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 Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:29 am
Yup, my story. I figured I should start from the beginning and go through the stories in an order. So I'll be posting here for a bit.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:32 am
:Beginning of the Story: Chapter One: Childhood
If one thinks back to one’s own memories and tried to recollect it, they might be surprised how skewed their memories are. However, when I was with my mom once I recalled her in my first memory, and asked her if she could remember the time she was carrying me, and before we left a building a woman put my feet in black ink and then washed it off. Then we went outside to a really big parking lot and veered a little to the left to a car in the parking lot. My mother looked at me with astonishment, and told me that was the day I was taken out of the hospital. The strange thing is, I still feel as if I had more memories before that.
I knew what the parking lot was, I knew what the woman was doing, and I knew vaguely where we were going after getting in the car. It’s because of this memory I’m almost completely positive of reincarnation. That’s the same day, after recalling this memory, that I asked my mother if perhaps heaven could get crowded because of all the people who lived and died before, and maybe souls came back down to live other lives. She told me this was reincarnation, but at that time I didn’t know it was an actual belief. I was sure I was the first one to have that thought.
That isn’t the only odd thing about me in my childhood, my mom used to tell me about my photographic memory, and how I could memorize the font on videocassettes in order to know which movie was which before I knew how to read. I was no child prodigy, the things I remember and the things I knew how to do would hardly have any benefit in life where people could actually say, ‘Wow, that child is a genius.’
I remember a lot of individual memories, and most of this story will have to do with those memories. But I will try to not involve pointless stories and memories into this sort of documentary. You don’t need to hear about my first cast, my stitches, or my first scar, or even how I met Shawnee, my first friend. You don’t need to know the details to my first sip of beer at three years old, or the fact I used to eat grass and my cat Fluffy’s canned cat food when I was just old enough to walk. I remember dribbling my first basketball when I was about six, and the postman of all people telling me I should learn to dribble with one hand.
There are a lot of random movies and conversations I remember vividly, and some that are vague. I remember dreaming Care Bears before I knew they existed. The first dream I ever had wasn’t even that spectacular, only that I remember it was the night before I ran away from home and that I asked to sleep with my parents that night. What’s even more important is my first nightmare, but that comes at a later time.
What the most important memory of my life at this time was the fighting. My sister Kaylee was born when I was 2 and a half, and according to my mother, I didn’t like her much, and threw videocassettes at her head when she was sleeping on the couch. Mom told me how when I was three how I would figure out the timer on the radio and turn the volume all the way up just to scare my mom and giggle at her, and how I whacked her in the head when she was asleep with a glass coffee mug. But these fights happened before and after Kaylee was born. I don’t remember how many fights these were, and I don’t recall except for one instance whether or not Kaylee was alive during any of these fights, but I remember first crying when mom and dad would raise their voices and mom would scream ‘Get Out!’ to my dad. Dad would grab her, like he was going to hit her, but I never recall him ever doing so. The first time I cried, they pushed me out of the room so I could only hear and not see it, but it seemed over time they forgot my presence there, because one night I got a chair to climb up to the cupboard during one fight, grabbed a Little Debbie Peanut Butter Wafer snack and went up to their room to jump on the bed to try and block out their shouting. There are two moments of fights I will never forget. Mom managed to lock dad out of the house, and dad was at the sliding glass door looking down at me going, ‘Open the door, honey,’ while mom cried ‘Don’t open that door, Mariah!’ as if he would come in and kill her if he did.
I was so young, I didn’t know what to do. But when mom advanced toward me to get me away from the door, I made a quick decision, unlocked the door and got out of the way. Dad charged in and pushed my mom back. She got a cut on her finger, and cried ‘Look what you did to me!’ I felt almost like she was yelling that at me. It was my fault he was inside the house. He didn’t even hurt her that bad, just an accident, a cut on a finger, but there I was, feeling like it was my fault my mother was being killed.
