Who I was, Who I am and Who I Want to be (Part two)

One Christmas, after Dad was remarried, we went for a visit. Suddenly he was more present and even my stepmom was fun. I wasn't someone to be tolerated or packed away to be ignored. I remember getting on the plane, crying. Watching dad through the window, his head in his arms sobbing. I was loved- well, we were loved, but for once I felt like part of it.

That summer, I experienced what other kids did for one of the first times in my life. Girl Scouts, summer camp, family kite flying. Things I thought were only in TV shows. When I got back to moms, I knew I didn't belong there. I begged to be sent back to Dad. I don't know what had to happen, lots of grownup negotiations. I do know that a month later I was being packed up while mom threw every guilt trip in the book at me. She wouldn't let me take all of my cherished possessions. This was to be a one month trial, she would send them to me after the month was over.

I loved being at my Dad's. It wasn't just being an only child. Suddenly I wasn't in trouble as much. Suddenly my 'parents' were doing things for me. I moved there around Halloween, my stepmom sewed me a beautiful (to me) Halloween dress from pink gingham. Puffy sleeves, ribbon trim, full skirt, complete with a hoop petticoat. Her hairdresser friend did my hair in a bun with ringlets and flowers, and I was beautiful. It was a stark contrast to when my mom used to dress me up in pink and curl my hair in Kindergarten (every day) telling me, "Your sister is a natural beauty, you need some help." I wore the dress again when we visited Calico Ghost town, and again for the Thanksgiving dinner with Janet's family. Never before had I been with people who used special plates and multiple utensils for dinner. The worst things I got in trouble for were for manners (I had never been taught about them before) and speaking too loudly while inside.

Of course the month came and went and I wanted to stay. Because of that, my Dad's transfer to Clark AFB in the Philippines went through. It had been on hold until he had full custody of me. We packed up and moved to the Philippines. Well, I packed what I had. My mom claimed she had packed my treasured books and toys into garbage bags to store them and then accidentally thrown everything away. So my life was to start completely new. New things, new parents, new country even. But the same fear, deep inside, that I would screw up and not be loved.

I adjusted very well to the Philippines. Maybe not so well to being a nuclear family. I started avoiding homework, not doing well in school. They called me lazy because they knew I could do the work but wouldn't. I know I'm not perfect, but looking back, there was a chance I was a child trying to adjust to a completely new life. It was at this time that Janet started taking me to my first of new counselors. I was now a problem child for them. Besides the schoolwork, I wet the bed and the ever present messy room. Obviously I had issues.

I was nearly 11yo and getting into fights with my stepmom and not hearing from my mother most months. Yes, I was the awful person that other people didn't love- even people who should automatically love you. Janet would yell at me that I loved my father more. Of course I did, but I felt guilty. I got a post card from my Great Nana Mann. She had visited the family not long after I left and was so sad to miss me. I kept that postcard as a badge of guilt for years. Finally, many years later, I discussed the visit with my sister. Only there had never been a visit. She confirmed the postcard was a fake. Too bad the guilt that lived within me was real.

Then came a time when Janet was pregnant. We were all thrilled. But after Matthew was born, I did even more things wrong. Rather, they were the same things, but the pressure of two kids made any little thing harder to take. Now, as a mom of two kids and a husband that is at work often, I understand that. I would commiserate with all my heart, maybe write a letter to Janet that was full of apologies and thanks. Except she had live in help in the form of a housegirl that not only cleaned, but watched us. Or, there was always the 12yo to watch the baby. One night, in a knock down drag out fight, I locked myself in the bathroom. Hoping to retreat from the pain, anger, fear. Janet banged ton the door until the cheap wood reverberated. She threatened to call the fire department to break it down. I dared her, knowing full well she would never want to admit to them she couldn't control her child. I think that's when the dance of anger and guilt and retreat began for me. Another time, she was holding baby Matt, yelling at me because I had shaved my legs without permission. The fight kept growing and growing. I was growing and growing and she wanted to control every aspect of my life, even person hygiene. I said something snotty for her, and she said, "I should slap you for that." In the snottiest preteen voice ever, I told her, "You wouldn't dare, you're holding your precious baby." She promptly put her precious baby on the edge of the bed and smacked my face as hard as she could. The world dropped from under my feet and I learned I was now step-daughter. I had been replaced by a biological child. I was Pinocchio, screwing up time after time and he was the real boy, longed for heart and sole.

