December 5, 2000
Angel. I always wondered why my parents cursed me with this odd name. What did they want from me? Did they want a perfect daughter? Or did they really expect me to be an angel? These were the questions I always asked myself growing up. I find that trying to define me in a few words is impossible, and that just understanding me is challenge. I'm a living puzzle forever losing and missing pieces. I find each day of my life finding a few pieces only to lose at least one in the process.
My life began like most stories innocent and simple. I grew up with my share of cute first time experiences most that I do not remember like my first step, my first words, my first friends, and my first Christmas. What I do remember is being happy, knowing that there were bad things out in the , but my parent would protect me from no matter what the cost. One day when I was five, my mother explained to me that people do not live forever and that one day my parents wouldn't be there to watch over me and my brothers. I remember her telling my little brother and me this and I remember us crying that there was to tomorrow, like if our parents died the world would break. It seemed inconceivable that they would stop breathing and never stop again, and we could never talk or see them again. Then I remembered our fish, the ones that also died and floated to the top and never moved again only to be buried in the watery graves of our toilet. That day, I understood death. I understood that one day I would have to grow up and do things for myself, and I would have to learn to live alone sometimes and not have anyone to turn to.
I was a feisty little girl before I went to school. I was my dad's little girl, my older brother's partner in crime, and my mother's little princess; I liked to brighten everyone's day with my smiles and hugs, but all of that ended when I went to school. I remembered the first time I looked around at my kindergarten class and realized I was different. I realized other kids my age weren't as nice as the people I've met in the past. Smiles and kindness were earned and not giving freely as I thought they would be. Not only did I have a weird name; I didn't act like most of the other kids. Kids were crying for their parents, some were playing meaningless games with unspoken rules, some clutched their favorite toys and stared into to the endless space, and I just thought to myself, at the first time, at a lost for words. I found myself not being able to understand these kids who didn't follow directions or couldn't read books. I found some of their speech patterns to be meaningless, so I spoke to no one but the teachers and the teachers' aids. This was where I first found loneliness; this is where I became shy.
In first grade, the kids were more sociable and understandable, but I was still shy, so I automatically became the outcast in the class. I can't remember having any friends or having anyone to talk to for that matter. I was called the girl with the cooties, and I was not to be touched or contacted in anyway. I began to wonder if it was indeed a disease, and I wondered if I ever could be cured. The only time, I was ever freed from my "cooties" was just before Thanksgiving and we had a big party. My teacher made everyone come to class to be a Pilgrim or an Indian. I was picked to be an Indian and my mother went out her way to make sure I looked like I was one. She brought me a denim skirt with beads at the hem and white shirt with a puffy look and elastic around the collar so I could pull it over my shoulders, and she got my hair in micro braids so it would be long, pretty, and straight. She said she was proud of me representing the Indians so well because I had Indian on both sides of my family. I remember that day as being the best day I had in first grade because for once I was treated like I was someone special. Everybody in the class wanted to sit next to me and play with my hair and everybody spoke to be, and for the first time, I realized everyone actually knew my name. I was the first time I can remember I felt beautiful.
After the break, my moment of fame was forgotten and I felt like I was Cinderella after 12 o'clock. The class on the other hand felt restless, so restless I guess they just had to pick on me. I became the talk of each day at one point, even when I didn't do anything important in class. I was called all sorts of names none I care to remember. Even the teacher sometimes sided with a comment or two because she saw me as lazy. By the end of first grade, I realized that different wasn't good because no one liked you if you are different. The other kids really wouldn't play with me unless the teacher made them. I spent most of that year playing with myself or studying my work. I realized that you had to be intimidating to be respected, that school was like battlefield and you were its soldier. Kids would bully you in a moment notice, especially the older kids. I was a shy girl; therefore, I was helpless against the other kids. I became one of those kids everybody, even the unpopular kids, picked on.
