For much of my life, I lived in shadows. I was born with a sharpness of mind that has left me feeling both blessed, and burdened. Without it, I don’t think I would have survived in the way that I have…but, that lack of blissful ignorance stole my childhood from me. Even today, knowing logically, that life unfolded the way it was meant to, I have a hard time finding gratitude or solace in my tenacious nature.
Childhood is full of fascination and wonder. We are intrigued and excited by the most minute things. For some, it wears off after the first few years. We accept things are as they appear, lose interest, and move on to the next thing. Then there are those of us who just become more curious with age. We start to question why, and how. We try to piece things together in our mind, constantly seeking answers, and truth.
There wasn’t much that went unnoticed in my presence. I was observant, and nosy, to say the least. I wanted to be involved in everything, and I absolutely hated being told what to do. I fought being put to bed every night, because as previously mentioned (see The Lame Chick blames it on sleeplessness), sleep was not one of my talents. So, many nights, after my parents thought I was tucked away, I waited until I heard the TV go on, and I would sneak down the hall, and settle outside their doorway.
At the time, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment. The actual bedroom belonged to the children, and my parents had a bed for themselves in the living room, which was without a door. I have vivid memories of being crouched in the darkened corner of the hallway, with only a faint glow of light from the television to illuminate the world around me.
My parents were young twenty-somethings, with kids and jobs, so their life after the lights went out wasn’t very exciting. My mom would take a Bartles&Jaymes wine cooler with her, they’d roll a “healthy cigarette” or two (which I later discovered was marijuana), and would pass out shortly thereafter. I was content with this one-sided arrangement. I had uninterrupted TV viewing, and once I was sure they were asleep, in true Fat Kid fashion, I would enjoy a late night snack.
One night, when I was around 8-years old, I was nestled in my bed, waiting for the signal of freedom, but it didn’t come. Now, it wasn’t a nightly ritual, by any means. There were plenty of nights where I was resigned to keeping myself entertained in my own room. On this night, however, they had both mentioned being tired, which my child ears heard as “TV AND SNACKS FOR YOU TONIGHT, MISSY!”. So, as I lay in my bed, confused, I became curious. If you are a person with the curse of curiosity, you know the state I was in. Your senses become heightened, leading way to anxious suspicion.
That is when I heard it, a sound that I am still haunted by today. It was a sound that I thought I knew, but seemed a little different somehow. As my brain tried to wrap around it, it didn’t make sense to me. “Dinner was long over, and they said they were tired. Why were they chopping something on the cutting board?! Were they having food without us?!”, my Fat Kid mind raced.
Convinced, and angry, I marched toward the kitchen, only to find it dark and unoccupied. There was light and laughter coming from the living room, and though I hesitated for a second, because I knew I might get in trouble for being up, my curiosity got the better of me. I continued my curious/suspicious/angry/confused march to the end of the hallway, into my parents room, and though I didn’t know it at the time, out of my childhood…forever.
Needless to say, I startled them. It only took a couple seconds for them to recover, and throw a blanket over the source of the sound, but it was too late. I had seen enough for the seed of suspicion to sprout. I attempted to ask what was going on, but they placated me with a nondescript answer, scolded me and ushered me back to bed. I played it over and over throughout the night, but the pieces didn’t fit. Before their recovery, the quick glance I got was of a picture frame, in the middle of the bed. Why would they cover that up? And what was that chopping sound? I was so sure it had been the cutting board. At some point, I drifted off to sleep, but it continued to nag at me into the school day.
When I got home later that afternoon, I spied what looked like the same picture frame on top of the refrigerator. Eureka! I was excited at the thought of finding out what had made it so special. Once I was sure everyone was occupied elsewhere, I pulled a chair over, and reached for the top. What I found left me with more questions than answers. The frame was empty, except for the generic insert that comes in it, and stranger yet, it appeared to be covered in a thin layer of dust. I touched it, as kids do, and rubbed it between my fingers. I remember it was smooth and powdery, it didn’t have the gritty feel I was expecting. That wasn’t the most baffling part though, aside from the dust, there were two objects sitting atop the face of the frame, a razor blade, and a piece of a drinking straw. It was cut at an angle, the inside also coated in a thin layer of dust.
Not too long before this, my school had started a drug awareness program, something similar to DARE. Once a week a police officer would come into our classroom, and teach us about the dangers of drug use. He’d give us pamphlets to follow along with the lesson, read to us, and answer questions. As I stood on the chair in the kitchen, I closed my eyes and saw one of our recent pamphlets. It featured a pictorial of drug paraphernalia. According to my memory, what I was holding was an almost exact replica.
I tried to dissuade myself from that line of thought, reaching for any other justification. I decided the only way to a real resolution was to confront my parents with what I had found. I didn’t make any accusations, I just showed them what I had stumbled upon while feeding Ariel, our fish…who sat in a tank atop the fridge for some reason. The response I received shaped the remaining course of my youth.
“Glue.”
What?!
“Glue, from the stickers for the car. We were scraping it off the back, and off the windshield.”
My questions persisted, because their answers made sense to only them. And when I wasn’t satisfied, I let it go, and went out to the car to see for myself.
As my inspection concluded, I faced a harsh reality that I wouldn’t understand or accept for many years to come. My parents were just people. Regular human beings, riddled with flaws, poor judgment, and weaknesses, like the rest of us. I was far too young to recognize the gravity of the situation, I was mostly just heartbroken by the fact that they had lied to me.
Our relationship was never the same after that. It took much longer than I’d like to admit for me to find my way to forgiveness. And even then, though I felt it, and expressed it, I’ll never know if my dad died believing it. I am haunted by that every day, whether or not he knew how much I loved him…if he believed that I did forgive him his humanity.
I’ve spent most of my life living in shadows, and because of such, there are few people who truly know me. And while some of the shadows aren’t mine to cast light on, they’ve shaped and guided my life in a way that they’ve become my own. We all have a beginning, a point that sets us on course to our eventual end. This is where who I am began, staring at a windshield, in fading daylight, on a dead-end street in 1990…The day the stars fell from my eyes.