I don’t remember if that was the last fight, but I know that the last fight ended in my mom grabbing my sister, taking us to the car, putting us in the back seat and driving away. I fell asleep in that car. After that fight, my heart was racing. I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t know what was going to happen to us, or to dad. I looked up at the sky, and it was a clear night. The star lights twinkled through the window as I slowly drifted away. It was the first time I remember crying myself to sleep.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:43 am
Chapter Two: The Divorce
The very next memory I have is waking up on a couch with a bouncy horse in my line of sight. Who do I know that owns a bouncy horse? Before, I only saw them in front of stores. That’s when I met aunt Dom and Kayla. Mom went to live with her and Dom’s man, Paul. I don’t remember much about this time, only that I spent a little time there before mom said I was going to go live with dad, tears in her eyes. I recall having no friends around that house, and I remember the television only able to play videos and that there was no cable. For all I know, I did nothing with myself, but I also remember Paul being mean to me. He wasn’t mean to anyone else, just me. I didn’t understand it.
I remember starting school, now being with my father. He would wake me up and take my sister and I next door to Tim and Brenda’s. They had two children as well, one of them being about a year older than me named Jeff. Sometimes, he was a nice guy, using slapstick comedy with his doll Buddy to make me laugh and the two of us would spend time together. Other times, he would blame things on me. He made a habit of doing that, and he wouldn’t be the last. Brenda would take me to school, and she watched over me a lot. I liked that house, though sometimes I almost felt like I lived there. I hardly ever remember being in my own room or even my own house.
My first sleepover was at Shawnee’s house, my best and first friend. It was with her I watched my first scary movie, Scream 2. I didn’t understand it at all, but I remember the gore quite vividly. I remember my first encounter with racism. I asked my dad one day why Shawnee was black and I was pink. Dad was taken aback, as if I said something vulgar, and explained to me Shawnee was ‘African American,’ and I was ‘American.’ I couldn’t understand how it was different than ‘black’ and ‘peach.’ It was a lot easier to say.
I didn’t mean anything bad about it. Shawnee also had an ‘outie’ belly button which I’ve never seen. She was so cool, and I saw her as being the wiser one, and I followed her. Even when it brought me to less than enjoyable experiences. Still, I loved being friends with Shawnee. Her grandma was the sweetest old lady I ever met and scolded me for saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘what’ when being addressed. I still use this courtesy to this day.
Matt and Mike lived down the street where I lived, about two or three houses away. They were nice even less than Jeff was, but from time to time I found myself enjoying their company. Mike was the older one, and I had a small crush on him. Though I didn’t know it at the time. Their family was Mexican, that was a new thing for me as well. I didn’t like the way their house smelled, but I loved the food they cooked. Their mom was a really nice person.
As I got older, new people moved over. One older gentleman moved next door to the right, a whole new world of area I never explored before because all the other kids lived to my left. He told me how he moved a lot and traveled. He told me how beautiful the world was, and I believe it was around that time that I decided I was going to travel the world. Another family moved in close to the others, and there was a boy about three years older than me with facial hair and longer hair. I never met a guy with long hair before, for the longest time I swore he was a girl, but he had to be a boy because he had facial hair. That’s when I learned that boys had long hair, too.
Going to school was an entirely different story. There were so many different people. There was a girl as tall as Jeff named Patty, and she immediately became ‘my enemy’ for the sole purpose of rudely correcting me between the differences of hot and cold lunch. It was an area filled with annexes as classrooms and two teachers for a period of time; one for English speaking kids and one for Spanish speaking kids. I snuck in with the Spanish speaking kids at one point because I wanted to know if they were learning the same things I was, and immediately realized that I didn’t understand any of it anyway.