During all this time, I was a project to be fixed. I was too smart, must be bored in class, that's why the school issues. So I was tested and moved up to a Talented and Gifted class. But I still fell short of expectations. Where I excelled didn't matter, only where I faltered. She spent time reading self-help books on how to fix me. Then Matt had his first seizure. Suddenly he was the project to be fixed. Sadly, I missed the attention. Because any child needs attention, even if all they can get is the negative kind.

I bounced from being Janet's friend and confidant while Dad was away to being the pain of her existence. Just like Mom, I never quite knew when I was going to mess up. I never quite knew what behaviors would tip the scale one way or another. I honestly tried to be good. I was true to my friends and heartbroken when their 12yo selves couldn't return the fervence. I helped out other kids, stuck up for what I thought was right and spent all of my allowance on other people. It was like I was trying to buy love with good works. I had a pattern of befriending people and expecting things. If they were more wounded than I was, I was the person there to help. If they seemed to have it together, I expected them to understand and be there for me. But most kids are too young to understand someone needs help if they never have. It's like there's a mark on you that you can only see if you have been marked yourself.

Finally, our tour in the Pearl of the Orient was over. I had my last weeks with the two close friends I had made. I wanted every moment I could. Calonte was staying, as her dad was a DoDDS teacher and she didn't move as much. Susan's dad was transferring out also. I wore myself out walking miles just to go to my school the last days. Since there was a nearer school, I was supposed to go to that one. But I hadn't wanted to switch and lose my friends, so when we had moved (after being allotted a larger house after Matt was born) I asked to be allowed to bike to my school. My parents allowed me. But our belongings were packed in those last weeks, including my bicycle. The trip took longer and I slept harder. One morning, after sleeping through the alarm, my stepmom woke me much later than I should have been up. She was almost gleeful as she told me I was late for school. When I shouted at her for not waking me earlier, my Dad barged in, picking me up by the collar and slamming me against the wall, feet hanging helpless in the air as his forearm pressed against my neck. We had come full cycle. Now he was doing for my stepmom what he had done for my mom. I was only Daddy's girl as long as his woman was happy with me.

We moved to North Carolina, my ego shrinking as I realized how out of place I was. I was clueless in the feminine ways, while living in the South, the core of feminine expectations. I was struggling to find friends in a place where everyone had known each other their entire school careers, some for generations. Their parents had been friends with each other while I hadn't even lived with the same set of parents my entire life.

I found my niche, mostly. But if I had a hard time figuring out how to balance friendships with girls, boys were a complete mystery. I just knew I wasn't pretty enough (hadn't mom told me often enough?) and I couldn't see what other qualities I had that a boy would like. After all, I had surely been told I was lazy and messy and had no idea how to make a future for myself. I was afraid to put myself out there, because if my life taught me anything, it was that the more people knew of me, the less they loved me. Therefore, I must make sure not to let myself be seen. I must be what other people expected and wanted.

The problem with that was that my stepmom complained that I must have more help. When I got upset, I built a wall and shoved everything behind it. She could see my face go from anger, sadness, fear to nothing and it scared her. But what else was I to do with those feelings? Letting them out brought negative reactions and so did hiding them. I was at a loss, even after weekly conversations with the school shrink and more still with one of Janet's picking. Those became doubled when my sister came to live with us for a brief period. Then he got cancer and died and she ran away, back to my mother and her life of welfare, mooching and pot. Knowing how my sister lived with that and what attitudes she had at the cusp of her young adulthood, I am even more proud of who she has become now. But I just wonder, what is wrong with me that I can't make the same strides. What is the difference between the two of us?