By second grade, my personality had crawled into a cave to lick its wounds never to be seen again. I found it visiting me every once in a while; I wondered how it really was because I never got to know it. What I was when I wasn't me, I don't know, but it wasn't a person. I was an empty shell only filled with facts and private thoughts, thoughts I kept to myself. Only in my dreams, I realized deep in myself was a person; a person I always wanted to be, but was too afraid to let out, too shy to let loose. Silence was my shadow books were my friends, I read because I had nothing better to do; later I actually begin to like reading just about anything I could get my hands on. Meanwhile, I learned to pull my weight in class, I found that if anything I was going to show my classmates I was smarter than most of them. I read more books, got more math awards and refined my science. The only thing that kept me from honor roll was, my handwriting that looked like messy lines; even I could hardly read it.
Somewhere mid-second grade, I had my first real test of responsibility. My mother, who I had noticed for a long time, wasn't acting at all like herself. I found her often unable to help me with my homework, and she had stopped waking my brother and me up for school. One day, she just up and decided to take the bus to my aunt Birdie's house in Washington D.C. We got on the bus and changed two times before I realized it we were going totally the wrong way, and I had to explain to my mom which bus really took us to our aunt's house. We arrived there and my mother just sent my brother and me to the basement to watch T.V. A few hours later, I got up and went to find my mother only to find she was nowhere in the house and she had completely left my brother and me without even telling us goodbye. Though the whispers in the cracks of the walls, I found my mother had been send to the hospital because she had a nervous breakdown. My aunt had called my father to pick us up, but he couldn't because he had to go to the hospital to see our mother first. My little brother and me spent two days there until my father picked us up. Though all of this, I never blamed myself for what happened to my mother. I always wondered why the kids blamed themselves when their parents were upset. I fully understood she was losing her mind bit by bit for months, I just didn't know how to stop it.
My father sent my little brother to live with my grandmother in South Carolina. I had to stay in Maryland because it was the middle of school year and I couldn't afford to miss school anymore than I had to because of my asthma. I spent a few weeks with my father's family doing nothing, but waiting to see my mother again. After that, it was just my father and I for about two months living by ourselves. I loved my father more than words can truly express but I couldn't talk to him any more than I could a stranger at the time. He would drop my at my old babysitters house and I would go to school and come back where he would pick me up after work. He would bring Chinese food everyday, and we would sit at the table just eating in silence. I learned slowly how to wash my own clothes, and do some of the things my mother would do for me if she were there. I found I could have the more lively conversations with myself, and my father wondered was I also losing my mind. I spent hours at a time watching television wondering why it was so hard to say one word to my father. He had been one of the only stable things in my life since I was born. As bad as it sometime got between my parents, he was still there no matter what happened. He worked harder than anyone I knew; he would walk 20 miles in one foot of snow just to get to work when no one else went. I found it was the fact he spent so much time working to keep a roof over our heads he really didn't get to spend much time with me. However, the times he spent with my brothers and me were some of the most precious moments in my childhood. Once, he surprised me with some new toys and some pretty clothes, but the real surprise was that, I was going to be allowed to see my mother. She looked happy when I first saw her. I found she was three times happier to see me than I was to see her, and I didn't think that was even possible. She would me she loved me and that she would get better and come home soon.
When she came home, I spent a week at home before school let out for school and then I was sent to my grandmother's house to spend the summer with my brothers. By the end of the summer, she was finally acting normal and life was back to normal. My mother thought the reason she had a hard time was because she didn't have God in her life enough. We started going to church about three times a week to the point we seemed to live at the church. At first, I didn't mind going to church, but after settling into the church I began to hate it. I found the people were two-sided besides the pastor and his wife. They acted all nice at first, but noticed some like talking about people more than they liked talking about God. The second thing, I hated was the fact we spent so much time there, and yet I still couldn't make friends with of the kids my age. Every time we would walk into church I felt like I was put on display and my small piece of faith was tested. My mother had stressed me to "go up for prayer," which meant I not only had to walked to the front of the church, I had to have the pastor touch my head and pray loudly to the church about whatever I needed prayer for. The feeling of someone's sweaty palms touching my head, and not so gently shaking my head as they embarrass me by telling the whole church my problems, not only upset me to the point of wanting to cry, but it just made me sick to my stomach. After first time I did that, I realized later that my feeling didn't change and I wasn't going to just get used to it. I refused to get saved because I had to go though with the same thing, but this time they take a wonderful picture that looked more like a mug shot from hell than a saved soul. To this day, going to church depresses me more than someone dying. I truly believe in God, and try to be a good as I often as I can, yet I do not go to church often. I find the only way I can really understand the bible by reading it myself.