My teacher’s name was Mrs. Smith. I remember because she had the last name as John Smith from Pocahontas and wondered if in some way she might be related to him. She had blond hair like he did.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:45 am
I didn’t have many friends, and none of them were from my class. My best friend, I remember, was a young boy and I can’t even remember his name. Still, I thought he was amazing. He had plastic on his legs, and I thought it was amazing. He wasn’t the best or the fastest walker, yet that’s all he wanted to do. I didn’t understand why he never wanted to go on the slides or the swings or play with the other kids. He just wanted to walk and to talk to me. Well, I wasn’t going to leave him by himself, so every recess I went to his classroom, and I walked with him to the playground just to walk with him and we would talk.
I don’t remember many of our conversations. We talked about heaven, since my family never went to church and both of us had little understanding of it all. We talked about other things, too. We had to have a lot to talk about, because I know we talked a lot every recess. One day as we walked, I noticed one girl had a small book around her neck. I asked her what it was, and it was a tiny bible. I couldn’t read print that small, but ever since I was obsessed with miniatures and always wanted something like a locket or something small that was that cool to have.
At times that I wasn’t with the boy with plastic on his legs, I was inside a different annex doing puzzles, answering questions and picking strips of paper which would soon be consumed with stickers for every visit. One day in particular, I chose an almost blinding orange color because it was like a light was built into the paper, it was so bright. When I showed my teacher, she humored me. I believe that’s important for children, to be humored about how fast they can run and how bright the paper is I their hand, because it builds confidence.
I didn’t know that I was accused and confirmed of having autism. I was perfectly normal so far as I was concerned. Sure, it was hard to make friends, and yes, I caught on to some things more than others but had a hard time with speaking and understanding English. I do remember once giving my teacher a kiss and her uncomfortably telling me that was only for parents, which I was terribly embarrassed about, but nobody was perfect.
Still, I didn’t know any difference to me, I went to a class filled with normal kids, and other than never playing with me in the playground or in class I worked well with the kids. Part of me at that time felt like I’d make more friends if I spent more time with other people, but I liked that boy with the plastic on his legs. I liked him more than I liked Jeff, or Mike, or even Shawnee. He talked to me, and he listened to me. If I could have every person in school be my friend except for him, or just him… I probably would choose every friend but I would have never been happy with my choice. He was so important to me, and my first crush that I actually became aware of.
Once I tried to play with kids other than him. I made a couple of new friends, but they were too rowdy, their logic made no sense, and one girl even thought to the depths of her soul that she was a cat. I couldn’t stand other people, as much fun as they were, I felt like something was missing. The kid with the plastic on his legs, that’s who was missing.
I remember going up a grade, which basically meant the teacher and the class moved from one building to another, and becoming consciously aware for the first time of the ‘task grid.’ If your name was called, then you got to pick a chore for the week. Erase the board, put up the weather for the day, lead the ‘Pledge of Allegiance,’ and other tasks like that. This task grid was the first time I ever felt a serious moral wrong, and it made me mad at the class and at the world.
It wasn’t that the students did the tasks. Some were fun tasks that every kid wanted. However, one of the tasks was to pick up the kid with the plastic on his legs and spend recess with him. I don’t recall if this task was for every day or once a week, but when I saw that I was angry. How was that a task? And why was he in a different class, anyway? There was nothing wrong with him, he had to be smarter, that was it. What made me the angriest was that it didn’t matter if I was the first or last picked, I was the only one that got this ‘task.’
All the kids should be jumping at the opportunity to spend a day with him, I thought. He was so smart, and so nice. I was eager to have the job every day. It was the only one I wanted, and I started to get protective about it… Unnecessarily, until they forced me to a different task. It was even one of the best ones, but I wanted to pick up the kid with the plastic on his legs. It was a job only I could do. I didn’t want to think about what happened to him when I wasn’t there. I wanted to protect him from these people who called him a ‘task.’ It wasn’t right, and I didn’t like it one bit.
