i was searching through my mailbox and found this essay from a few years back....
"But say I could repent and could obtain,
By act of grace my former state; how soon
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore; ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
Fore never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd so deep;
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall:"
--Paradise Lost: IV (93-101)
January 19, 2006
If Only To Linger Undefined
Hidden in the closet, Monopoly and Pretty Pretty Princess proving to be rather awkward cushions, I listened as my sister's counting "1-2-3…" dissipated with disinterest. Why wasn't I enough for her? I wanted to be older, to be better. Yet at the same time, as I picked at the forgotten carpet, lining the closet, I knew that I had to love being a kid, because everywhere I went, I heard big kids and big people telling me how "lucky" I was-I was still little.
I would stand on my tippy-toes in front of the hall mirror, my chin straining, I could see only a tiny tuft of blonde. I would get so flustered, trying to be happy; trying to not label what I was feeling. I think I knew that there was some mentality that you only got one chance at, one which I have now learned to call the blissful naivety of youth. I would lie for hours on my bed, an insomniac since birth, petrified to fall asleep. I was always terrified of losing my youth. What if when I wake, I look in the mirror and find I am an old man, that I dreamt this entire life, this entire girl. I spent hours rewinding my lullaby tape in my red-plastic tapedeck and acting out plays with sleep-deprived stuffed animals; then I would take all my books and stack them on my bed-my parents were so relieved if in the middle of the night they heard a succession of loud thumps, for they knew I had finally fallen asleep and my books were flying off my turbulent bed.
My sister became a womyn when I was six. She still looked the same, she was still addicted to tetherball, and wore her thick plastic, lavender glasses, and scrunchies and gigantic t-shirts with hotpants. She still had the same friends and the same secret languages. I didn't really notice much of anything change, except the way my Mom looked at her, the way my Pop gave her some space, awkwardly. When I was six and still an insomniac, I became convinced I didn't exist. My newest rampage against sleep was that if I were to fall asleep, I would fall out of existence.
I would sit on the edge of our faded couch, like a warden, as my sister took her second nap of the day. I watched every movement of her eyeball to make sure she wouldn't disappear.
I hold my cousin's dress, jealously, as she skips down the street, her nakedness unstigmatized. Where does the cut-off of when we should become ashamed of our bodies reside? So many hours I spent trying to look older, and act older so that I would finally be "cool enough" for my sister. And I would spend the rest of my life trying to reclaim what I had hoped to abandon.
Once I realized I had forsaken the beauty of youth and innocence, I spun into a schizophrenic self-definition. I convinced myself that I should devote my identity to finding the remnants of childhood's whimsy, so as to weave some semblance of an innocent self. I proclaimed that I was not proud of the child I had been, and the person I had become, so I was playing the playground, special edition, do-over card. This entailed being a bit offbeat, not going out a lot, not being into "sexy fashions", not watching the "fresh" new TV shows, loathing foot cages, loving nature, ladybugs, and rainbows, loving my braces to death (hey, they were magnetic, super shiny, and whenever I ate anything-well, there is always the built in leftovers-mechanism, a.k.a. "save the best for last!"), being a bit shy (especially of strangers), steering clear of boys in that sense, never cursing, never doing drugs, being giddy and always happy, being extremely uncomfortable with all issues/mentions of sexual anything, and being immune to puberty.
But like everything else I've ever procrastinated in my life, puberty came with a vengeance, accompanied by one of inevitability's infamous: "I TOLD YOU SO!"s. First there were the girls staring at hairy legs, then the swim team making fun of the fact I didn't wear a bra. Endless accounts of awkwardness ensued, but none compared to the shame I felt. My sister, five years older than me, got her period in fifth grade and had been bonded to my mother in "womynhood" ever since.
I was the baby.
I was scared that there was not supposed to be an expiration date on the innocent babe persona.
When the massacre came between my thighs, I felt like my child had been slaughtered.
Despite crackly '80s health class informational video's assurance, I was convinced I would somehow be able to evade the shameful tangle of puberty. I remember watching "Ma Vie en Rose", getting your period was supposed to be something sacred. So why was I so distraught? Staring vacantly at this stain in my pink eeyore undies, my eyes glazed and it all flexed and stretched into a surreal blur. I dealt with it the way I had seen thousands of awkward teenagers in movies deal with it, except I skipped the whole "mom I got my period" bit. I was constantly paranoid that I would leak through my pants. I was not afraid of the embarrassment you read about in trashy magazines, but of their seeing, and finding me out. I don't really understand why I now have to buy men's shoes to accommodate my size twelve feet, or the odd, awkward constellations of hair that have fleeced my body. I don't know why I now have to strap down my chest or why I get cat-called on my way to school. I catch my reflection perpetually off-handed. I see vague definition of who I believe myself to be. But somehow I always expect to see a little four year old with messy white-blonde hair, and breathing spaces between her teeth. But that me, is a me gleaned from pictures, I never remember a me I saw in the mirror.
I found ways to avoid going to the doctor for a year. Eventually on the highway, these conversations always take place in moving vehicles, my mom brought up going to the doctor, and this time it came out. It was easier than I expected to finally say, it just kind of spilled out of my mouth. She swerved out of her lane, then re-gained control and was silent. The rumble of the treading below sent goosebumps rippling over my body. Then she began to cry, staring straight ahead, the tears leaked down her clenched jaw. I try to speak to her but she can't or she won't respond.
I was so worried about losing my childhood, I hadn't thought about the fact I was stealing my womynhood from my mother. I sit on the stairs, I hear my mother's voice for the first time,
"I'm a horrible mother."
I wish I could say that if I could rewind time with my red plastic tapedeck, that I would have found the courage and insight to remedy this moment. I wish I could say that when I saw the pain I had cause my mother that I had suddenly seen my error. All I would have had to do was to tell her, one simple sentence.
But if I could go back, I think I would fall prey to the same mindset; I lost control of my aging, I was forced to grow up, I think I needed to decide I was a womyn before society's interpretation of biology deemed me so.