In school, while I had shining moments, my parents kept telling me it wasn't good enough. So with a GPA on the high end of 3.something and an SAT score of 1200, I was convinced enlisting in the Air Force was the only outlet for me. I wasn't fit for anything else. My step-grandmother was determined I try college, so she paid for a year as my graduation present. It was too late to apply and be accepted, so I applied for later acceptance at the school my best friend was going to and waited out the time going to community college while working night shift in McDonalds. Nights until 3am sometimes then getting up for school was hard. The days I didn't have school, I was still expected to be out of the house by 8am. I spent many days, bundled in my junker car, coat, layers of clothes and blankets, trying to sleep through the winter morning so I could stay awake on the drive home from work that night. I paid for most everything on my own. It was ok, a habit I was already in. After all, I had to pay the SAT fees and college applications with my own money, painstakingly earned at $2 an hour babysitting. It sure set my expectation level low when I went to college.

The problem with trying to continue going to college after that first semester was that financial aid assumes if you have parents, they will help in some way. They didn't know my parents. In addition, I had picked the wrong classes for my first semester in college. Latin? Seriously, I was at least thinking it would give me a good base as a writer while fulfilling my foreign language requirement. Then, I also fell in love. And for the first time I was loved back. I couldn't believe my luck. He was so handsome, so smart, so good with people. I let it consume me.

During this time, I rarely heard from my parents. Other kids had weekly calls and some care packages. I had the rule I wasn't allowed home on weekends unless invited. To tell the truth, I didn't want to be back there. I was loved, I was learning, I was free. Until the semester ended and it was time to go back home. The rules were set again. If you live with us, you pay rent, do a third of the housework and yard work and take care of yourself (feeding, cleaning and material needs). Oh, and be out of the house during the hours 8am-5pm. They expected that on top of that, I would be moving with them the Washington state when Dad retired from the Air Force. That somehow, I would move to a new state and find out how to pay for college with no financial aid and out of state tuition.

I decided to stay with my friend's parents. They had less rent for me to pay, less rules and they wouldn't require me to 'play the field' on my boyfriend while he was in boot camp. I still remember standing on the bench in my dorm lobby, hugging him and not wanting to let go while his friend shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. I promised him I would be faithful, what was there for me in that country town anyway? I proudly wore my silver band, a promise ring. We were too young to be engaged I thought, so instead of an engagement ring, he bought us matching silver bands.

I knew the only way I could earn the funds to go to college in that area was to work at the local pickle plant. I got a job there, operating the huge machines that processed the pickles on their way to being jarred. It was 12 hrs a night, 7pm to 7am, six days a week. Drudgery and boredom. The only thing that I could hold onto was the promise of the future- my education, my love. For Father's Day, I got off work and went to my parents' house. I crashed onto my old bed, in my room which had been redecorated and turned into a sewing room my first week. It seemed like only minutes later my stepmother was screaming in my face. Apparently, my brother had come in to wake me up for breakfast and I yelled, "Get the fuck out of my room!" I was no longer welcome in their home at all, sleep deprivation and lack of memory of the incident didn't count. Even after a long talk with my dad about it, I just knew I was an unwelcome guest. So I walked to the nearest phone and called for a ride to my 'rental' family and their home. I clung to the only sign of love in my life, sporadic letters from my soon-to-be-a-Marine boyfriend. They were filled with his misery and occasional dirty talk. No sweet nothings there, but I still knew there was someone out there loving me and thinking of me and holding onto my memory as a raft in adversity, just as I was doing with the memory of him. When it came time for my parents to leave, I hardly missed them. I had stepped fully into the newest stage of my life. Who I am now. The strange mix of confidence and self-doubt. The yearning for complete love while absolutely certain there is no love for me. Self-hatred but too afraid to end things. Hopeful for the future but scared that it would be just like the past.

While living with Dad and Janet, I was constantly told that they didn't want me to grow up to be like my mom, leaning on everyone. Asking them to carry her. In their quest to make me independent, they made me afraid to ask for help. I don't know if the lesson I learned is the one they intended to teach, but either way, it has not worked well for me. We are not islands. We are not rocks. We are people and need to lean on each other occasionally. In being strong, I have only weakened myself.