Something I didn’t mention before, almost immediately after my mom was out of the picture, my father was with Danette, my mom’s best friend. Danette had two sons of her own, Devon who was a couple of months younger than me, and Donovan who was a few months older than my little sister Kaylee. Of all the kids around me, those two were the meanest to me, and I hardly liked them at all. She didn’t live with us until my first grade, the time I found about this ‘task’ I couldn’t believe. With them now at the house, and with the other kids being okay, but not the best of friends, the boy with the plastic on his legs was my last person to go to. It’s strange how he was one of the most important people in my life, and all I can remember about his name is that it started with the letter ‘S.’
One day, in the middle of lunch, after I was relaying with some other classmates how to count all the way up to 99 in Spanish and heard the ‘knot’ joke without understanding it, I saw my mom coming up to see me. I was shocked, I hadn’t seen my mom in nearly a year or even more. I ran up to her and hugged her, and she took me during the middle of class. I thought that I would be gone a day. Afterward, I was almost certain she kidnapped me, because I never went back to that school again. I had a hard time with that, I don’t think I ever made a friend that was as important to me as the boy with the plastic on his legs throughout my entire elementary school experience. I could leave everyone else easily, I didn’t mind never seeing them again despite all the fun I had, what I really cried about in the car was leaving the boy with the plastic on his legs without telling him or saying goodbye or even telling him just how important he was to me. I promised I’d remember his name, I promised myself I would find him and apologize for disappearing one day if I could ever find him again.
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:03 pm
Chapter Three: Picking Sides
If a child has a sibling, and the parents are asked who they love more, they would most likely tell you ‘I love you both equally.’ I never questioned that, though I did question how that was possible when my sister and I were completely different. I understood, however, when my dad came to my room late at night and asked me, ‘Would you rather live with your mom instead of me?’ No, I didn’t. I loved being with my dad, but I missed my mom terribly, and I loved being with my mom. Why couldn’t they just be together so I didn’t have to choose?
But I understood now just what parents must mean when they say those words. I can’t remember when in my life this occurred, but it was an epiphany I carried with me the rest of my life. Dad was fun, all my friends were here, but mom was loving and spent time with me, and I hadn’t seen her in so long. I loved them for completely different reasons, but I loved them both the same amount. That, I concluded, was why every child had a mom and a dad, so that they can be loved in more than one way, but in the same amount nonetheless.
‘I love you both the same,’ I remember telling my dad, but I don’t think he understood what I meant by it. He went to Kaylee’s room to ask her what she preferred, and she must have chosen to live with mom because not long after, we did go to see mom… Though I don’t remember if that was connected with the day she took me from school or not. From that moment on, however, Kaylee and I were a joint custody family.
The next thing I remember is mom being with Mike, and so dad had Danette. There were a lot of differences in the relationships, however, and in fact they seemed almost polar opposites. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t like Danette in the beginning. In fact, to this day I am a terrible judge of character, a trait I must have gotten from my father. I made him and Danette a present in fact, getting two long pieces of wood from I don’t know where and writing ‘Dad and Danette Together Forever.'
Danette had her two sons Devon and Donovan. Devon was only a few months younger than I was, and Donovan only a few months older than Kaylee. Everything was fine at first, and sometimes I got along with Devon. Donovan had a habit of being abusive when he didn’t get his way or when you made him mad. He used to hit me a lot, or at least I thought so. It’s with them that I started getting blamed for things I didn’t do. If Devon or Donovan broke a toy, or at times even Jeff, I’d be the one they put the blame on. I was blamed for every broken crayon. To this day I get nervous drawing with crayons, thank God for Prismacolor, though overall now I just don’t like to color in general.
We used to go visit Danette’s grandparents and younger sister. I connected with the younger sister a lot because she played video games all the time and stayed in her room a lot. Sometimes she didn’t like me, such as with the crayons since ‘I kept breaking them.’ But I liked her all the same, and I liked watching her play ‘Earthworm Jim’ when she did. She had a hamster too that she let me hold sometimes.
