was okay, I felt that I should be going back to church.  And when I went back to church, I felt a peace I had never known before.  I felt alive.  Maybe that’s when the reflection changed.  I didn’t notice. Slowly, secretly the changes came.  They crept up and starved her, and it wasn’t until my friend asked about her that I realized she was really gone.

The real betrayal is forgetting yourself.

I forgot her.

The changes came from the desire to be someone else.  To be a good wife.  To stop fighting everyone.  Including her.  The desire to become better.  More.

I became more.  Eventually, I learned more about being a wife.  Then I became a mother.  Now I’m learning more about that.  Twenty years later, I’m more.  But being more has faded out a girl who was already something more.  She was beautiful, free, complicated, strong, stubborn, wild, soft, loud, creative, talented, magical, paradoxical, stormy, barefoot, spritely, decisive, vibrant, fierce, unbridled, resourceful, fun,jovial, unafraid, and, she was real.  At least for a short time, she was real.  She was more than she thought she was, she was capable of more than she believed she was.  She was perfect as she was.  And now she isn’t.

So who is the new she?  Who am I?

Frumpy housewife.  Tame and calm.  Quiet and unable to make a decision for fear someone will get upset.  Shy and demure, but not dainty.  Just a space in the atmosphere that moves and sways like the swings in her children’s play yard.  She’s fair and determined to raise responsible children.  She is constantly thinking, wondering if this will all turn out okay.  She’s unsure of herself.  Cautious and doubtful.  She lingers a little too long in the store, trying to pick the perfect “thing” which will show her family that she loves them.  She considers all things and people when she makes her imprint, and does so with slow feet. Her world revolves around the family and life she wanted so badly, the choices she chose have swallowed her up.  Responsibility and reliability have taken the very life out of the life she wanted.  And so it goes…

That girl is gone.  The wife and mother who reside in the reflection will live on until they don’t.  The reflection now tells the story of both the girl and the woman.  It’s one that is difficult, and long, and hard.  The story and the reflection.  And the woman is strong.

She’s strong when she holds her babies, knowing they will soon be gone from her protective wing.  She’s strong when she steps on tiny brick toys in the middle of the night, and doesn’t scream.  She’s strong when she’s making breakfast before she’s had her coffee.  She’s strong when she’s sitting in a waiting room, comforting a crying child.  She’s strong when she restrains herself from kids who take advantage of her kids.  She’s strong when she goes through childbirth.  She’s strong when she makes love to her husband.  She’s strong when she says, “I’m sorry.”  She’s strong when she looks in the mirror and wonders what happened to that other girl.  She’s strong, even when she hurts.