Most of the rest of my elementary school life, I can sum up in one word . . .Hell. The tormenting got worse the older I got. It went from calling me names to hitting me whenever they got the chance. Once when I was in fourth grade, I had to do square dancing in P.E. I got paired up with one of my female classmates, and she took my very skinny and frail body and slammed it many times it the walls. The teacher told me, when I came to get help, not to tattletale on my classmates. That night, I came home bruised and with a huge knot on my head. My parents were far from pleased, especially at my P.E. teacher's response to what happened. This is when, I learned to fight for my life. My parents told me I had to protect myself if no one else was going to do it. They told me I had to hit with all my might and sometimes with anything, I could get my hands on. After that, I never let anyone touch me without me trying my best to do them bodily harm. People learned the hard way not to hit me, but I found that words hurt me more than any punch could. They lower themselves to lying on me every change they got, and there was no way to defend yourself if everyone agrees you did it.
I found that happiness was getting harder and harder to find. I was depressed all time when I was at school. I was the anti-social kid, in the corner who never said or did anything but watch the class. I began to wish ways to die accidentally because I found out that suicide was a sin. I wondered how long it would take me before my asthma ultimately killed me. As I look back, I realize that no kid at that age should have ever to think about that. I wondered why no one was there for me when I needed a friend. Finally, I made a friend in fifth grade; I found I could be myself when I was with my friend, through him I rediscovered silliness and laugher. Myself? I think for the longest time I had forgotten there was more to being a person than working hard in school. Having an actually friend in my life opened, my mind to new possibilities, like playing board games with more than yourself or talking to someone other than myself. My best friend Leroy was delighted at my spontaneous behavior; how I would be serious one moment, happy the next, and at a moment's notice fight someone and go sit back down to read again. I on the other hand, was a bit clueless on how I reacted on a daily basis. I usually followed my emotions and did the first think that popped in my head. I started to contemplate my behavior carefully in relation to my classmates and I tried to change the way I act in hopes I would fit in.
My long process of trying to fit in lasted well into my high school years. I started to wear make-up and I learned to do my hair, in hopes I could attact some attention from anyone. I did all kinds of things to make people like me. I found myself calculating my every move hoping I wouldn't make myself anymore unpopular than I was already. I would flirt, flatter and downright lie to people to their faces to fit in. I often gave in to whatever, my best friend at the time, wanted. When I did have an opinion, we would always have a fight and at the end, I still gave in to what they wanted. I found it came to a point where I rarely made any decision in what I was spending my day doing. I found the way people seem to interact with each other annoying. I found that people often beat around the bush and say things hoping that you can read between the lines. I dated many boys when I got in high school and I found that most the problems I had with them was because they didn't understand me because I acted like someone I wasn't when I met them. The other problem was they always wanted something from me that was different than I wanted from me and they should never come out and say they wanted sex but they would hint at it every chance they got. I wondered why couldn't people just state the problem directly and stopped hinting at everyone. God forbid if someone spoke the truth!
After a closer than usual brush with death, I realized I didn't have the time to waste my life being someone I wasn't. I was pretending to be someone I didn't want to be. I decided to be blunt with everyone tell the truth even if it sometimes hurt. I've learned the truth hurts, especially when you are trying to be true to yourself. I decided that being myself would mean looking for all those lost and hidden pieces of myself. Those pieces, I had hidden away from the world, for fear that I would be singled out as weird. I realize I'm weird and me and the whole world will just have to live with it. I realized I couldn't live for everyone else; I have to live for me because no one was going to live for me. I realized that I was no one but a fake if I tried to fit in with the groups. I felt I had lost myself by trying not to be me, I felt empty and foolish. Almost everyday, I find one of those hidden pieces of my unique personality and I smile to myself. I believe that it's the hidden parts of me I cherish the most about me because everyday I learn something new. I wish people could look at me like a kaleidoscope, and hold me up to the sun and see what a beautiful person I'm inside. All I want in this world is for someone to understand me. That's why I do not care about what anyone thinks about me because unlike most of my peers I am my own individual. I am free.
©Angel Ashton 2000