My step-grandparents were good people who I also remember liking a lot. The very first time I remember anything close to bending genders in fact, was when grandpa showed me a picture of when he was a woman for Halloween. I thought that was the coolest thing, that and when he would take out his teeth, which would make me laugh. Grandma was overall just a sweet lady, and one Halloween I remember she made my costume. However, two memories stand out more than any other.
The first one is when I first learned the term, ‘step mom.’ I thought, and often called Danette my ‘fake mom.’ It wasn’t out of spite, I just didn’t know what to call her. She wasn’t my mom, but she was with my dad, so to my mind she was a false mother, which wasn’t a bad thing in my eyes. Danette took me aside and tried to correct me one day when we were at the grandparent’s house. I don’t know how long it took for me to get it right, though. Danette was nice enough, but she wasn’t my mom.
Then I remember watching documentaries of shootings and other killings on the television while sitting on grandpa’s lap. I had thought, until then, that one could live forever if you took care of yourself and never got killed by anyone else. When I made the remark about living forever because I would never make anyone mad enough to want to kill me, they had the unfortunate job of telling me that everyone dies, some simply of old age.
I became immediately afraid of death. Grandma, seeing my distress, told me about Jesus who would take care of me after I died, and that’s what he died on the cross to do. I didn’t quite understand but going out on a buffet to dinner after that I hardly ate a thing. I wasn’t hungry, I was very somber, and paranoid all of a sudden, like someone was always watching me, and I didn’t like it. The fear was going to be there for a while, and the paranoia had never left since. I do remember that I clung to the Jesus and God thing like most frightened little children would, but I had to convince myself they were actually there, like imaginary friends. Luckily, I had a great imagination.
The paranoia was worse at night. I would hold on to my two stuffed animals, Rajah the tiger from Aladdin and Bunny, a genderless rabbit I got from my then deceased grandfather on my first Easter. Bunny played the Braham’s lullaby with a music box in his belly, and I would play it, easing my conscious enough to sleep by saying ‘Rajah and Bunny will protect me. Dad will protect me. Jesus and God will protect me,’ and though it made me feel better, I always slept with my back facing the wall and my eyes on the door, the window, and the closet.
Going over to my mom’s, my sister and I had to take a plane. Every time we got off, mom and Mike would be there to greet us. Mom would do so with hugs and kisses while Mike did so with hugs and roses. For a while Dad and Danette would fly on the plane with us and then disappear in my memory. It could be they never went with us at all, but those details I don’t know much. Kaylee was scared to go with mom one time, that much I remember. She clung to dad like she never saw mom before in her life. I on the other hand, always went to where I was supposed to go. I trusted my parents to never steer me wrong, and I knew and loved mom just as much as I knew and loved dad. I loved Danette and Mike. It was so easy for me to trust someone, and it was a trait that only slowly started to recede.
When I was with mom and Mike, my step dad, I played sports. Mike would play with me, and he would teach me a lot, like I was his child. It was something I wasn’t used to at dad’s house, since they only just ignored me as they went on their business doing whatever. I loved to play, and I got better the more I played with him. I was still scared though. I was scared of everything. When I was with my mom, I started going to see a counselor named Nancy. We did some fun activities together, like putting all my worries and fears on paper, than in a glass jar and throwing it away. It was the first time I wasn’t with a school counselor, and I didn’t know what the change was for but I figured it was because of all my fears.
What really got me to feel better though was when one night I was just too scared to go to sleep, Mike gathered the whole family and we prayed in every room for the house to be safe. If Mike believed in Jesus, and he never talked to Danette’s mom, then he had to be real. Why else would they both know who he was? We prayed in every single room of the house in Spokane Washington when I was in the third grade. This was the most important of nights because it was after that prayer, and after I felt so much better about the house that I went to sleep and had my first nightmare. It was the very first time that I would meet one of my characters, and after learning about this dream one should understand why I named this character ‘The Beginner.’
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